Gender Studies And The New Academic Governance

What is happening to gender studies and gender research as emerging but contested fields of scientific knowledge in the conditions of the new academic governance? And which role do gender studies and gender research play in the current transformations in academia? All articles in this book make clear that the impacts of the new academic governance have global, glocal and local dimensions which have to be taken into account in analysing the state of gender studies and gender research at the end of the 2010s. From diverse geopolitical and sociocultural views the authors simultaneously draw a multifaceted picture of the current situation, criticise the widespread tendencies of the marketisation of scientific knowledge, suggest strategies for resistance against the neo-liberalisation of higher education and research, and identify starting points for further and optionally comparative studies on these issues. These contributions emphasise not only the need for more theoretical reflection and empirical research and for critical exchanges on the current transformations, but also the need for political action to challenge, resist and change them. The EditorDr Heike Kahlert is Professor and Chair of Sociology/Social Inequality and Gender at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum (RUB), Germany.

This edited volume presents critical scholarship analysing governance practices in diverse jurisdictions in Europe and North America, at multiple scales, and in relation to several different arenas of policy and practice. The contributors address shortcomings in the mainstream literature on governance within the discipline of political science. The volume as a whole is marked by geographical and topical diversity. However, what the individual chapters have in common is that each considers whether and how gender, racialized identity, and/or other axes of marginalization are visible within the conceptualizations and/or practices of governance under discussion. Drawing together insights and conceptual tools from both feminist and post-structuralist frameworks in analysing governance practices, this volume will be of great interest to scholars and graduates who engage with feminist and/or post-structural analysis of policy and governance. It will also be of use to critical policy scholars in anthropology, geography, sociology, and women’s studies.

Lisa D. Brush turns a gendered lens on states, power, and governance, showing the inherent inequalities in political systems and gender systems and how they intersect. She reveals the way in which state power supports male dominance in American and other western political systems. This book a useful antidote to traditional textbooks on government, the state, politics, and social policy.

"We thought the study of women would be a temporary phase; eventually we would all go back to our disciplines."—Gloria Bowles, From the Afterword Since the 1970s, Women's Studies has grown from a volunteerist political project to a full-scale academic enterprise. Women's Studies on Its Own assesses the present and future of the field, demonstrating how institutionalization has extended a vital, ongoing intellectual project for a new generation of scholars and students. Women’s Studies on Its Own considers the history, pedagogy, and curricula of Women’s Studies programs, as well as the field’s relation to the managed university. Both theoretically and institutionally grounded, the essays examine the pedagogical implications of various divisions of knowledge—racial, sexual, disciplinary, geopolitical, and economic. They look at the institutional practices that challenge and enable Women’s Studies—including interdisciplinarity, governance, administration, faculty review, professionalism, corporatism, fiscal autonomy, and fiscal constraint. Whether thinking about issues of academic labor, the impact of postcolonialism on Women’s Studies curricula, or the relation between education and the state, the contributors bring insight and wit to their theoretical deliberations on the shape of a transforming field. Contributors. Dale M. Bauer, Kathleen M. Blee, Gloria Bowles, Denise Cuthbert, Maryanne Dever, Anne Donadey, Laura Donaldson, Diane Elam, Susan Stanford Friedman, Judith Kegan Gardiner, Inderpal Grewal, Sneja Gunew, Miranda Joseph, Caren Kaplan, Rachel Lee, Devoney Looser, Jeanette McVicker, Minoo Moallem, Nancy A. Naples, Jane O. Newman, Lindsey Pollak, Jean C. Robinson, Sabina Sawhney, Jael Silliman, Sivagami Subbaraman, Robyn Warhol, Marcia Westkott, Robyn Wiegman, Bonnie Zimmerman

Gender impact assessment has been both celebrated as a beacon of hope for the cause of gender equality and criticised as being ineffectual. More than 20 years of gender mainstreaming have demonstrated that equality governance with and through impact assessment is an intersectional and still evolving process. Arn T. Sauer's study examines the instruments of gendered policy analysis and the conditions under which they are being used by the Canadian federal government and the European Commission. Interviews with experts from public administration and instrument designers as well as document analyses reveal benefits and challenges and show that the success of equality governance depends upon whether knowledge about gendered policy and appropriate administrative practices are embedded, embodied and entrenched in public administration.

This book questions the conventional belief that development brings about greater gender equality and better environmental management. Based on participatory research and in-depth fieldwork, Arora-Jonsson studies struggles for local forest management, the making of women's groups within them and how the women's groups became a threat to mainstream institutions. Engaging seriously with academic debates on gender, environment and development, this volume contributes to a much-needed dialogue among these fields.

Following a period of rapid political change, both globally and in relation to the Middle East and South Asia, this collection sets new terms of reference for an analysis of the intersections between global, state, non-state and popular actors and their contradictory effects on the politics of gender.The volume charts the shifts in academic discourse and global development practice that shape our understanding of gender both as an object of policy and as a terrain for activism. Nine individual case studies systematically explore how struggles for political control and legitimacy determine both the ways in which dominant gender orders are safeguarded and the diverse forms of resistance against them.

The contributors to this volume provide a survey of the existing gender machineries on the international level, explore the way in which feminist movements have approached international organizations and the way IOs have responded, and examine the laws and norms that have been produced and their effects in local contexts globally.