Learning Gender after the Cold War: Contentious Feminisms (Socio-Historical Studies of the Social and Human Sciences)

This book explores the role and place of feminist politics in the transformation of the former socialist world and points out the geopolitical mechanisms involved in the deployment of technocratic norms, expert discourses, activist repertoires and academic knowledge on womens rights and gender equality in the 1990s-2000s. Based on an interdisciplinary approach and scrutinizing transnational flows of people, resources and ideas, the analysis brings together themes and spaces that have been disconnected in previous scholarship. It sheds light on the integration of feminist resources into contemporary governance through complex entanglements of international aid to democratization, "activism beyond borders" and systemic transformation of higher education. The book will be of interest to researchers and students of sociology, political science, gender studies, and East-European studies. Ioana Cirstocea is a Sociologist at the French National Centre for Scientific Research, CNRS, and a member of the European Centre for Sociology and Political Science, CESSP, Paris, France. Her research focuses on intellectual spaces and actors in Eastern Europe and on the production, circulation and usages of feminist knowledge in (post)-Cold War settings Acknowledgements Contents Abbreviations 1: (Re)Making “Gender”, (Un)Making “Eastern Europe”. Introduction “Gender” and Feminism After State Socialism Freeze-Frame: “Gender Experts” and “Gender Expertise” The Global Call for “Gender” Multiple Meanings of “Gender” in the 1990s Brief Literature Overview Generations of Research and Researchers The Mixed Assessment of Gender Studies in the Eastern European Post-socialist Academia Mapping the “East-West Misunderstanding” in Feminism Matter-Of-Fact International Circulations of People and Ideas Making and Unmaking “Eastern Europe” “Gender” as a Socialisation Platform Recovering the “Voice” of the Former “Second World” A Transnational Space of Political Praxis and Knowledge Production The Post-socialist Transformations Magnified by the Lenses of “Gender” Doing the Sociology of a Transnational Melting Pot “Locating the Fieldwork” Sources and Data Fieldwork as a Social Encounter Unfolding the Argument—The Outline of the Book Bibliography Reports and Activist Publications Press General References Part I: Transnational Mobilisations: From Discovering the “Post-socialist Other” to Professional Activism Beyond Borders 2: Reviving Feminist Internationalism After the Cold War Transatlantic Conversations A “Feminist Powerhouse” “US Writers, Professors, Feminist Activists” Eastern European Feminists “In-Between” “Sisterhood” Versus “Difference”: An Iterative Debate, a Historically Situated Outcome Bibliography Reports and Activist Publications Press General References 3: The “NGO-isation of Feminism” in the Making Feminism as a “Trademark” Towards the “NGO Form” Inventing and Practicing Lateral Solidarity at a Distance An Expert Look and an Informal Habitus Transnational and Trans-Sectorial Circulations Bibliography Reports and Activist Publications General References Part II: The Institutional Building of International Gender Expertise 4: A Democracy-Making Mission A Young Philanthropic Foundation Fighting Against Communism and Training the Post-Socialist Elites “Expanding Rights-Based Education” Bibliography Press General References 5: Aims and Scope of an International Gender-Studies Programme Activist Origins Structural Tensions Critical Vocation and Expert Potential Teaching and Research, International Transfers and Local Innovations Bibliography Press General References 6: Gender, Feminism and Philanthropic Work “Generating an Agenda” Feminist Activists and Bureaucracy Employees Learning “Gender” and Resisting International Pedagogy Bibliography Reports and Activist Publications General References Part III: A Sociography of Eastern European “Gender Pioneers” 7: Feminist Scholars, Activists and Experts Shared Social Dispositions Established Scholars and Newcomers to Academia Professional Activists and Critical Bureaucrats Historically “Rooted” Militancy Bibliography Press General References 8: Gender Studies and the Higher Education Reform in Romania Liberalising the Universities After State Socialism A Small World of Activists and Reformers Interwoven Academic and Expert Positions Bibliography Reports and Activist Publications General References 9: A Counterpoint from the Former Yugoslavia “Gender” and Feminism in Tension The Ambiguous Paths of “Gender Expertise” Legacy of State Socialism and Counter-Hegemonic Thinking Bibliography Reports and Activist Publications General References 10: Going Global. Conclusion “Sisters in Feminism”, Brokers of “Gender”, Actors of Globalisation The End of the “Second World” and the Afterlife of the (Red) “Woman Question” Bibliography General References Appendix Methodological Note About the Sociographic Approach Bibliography Sources Archives Open Society Archives (Budapest) Network of East West Women (New York) Inter-University Centre (Dubrovnik) Interviews by the Author Other Interviews Reports and Activist Publications Press General References Index