Organising Feminisms: The Micropolitics of the Academy (Women's Studies at York Series)

This study of feminism, equity and change in the academy is based on interviews with 40 feminist academics and students in Britain, Sweden and Greece. The research attempts to decode and disentangle gendered message systems and the matrix of power relations in the academy. It consists of feminist readings of the micro-processes of everyday practices. Change is interrogated in relation to feminist pedagogy, equity, organizational culture, policies and discourses of New Right reform, mass expansion and new managerialism. This interdisciplinary study explores how patriarchal power in the academy is exercised, rather than simply possessed. As such, the book aims to offer conceptual insights into the quotidian practice of power. It analyses how domination is experienced and resisted by a sample of feminist academics and students in Britain, Sweden and Greece. Informants analyse organisational culture in the academy in terms of atmosphere and ethos, symbolism, networks, coalitions, women in senior positions and critical mass theory. Issues such as emotion, embodiment, motherhood, agency, bureaucracy, creativity, organisational change, support and the sociology of space are theorised in the context of gendered power in the academy. Attention is also drawn to the micropolitics of coercive power relations such as harassment, bullying and spite as means of gendered regulation. Its object is to explore the processes through which change may be both activated and constrained. As part of this process, the study examines the efficacy of equity policies. The cross-cultural focus offers evidence of international patterns of gender inequalities in dominant organisations of knowledge production Front Matter....Pages i-viii Introduction: The Micropolitics of Academic Feminism....Pages 1-10 The Challenges of Feminist Research....Pages 11-26 Equity and Change in Higher Education....Pages 27-46 Feminism and Equity: Political Partners or Discordant Discourses?....Pages 47-72 Between the Lines: Gender and Organisation....Pages 73-98 Power, Pedagogy and Empowerment....Pages 99-127 Feminist Students: Radicalism, Rights and Resistance....Pages 128-154 Feminist Academics: Disruption, Development and Disciplines....Pages 155-184 Concluding Comments: The Dangers of Certainty....Pages 185-192 Back Matter....Pages 193-215