Hope and Disappointment in Activism for Reproductive Rights: An Ethnography of Strajk Kobiet in Warsaw

Polish citizens increasingly face ultraconservative anti-gender campaigns and serious limitations of their reproductive rights. However, they have not silently accepted this populist shift in politics: since 2016, activists have started mass mobilisations in response. This ethnography focuses on the experiences of activists connected to Strajk Kobiet – a feminist grassroots movement – in the wake of the 2020 Constitutional Tribunal Court’s ruling. Through participant observation, in-depth interviews, fieldwork illustrations, and additional secondary data, this study provides a deeper understanding of the intersection between hope and disappointment and how it enabled activists to deal with the strains of the present, renegotiate expectations of the future, and imagine political alternatives.