33rd Annual IAFFE Conference 

 

 

The theme of the 2025 IAFFE Annual Conference encourages us to build on the possibilities implied by thinking about solidarity. Led by Conference Chair Lee Badgett and the IAFFE Conference Program Committee, the 2025 IAFFE Annual Conference presents a thought-provoking program that explores solidarity as a cornerstone of feminist economics. This diverse agenda invites scholars and practitioners to engage deeply with the role of solidarity across multiple disciplines and dimensions. See the Call for Papers below.

La convocatoria de ponencias en español está aquí.

CONFERENCE PROGRAM
REGISTRATION 
INSTRUCTION FOR PARTICIPANTS
 CALL FOR PAPERS
ABSTRACT SUBMISSIONS
VISA INFORMATION
FAQs

33rd Annual Conference Plenaries

 

IAFFE Conference Plenary Session: Solidarity in real time: Where do we go now?

Thu Jul 3, 2025
9:00 AM – 10:45 AM EDT
Campus Centre Auditorium
This plenary will have live streaming and interpretation 


Moderator: Lynda Pickbourn, Mt. Holyoke College 
Panellists:
Sen. Jo Comerford, State Senator for Hampshire, Franklin, Worcester district
Caren Grown, Brookings Institution, 
Jennifer Levi, GLAD Law and Professor of Law, Western New England University
Joyce Jacobsen, Wesleyan University, 
Emily Kawano, Wellspring Cooperatives

IAFFE Conference Plenary Session: How Do We Make Feminist Economics and Feminist Economists Influential?

 Thu Jul 3, 2025
 5:00 PM – 6:30 PM (EDT)
 campus center Auditorium

The global economy needs feminist economics more than ever, and movements for change need feminist economists who are working in solidarity with movements.  But how do we expand our influence to reshape mainstream economic thinking, policy- making, and social movements? This plenary will kick off a new phase of this long-term conversation within IAFFE. Some of the big questions to address include these: Who does IAFFE represent in thinking about influence–itself as an organization or its members? Who are the audiences we hope to influence?  Should the organization focus on supporting its members? Does IAFFE have its own voice to be amplified?  Where are the greatest needs and biggest openings for us? To provide some content to start the plenary discussion, in this plenary we will start with stories from several feminist economists about a particular time when they used feminist economics to influence the economics profession, policy-makers, or social movements. Following the stories, we’ll have an extensive discussion from participants about how IAFFE can increase its organizational influence and our members’ influence.
Chair: Lee Badgett, University of Massachusetts Amherst and Koppa Lab
Presenters:
  • Kate Bahn, Institute for Women’s Policy Research 
  • Nata Duvvury, University of Galway
  • Sakiko Fukuda-Parr, Professor of International Affairs, The New School
  • Thokozile Madonko, University of the Witwatersrand 
  • Corina Rodriguez Enriquez, executive committee of DAWN, researcher Interdisciplinary
  • Centre for the Study of Public Policies (CIEPP)

IAFFE CONFERENCE CLOSING PLENARY: Why the F Word Matters

Sat Jul 5, 2025
 10:45 AM – 12:15 PM (EDT)
Campus Center Auditorium

Across the globe, we are witnessing a troubling resurgence of anti-feminist sentiment. Feminism is being cast not as an instrument of progress but as a threat—blamed for societal fragmentation, economic instability, and erosion of traditional values. This backlash is not just rhetorical; it is political. It seeks to roll back decades of hard-won gains in gender justice and to delegitimize feminist thought and practice. But as all of us here know, the real threat is not feminism—it is inequality. 

This Closing Plenary confronts the urgency of defending the word feminist—in economics, in publishing, in policy, and in activism. At a time marked by intensifying authoritarianism, deepening economic precarity, and environmental crisis, feminism is not a peripheral concern. It is a critical framework—one that foregrounds care, equity, interdependence, and sustainability. To discard or dilute it is to surrender the conceptual tools we need to understand and transform our world.
Professors Ipek Ilkkaracan, Elissa Braunstein, Radhika Balakrishnan, and Luiza Nassif will offer reflections on the political and intellectual stakes of feminist economics across diverse domains. Drawing on their extensive work across disciplinary and institutional boundaries, they will consider what it means to claim the label feminist—and why doing so remains a radical act. In conversation with each other and with the audience, the session will ask: What does “feminist” mean in these different contexts? How can feminist praxis disrupt dominant paradigms across our fields? Why is it about more than just women or gender? And how can we expand feminist engagement across the spaces where we work and lead? The session will be chaired by outgoing IAFFE President, Professor Sara Cantillon.
View Speaker Details Here