Gender And Knowledge

Knowledge-for-development is under-theorised and under-researched within development studies, but as a set of policy objectives it is thriving within development practice. Donors and other agencies are striving to improve the flow of information within and between decision-makers and so-called ‘poor and marginalized groups’ in order to promote economic and social development, including the empowerment of women. Gender, Power and Knowledge for Development questions the assumptions and practice of the knowledge-for-development industry. Using a qualitative, multi-site ethnographical study of a Northern-based gender information service and its ‘beneficiaries’ in India, the book queries the utility of the knowledge paradigm itself and the underlying assumption that a knowledge deficit exists in the Global South. It questions the value of practices designed to address this presumed deficit that seek to increase information without addressing the specific problems of the knowledge systems being targeted for support. After reviewing the evidence, the book recommends that international organisations, governments and practitioners move away from the belief that information intermediaries can employ progressive correctives to ‘tinker at the edges’ and thus resolve the shortcomings of on-going attempts to use knowledge alone as a driver of development. Gender, Power and Knowledge for Development will be of great interest to researchers, students in development studies, gender studies, and communication studies as well as INGOs, donor agencies and groups engaged in information for development (i4D), ICT for development (ICT4D), Tech4Dev, knowledge mobilization and knowledge-for-development (K4D).

Waking up to the reactivity of concepts, to their myriad possibilities for signification, to the range and strength of affective responses they provoke, can happen at any time, in any place. Conceptual contestations shake up the comfortably consolidated foundations of sociological knowledge production, but they also have consequences for the ways in which lives are understood, researched and legislated for. This book is dedicated to exploring the definitional politics which surround the concept of gender in ‘live’ knowledge production. While conferences remain an under-researched phenomenon, this volume places conference knowledge production under the spotlight; conferences, in particular national women’s studies association conferences in the UK, the US and India, are explored as sites where definitional politics play out. The cumulative theorisation of ‘live’ conceptual knowledge production that is developed throughout the book draws on established constructs such as performativity, citationality, intersectionality, materiality and events, but works with them in combination in a new, unique way. The book as a whole calls for more attention to be paid to conceptual knowledge production, so as to make more space for potentially transformative conceptual change.

The essays in this interdisciplinary collection share the conviction that modern western paradigms of knowledge and reality are gender-biased. Some contributors challenge and revise western conceptions of the body as the domain of the biological and 'natural, ' the enemy of reason, typically associated with women.

After the success of the hardback, students and academics will welcome the publication of this book in paperback. The aim of the book is to explore the connection between two perspectives that have had a profound effect upon contemporary thought: post-modernism and feminism. Through bringing together and systematically analysing the relations between these, Hekman is able to make a major intervention into current debates in social theory and philosophy. The critique of Enlightenment knowledge, she argues, is at the core of both post-modernism and feminism. Each also offers a basis for critical reflections about the other. In particular, post-modern philosophy provides a means of criticizing aspects of contemporary feminism and thus contributing to the development of a more sophisticated approach to current feminist issues.

This fresh collection of essays examines the continued significance of gender as a marker of inequality in the lives of women across diverse contexts in Irish society. It is a cliche to say that we live in a knowledge society, but exactly whose knowledge sets the economic, political, social, and cultural parameters in any given society?Contributors tackle this question by taking the reader on a gender knowledge journey through the contemporary workplace, the state and civil society and into the education and wider cultural domains. The essays demonstrate the persistence of power differentials, the resilience of gender stereotypes and the ongoing reproduction of specific kinds of gender exclusions. Ideas about gender (often outdated and ill conceived) continue to maintain existing power imbalances in tech work, finance, education, and media. Those ideas also frame public policy debates about sex work, homelessness, women's activism and reproductive rights. Finally, a gender knowledge perspective reveals the downstream impact of gender and others forms of difference and inequality in relation to the teaching profession, game culture, book reviewing and access to archival materials on historical abuse. Producing Knowledge, Reproducing Gender: power, production and practice in Ireland will appeal to those interested in gender studies, political sociology and the sociology of knowledge.

Challenging Situatedness contends that the production of knowledge is just that--a production, and one fraught with intrinsic and often unconscious biases. In fact, to assume that scientific research is inherently objective, neutral, and therefore genderless can, quite literally, be harmful to one's health. The contributors to this volume instead argue for a situated knowledge, a research model that acknowledges different cultural realities and actively articulates context-rich ways of knowing. Drawing on international research studies--from Cameroon, Ghana, India, and Sweden, among others--Challenging Situatedness is a vital exploration of feminist theory in practice.

'Space Gender Knowledge' is an innovative and comprehensive introduction to the geographies of gender and the gendered nature of spatial relations. It examines the major issues raised by women's movements and academic feminism, and outlines the main shifts in feminist geographical work, from the geography of women to the impact of post-structuralism. In making their selection, the editors have drawn on a wide range of interdisciplinary material, ranging across spatial scales from the body to the globe. The book presents influential arguments for the importance of the intersection between space and gender. Looking both at geography and beyond the discipline, it explores the gendered construction of space and the spatial construction of gender. Divided into a number of conceptual sections, each prefaced by an editorial introduction, this reader includes extracts from both landmark texts and less well-known works, making it an indispensable introduction to this dynamic field of study.