Uploaded March 2026 | Updated September 2026, 3 hours ago
Catarina Isabel Martins is Associate Professor with Aggregation title of German Studies at the Faculty of Humanities and Research Fellow of the Center for Social Studies at University of Coimbra. She was lecturer for Portuguese, for several years, at Cheikh Anta Diop University in Dakar, Senegal. She holds a Ph. D. in German Literature from the University of Coimbra (2008) and an Aggregation title in Cultural and Literary Studies, with a focus on Decolonial and Feminist Studies. She has published works on topics related to feminist and postcolonial studies, comparative literature, German literature, and African literature, particularly by women. She has published, among other works, the book ‘Mulheres, Raça e Etnicidades. Introdução aos Feminismos 18 Decoloniais’ (2024) by the University of Coimbra Press. She teaches in the PhD programmes in Feminist Studies on Discourses: History, Culture and Society, and on Literary and Culture Studies.
THE REVOLUTION WILL BE DECOLONIAL FEMINIST OR WILL NOT BE - REFLECTIONS ON PORTUGAL
At the end of last month, faced with problems in the Portuguese national health system
that have caused risky situations and the deaths of pregnant women, the Minister of Health of the right-wing government stated: "We know who they are and what happened. They are pregnant women who were never monitored during their pregnancy, without a family doctor, newly arrived in Portugal and who, in many cases, do not even speak Portuguese, were not prepared to call for help and do not even have a mobile phone." This ignorant discourse
of blaming these women is not only about their deaths and those of their babies, but also about their exclusion from the system and from society, as well as their poverty. At the same time, it reinforces the racist and xenophobic discourse that sometimes promotes hatred against foreign women in vulnerable situations and sometimes seeks to save them, as in the recent law banning the use of burqa in Portugal.
Non-white, non-Christian women thus emerge as the focus of ideological discourses and disputes that invoke them in different ways in the design of policies that affect, beyond
them, the so-called body of the Portuguese nation. In these disputes, as Gayatri Spivak stated, the subaltern becomes increasingly silent.
Based on these situations, Catarina reflects on the possible contributions of decolonial feminisms to a revolutionary path that does not present itself as just another route
between capitalism and Marxism, between identity politics and material politics, between the absence of rights and liberal rights, but which can shape a new framework for the demands and good living for all women.
Catarina Isabel Martins is Associate Professor with Aggregation title of German Studies at the Faculty of Humanities and Research Fellow of the Center for Social Studies at University of Coimbra. She was lecturer for Portuguese, for several years, at Cheikh Anta Diop University in Dakar, Senegal. She holds a Ph. D. in German Literature from the University of Coimbra (2008) and an Aggregation title in Cultural and Literary Studies, with a focus on Decolonial and Feminist Studies. She has published works on topics related to feminist and postcolonial studies, comparative literature, German literature, and African literature, particularly by women. She has published, among other works, the book ‘Mulheres, Raça e Etnicidades. Introdução aos Feminismos 18 Decoloniais’ (2024) by the University of Coimbra Press. She teaches in the PhD programmes in Feminist Studies on Discourses: History, Culture and Society, and on Literary and Culture Studies.
THE REVOLUTION WILL BE DECOLONIAL FEMINIST OR WILL NOT BE - REFLECTIONS ON PORTUGAL
At the end of last month, faced with problems in the Portuguese national health system
that have caused risky situations and the deaths of pregnant women, the Minister of Health of the right-wing government stated: "We know who they are and what happened. They are pregnant women who were never monitored during their pregnancy, without a family doctor, newly arrived in Portugal and who, in many cases, do not even speak Portuguese, were not prepared to call for help and do not even have a mobile phone." This ignorant discourse
of blaming these women is not only about their deaths and those of their babies, but also about their exclusion from the system and from society, as well as their poverty. At the same time, it reinforces the racist and xenophobic discourse that sometimes promotes hatred against foreign women in vulnerable situations and sometimes seeks to save them, as in the recent law banning the use of burqa in Portugal.
Non-white, non-Christian women thus emerge as the focus of ideological discourses and disputes that invoke them in different ways in the design of policies that affect, beyond
them, the so-called body of the Portuguese nation. In these disputes, as Gayatri Spivak stated, the subaltern becomes increasingly silent.
Based on these situations, Catarina reflects on the possible contributions of decolonial feminisms to a revolutionary path that does not present itself as just another route
between capitalism and Marxism, between identity politics and material politics, between the absence of rights and liberal rights, but which can shape a new framework for the demands and good living for all women.
