Governing Through Insecurity: Financial Dependence and Precarization in the Feminist NGO Sector

During the last decades, the multiplication of sources of funding and the fragmentation of subsidies had several effects on feminist NGOs and beyond. First, they led to the consolidation of project-based work and to the multiplication of accountability mechanisms within feminist organizations. Financial dependence depleted time and other resources of feminist organizations which are channeled towards the bureaucracy of acquiring money: introducing demands for subsidies, participating to call for tenders, writing projects, or that of accountability: writing reports and audits, to justify how money was used. Neoliberal financial dependence, characterized by the multiple funding sources and the fragmentation of subsidies, led to channeling through time misappropriation, reducing the reactive capacity of the feminist movement and favoring short-term strategies, by normalizing project-based work. Second, it led to feelings of fear and insecurity regarding organizational survival and job loss, if unable to secure funds. Organizational and job insecurity became central preoccupations among feminist professionals in NGOs. By responding to call for tenders, NGOs alleviate insecurity over organization’s survival and jobs and increase insecurity through the short-term logic of funds. Precarization involves the governing of feminist professionals in NGOs through insecurity: over their job and over the survival of their organizations and is based on reproducing the distribution of precariousness in relation of inequality.