Critical junior scholar network (edition 1)

On Thursday March 5, 2026, the Critical Junior Scholar Network is hosting another session. The CJS Network is an interdisciplinary and interuniversity network for young researchers who are (interested in) using critical theory or methodology in their work. It offers researchers the opportunity to discuss their work with like-minded others.
During this session, two junior researchers will present their work. 
Every junior researcher who is interested in the topics of this session or who generally wants to join the network is welcome!

Programme:
At the start of the session, the network will provide a vegetarian/vegan lunch. Afterwards, at 13:00, we will start with the presentations:

1)    Beyond victims and perpetrators: other actors involved in discrimination - Raoul Rombouts (UGent)

Raoul Rombouts (he/him) is a doctoral researcher at the Law & Diversity Research Group, and a member of the Human Rights Centre (HRC) at Ghent University. Combining sociolegal and traditional legal methods, his doctoral research seeks to clarify the position of bystanders to instances of employment discrimination vis-á-vis Belgian and  EU law. To this end, he scrutinizes their role in cases through equality bodies. He conducts his research under the supervision of prof. dr. Pieter Cannoot and dr. Cathérine Van de Graaf. Furthermore, he has published on the right to protest in the context of pro-Palestine student encampments, and on the application of headscarf bans in Belgian secondary schools. He is also a board member of the VSR (Dutch-Flemish association for sociolegal research). Finally, Raoul has a heart for teaching.

Beyond victims and perpetrators: other actors involved in discrimination
Law has a difficult relationship with systems of oppression, such as capitalism, racism, imperialism, patriarchy. On the one hand, law more often serves as an instrument of oppression and conservation of the status quo rather than one of liberation. On the other hand, legal initiatives to enhance protection for individuals and transform society are both necessary and widely inadequate.
This contradiction is particularly visible in discrimination law, where individualised legal categories obscure the collective and structural conditions through which racialised and other forms of subordination are reproduced.
One problem with discrimination law, which is the core of this ongoing PhD research project, is that it is commonly framed around an individual harm inflicted by a perpetrator onto a victim, yet in reality, a discrimination typically unfolds within a broader constellation of actors, such as bystanders and institutional gatekeepers, who may enable, resist, or transform discriminatory dynamics.
From a liberal, formal equality perspective, these other actors are mainly instrumental to enforce discrimination legislation, and to strengthen victims in their search for redress. In a substantive equality, collectivist or critical perspective, bystanders and enablers are actors both embedded in entrenched power dynamics and structures of oppression, as well as agents capable of disrupting these systems of subordination at the micro-level.
Drawing on both critical literature and (ongoing) empirical research of discrimination complaints handled by equality body UNIA, this presentation seeks to explore the disconnect between real-life discriminatory situations, and a legal framework that obscures collective responsibility while individualizing both the occurrence of discrimination, and the persons partaking in it.

2) The inter-activated consumer: Enjoying transmisogynist fantasy through the post-neoliberal marketplace - Floris de Krijger (Hasselt University)

Floris de Krijger is a PhD researcher at Hasselt University, working at the School of Social Sciences.

The inter-activated consumer: Enjoying transmisogynist fantasy through the post-neoliberal marketplace
Progressive marketing has been found to depoliticize subjects by turning them into inter- passive consumers who outsource their activism to political brands. However, it remains unclear whether such de-activation, characteristic of neoliberal market ideology, also occurs via marketing currently emerging at the rightist edge of the political marketplace. As such, this paper analyzes the conservative, trans-exclusionary femvertising of three U.S. product brands using McGowan’s theory of right-wing fantasy. We unveil how such marketing invites the consumer to enjoy through a transmisogynist fantasy in which trans women are depicted as “men” who threaten “real women’s” empowerment. Specifically, this consumer is elicited to feel silenced, dispossessed and erased in response to consumer society’s piecemeal trans-inclusions—painful experiences that, paradoxically, also induce a sense of thrill. We argue that this fantasy interpellates the consumer as a political, post-neoliberal subject for whom engaging in extra-market activist actions ceases to register like a civic burden, becoming instead a means for accessing right-wing enjoyment. This paper challenges extant critical marketing and femvertising literature by unveiling a politicized consumer subjectivity we term the inter-activated consumer. Additionally, it deepens scholarship on conservative
brand culture by showing how enjoyment-structuring fantasies can enhance the psychic appeal of bigoted political projects when staged in product branding.

For whom?

• PhD students & postdocs who use or want to learn more about critical theories and methodologies in their research.

When?

• The activity will take place on March 5, 2026 - 13:00-16:00.

Where?

• The session will take place at Campus VUB, Pleinlaan 5, Elsene.
• You will receive the exact location upon registration.

Registration?

• Through confirmation mail to co-organizer Charlotte Vermeijen (charlotte.vermeijen@uhasselt.be)
• As places are limited, registering does not automatically imply that you will be able to participate. You will be notified by email in due time.
• Please cancel your registration at least one week in advance in case you cannot make it (cfr. cancellation & no-show policy).

Acknowledged as?

• DS BSH: session on advanced discipline-specific knowledge - passive participation