Between refusal and refuge: Queer feminist bookstore Savannah Bay

Feminist bookstores have played an important role in the creation of feminist spaces since the end of the 20th century. In the Netherlands, Savannah Bay is one of the last remaining in a previous network of feminist bookstores. This article explores how it manages to uphold its function as a feminist space while operating in relative isolation. The data used for this analysis consists of a series of interviews with volunteers that work at Savannah Bay. This data is analyzed via Bonnie Honig’s Feminist Theory of Refusal, which connects three forms of feminist resistance within one arc of feminist refusal. Crucial to this arc is the circular movement in which the women first leave the city, then organize a new way of living, and then return to the city to implement their ideas. By reading the experiences of Savannah Bay volunteers via Honig’s theory of refusal, this article analyzes how the bookstore manages to uphold a feminist space while being embedded in a pre-dominantly patriarchal public sphere. Additionally, this reading extends and nuances Honig’s theoretical approach by placing it in relation to empirical data, which raises questions about the conditions for fulfilling Honig’s feminist arc of refusal.