Decentring Gender-Based Violence: Central and Eastern European Perspectives in International Relations

Abstract

This introductory article advances a feminist rethinking of gender-based violence (GBV) from the perspective of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). Refusing to treat the region as a site of delayed development or exceptional violence, we position CEE as a source of theoretical insights for International Relations and feminist scholarship. Drawing on debates on the continuum of violence, intersectionality, feminist political economy, and the politics of knowledge production, we conceptualise GBV as a constitutive feature of contemporary political orders. We argue that violence operates across interconnected legal, institutional, economic, discursive, and military domains and must be understood in relation to broader processes of war, democratic backsliding, geopolitical contestation, and the global polycrisis. The article further reflects on the ethical and political challenges of feminist knowledge production in times of ongoing conflict and proposes solidarity, care, and pluriversality as key analytical and political horizons for future research on gendered violence.