Exploring the Methodological Plurality of Feminist Institutionalism for Institutional Gender Analysis

Abstract

This position paper highlights a new methodological orientation for institutional gender analysis. Drawing on Feminist Institutionalism and relevant feminist approaches, this research proposes a Feminist Institutionalism-Integrated Methodology (FIIM), which can be utilised as a ‘two-level’ analytical framework: a first-level analysis to analyse formal institutions and a second-level analysis to analyse informal institutions. This research note discusses the value of FIIM for understanding the role of formal and informal institutional arrangements in women’s progression to academic leadership and the institutionalisation of gender equity in Nigerian Universities. I argue that the combined insights from the FIIM analytical approach advance existing work on gender equity policies and institutional change. Utilising FIIM for this study revealed a great deal about how dynamics of unequal power relations and resistance to gender equity play out formally and informally within universities. FIIM, therefore, offers a valuable means to analytically assess the state of play of gender relations in formal and informal institutions