Call for Papers
Dear colleagues,
We cordially invite you to the fourth edition of the Gender & Crime conference, which will take place on Thursday, 12 and Friday, 13 March 2026 in Göttingen. Next year, the conference will once again be organised as a face-to-face event in the proven cooperation between the Criminological Research Institute of Lower Saxony (KFN), the German Women Lawyers‘ Association (djb) and the Institute of Criminal Law and Justice at the Georg August University of Göttingen.
After the previous conference in 2024 was dedicated to the structures, causes and conditions of gender-specific violence, the 2026 conference is now entitled ‘Gender in the context of social polarisation’. In view of the current political and social shift to the right and the findings of an increasingly divided society, we would like to use the conference to shed light on the relationship between these developments and discourses on gender, crime and criminal law.
We are therefore particularly pleased to receive abstracts on the following topics:
- Anti-feminism and gender backlash, also with regard to possible effects on (criminal) law
- Intersectional perspectives, for example on the interaction of misogyny and racism
- Examination of possible tendencies towards a racist instrumentalisation of (sexual) criminal law
- Constructions of masculinity in the extreme right
- Perpetration and victimisation in the social context of increasing polarisation
- Feminist (criminal) justice policy and the shift to the right – challenges and ambivalences
- Increase in trans and queer hostility
- Reproductive rights in the context of authoritarian developments
This list of topics is not intended to be exhaustive; submissions beyond this are welcome. We look forward to international and comparative perspectives on the topics mentioned. The event will be held mainly in German. We will endeavour to provide translation options into English.
In addition to a keynote speech and a panel discussion, the contributions will be presented and discussed in various panel sessions and a poster session. There will also be plenty of space for participants to network. Following the conference, the publication of conference proceedings is planned, in which the presentations and results of the conference will be summarised. Written contributions are expected to be submitted by the end of July 2026.
Abstracts for panel and poster contributions can be sent from now until 30 September 2025 to genderandcrime@kfn.de (subject: ‘Abstract Gender & Crime 2026’). The text can be written in German or English and must not exceed 1,500 characters (including spaces). Abstracts should be submitted together with a short CV (max. 2 pages). A decision on the acceptance of contributions will be made by mid-November.
We look forward to receiving your abstract!
Conference programme
The conference programme will be published in due course.
