The FIERCE project focuses on expanding knowledge about the strategies and positions of the anti-feminist and anti-gender movements and more broadly understood, the far right. At the same time, the project looks into feminist movements' responses to the challenges posed by the gender equality+ backlash. Previous research has mostly studied anti-gender and anti-feminism movements separately from feminist responses and reactions. This is a knowledge gap that FIERCE strived to bridge. The project’s reports under WP1 and WP2 already highlighted the complex and new network of actors on both sides. They also disclosed the lack of more structured knowledge about the specific action repertoires, strategies, organisation, policy demands and achievements that took place over time, giving this field a genuine transnational character. FIERCE addressed the issues above concurrently exploring actors and dynamics within the project framework and in diverse settings, using tasks based on critical framing analysis of debates and campaigns, interviews, discourse network analysis. In addition, the multidimensional, multi-level comparative analysis across eight country cases and addressing five thematic areas as well as the cross-cutting dimension of intersectionality provided a novel level of complexity to the analysis of policy framing, strategies, agenda-setting and influence. At the same the combination of grounded theory and research and co-participatory research operationalised through national and transnational Labs proved both useful and effective in understanding and discussing the interplay of actions and reactions between anti-gender, anti-feminist actors, and feminist movements across the various contexts represented in the project. It also allowed to reveal some of the main controversies at stake not only between, but also amongst the actors under scientific scrutiny. To sum up, FIERCE project strived to provide new insights into the capacity, practices, and strategies of the feminist movements for revitalising democratic processes and democratic innovation. The knowledge produced addresses both structural constraints as well as internal tensions, highlighting the importance and challenges of intersectional inclusiveness, solidarities, and hybrid activism (moving beyond dichotomies), thus shedding new light on the democratic dynamics of the movements.
