Gender studies as a multi-centred field? Centres and peripheries in academic gender research

Abstract

In this article I analyse prominent textbooks, encyclopedias and journals in the field of women’s and gender studies and ask where the authors and concepts presented in these texts and sites of publication come from in terms of geographic location. This is inspired by the question: to what extent can gender studies be described as a ‘multi-centered’ field (Connell, 2011) and can gender studies take into account feminist concepts of knowledge production which favour the involvement of the greatest possible diversity of authors (Longino, 1990; Harding, 1991)? The analyses presented here show that being located at a North American or Western European institution still seems to be a crucial factor in authors being published and referred to – both in Western academic centres and in other regions. It seems that there is still a long way to go before various local gender studies communities can communicate on a more egalitarian footing.

Invisible Narratives: Situated readings from a French material feminism

“…Sin embargo, según investigaciones recientes, el campo de los estudios feministas y de género está, por diversas razones, lejos de constituir un espacio multi-centrado de producción de conocimiento (Wöhrer, 2016). En lugar de ello, existe una división entre centros y periferias académicas, variante intelectual de aquella otra división, económica, entre países exportadores de materias primas y países desarrollados, o potencia, o del primer mundo, entre muchos otros epítetos que suelen utilizarse.…”

“…Hemos mostrado que la injusticia epistémica, como la hemos denominado evocando la propuesta de Fricker (2007) se entrecruza de manera compleja con las posiciones geopolíticas respectivas, configurando zonas de mayor o menor audibilidad teórica. Salvando las distancias, hemos visto que la posición de los países francófonos y latinoamericanos como semi-periferias en el campo de los estudios de género y feministas (Wöhrer, 2016) instala un punto de convergencia en cuanto a los impedimentos de circulación, difusión y enunciación de teorías contra-hegemónicas o alternativas.…”

Engagements with Decolonization and Decoloniality in and at the Interfaces of STS

“…South who do not have the privilege of whiteness (symbolically as much as materially speaking) or have not worked hard enough toward having it (studying in the North and building and being part of certain networks) (Wöhrer, 2016 Steve Biko's works, see Ngcaweni (2016).…”

Feminist theory and the global South

“…The proposal for a special issue grew from discussion of Raewyn Connell's paper 'Meeting at the Edge of Fear: Theory on a World Scale', which traced the dominance of the North in globally-circulating feminist thought, emphasised the wealth of knowledge produced around the global South and argued for a more democratic global structure for feminist theory (Connell, 2015). The argument is given urgency by Veronika Woehrer's careful analysis of the relative absence of Southern feminist scholarship in European and North American feminist course outlines and textbooks (Woehrer, 2016).…”