Feminisms and activisms: reflections on the politics of writing and the editorial process

This article addresses the questions and dilemmas that each of us has brought to the project. It traces their modulation, refinement and manifestation as they became part of a shared creative dynamic and thus subject to our personal experience and reflection thereon. The initial idea was to produce one text with multiple voices, yet considering our theoretical diversity, the geographical distance between us and the short time at hand we realized this, for the moment, was a too ambitious project. Hence as a tribute to the diversity of our perspectives and reflecting the actual dilemma of seeking to "speak in one powerful voice" while allowing heterogeneity, this article presents itself as a tentative pastiche of our four distinct yet overlapping and intersecting contributions

Constructing Meaningful Lives: Biographical Methods in Research on Migrant Women

The article argues that biographical methods are particularly suited to shift the methodological and theoretical premises of migration research to foreground the agency and subjectivity of migrant women. It is argued that structural and cultural readings can usefully be applied to the self-representations of migrant women. The context of migrant women's self-representations is explored through looking at the story-telling communities they develop and through the expert knowledges of institutions regulating migration. The dichotomisation of unique versus collective modes of life-stories is questioned. Applying the Foucauldian concept of subjugated knowledges, it is argued that migrant women's life-stories hold transformative potential for producing knowledges critical of gendered and ethnocised power relations that research should pay attention to.Migration, Gender, Ethnicity, Life-Story, Methodology, Britain, Germany, Structural and Cultural Readings, Subjugated Knowledges

Managing myself: investigator survival in sensitive research

Thirteen years of investigative research into sexual abuse in sport provides the basis for this paper, in which reflections are offered about the role and survival of the investigator in sensitive research. The ethical ground rules, research methods and working practices adopted during this research have all been influenced by processes well beyond conventional social science. The paper interrogates three meanings of ‘managing myself’ as a lesbian engaged in a gendered research process: first, managing myself, coping with the strains and stresses of the research; secondly, managing (by) myself as being alone in the research; and thirdly, managing my ‘self/selves’, deciding which of several possible selves or agendas - the personal, the scientific or the political – is being addressed at any given time. The paper ends by considering how to maintain focus in the face of internal doubts and external pressures

The emotional labour of doctoral criminological researchers

Embarking upon empirical qualitative research can be a daunting and emotional task, particularly for those who are new to research and for those who research vulnerable groups and emotive topics. Doctoral criminological researchers transect these realms, often making their research experiences acutely emotional and challenging. In addition, researchers must be able to perform emotional labour as an important part of their professional practice. Based on 30 semi-structured interviews, this is the first study to explicitly explore the emotional labour of criminological researchers. Using the lens of emotional labour, the performance and impact of undertaking qualitative data collection in doctoral research is examined. From the interview data, three main themes are discussed: emotional labour, the consequences of performing that emotional labour and coping mechanisms to deal with those consequences. The article concludes with recommendations around support and training for PhD candidates, their supervisors and the higher education sector more broadly

The master's tools? : a feminist approach to legal and lay decision-making

It is neither possible, nor desirable, within the confines of this chapter to purport to offer any kind of ‘instruction manual’ for doing feminist legal research. Instead, my aim in the following discussion is to give a brief sketch of key theoretical contributions that feminist analyses have made to our understandings of, and expectations in relation to, law and legal process. Having done so, I explore some of the ways in which feminist methods can be deployed in empirical socio-legal research, and highlight in particular its utility in the context of studying the parameters, content and dilemmas of lay (and quasi-legal) decision-making. As part of this discussion, I also draw attention to some of the tensions that can arise in meeting the demands of access and impact associated with this genre of research whilst preserving the critical and deconstructive spirit of feminism

Investigating information systems research through the lens of feminist epistemology: the case of MIS Quarterly

International audienceWomen's underrepresentation in the ICT field is an enduring issue, mainly due to persistent stereotypes that depict women as technologically incompetent. Does information system research contribute to reduce gender imbalance in the ICT field? To start answering this question, we have tried to understand how gender is pictured in the IS domain. More precisely, we have scrutinised MIS Quarterly, generally considered as a leading IS research journal, through the lens of feminist epistemology. The aim of this paper is to describe the results. Using a feminist epistemology means taking one or all of the following approaches: to view gender as a relational concept; to make women's contribution more visible; to adopt different standpoints; and to rely on emancipatory principles and contribute to reducing gender inequality and stereotypes. Our analysis shows the persistence of a narrow view on gender issues, but it also suggests hope for improvement. Taking into account social relations between men and women in socio-technical systems would provide a richer understanding of information systems implementation, adoption and use

Feeling our way: academia, emotions and a politics of care

This paper aims to better understand the role of emotions in academia, and their part in producing, and challenging, an increasingly normalized neoliberal academy. It unfolds from two narratives that foreground emotions in and across academic spaces and practices, to critically explore how knowledges and positions are constructed and circulated. It then moves to consider these issues through the lens of care as a political stance towards being and becoming academics in neoliberal times. Our aim is to contribute to the burgeoning literature on emotional geographies, explicitly bringing this work into conversation with resurgent debates surrounding an ethic of care, as part of a politic of critiquing individualism and managerialism in (and beyond) the academy. We consider the ways in which neoliberal university structures circulate particular affects, prompting emotions such as desire and anxiety, and the internalisation of competition and audit as embodied scholars. Our narratives exemplify how attendant emotions and affect can reverberate and be further reproduced through university cultures, and diffuse across personal and professional lives. We argue that emotions in academia matter, mutually co-producing everyday social relations and practices at and across all levels. We are interested in their political implications, and how neoliberal norms can be shifted through practices of caring-with

The Right to be Human:How do Muslim Women talk about Human Rights and Religious Freedoms in Britain?

Abstract This article examines existing literature and data from qualitative fieldwork with Muslim women in Britain to analyse their narratives of human rights and freedom, as they live within plural European contexts. In scared, securitised and polarised Europe, Muslim women have become visible markers of otherness. Each Muslim woman becomes a fulcrum upon which Western values and morality are measured against the “other”, its values, its beliefs and its choices. In exploring the implications of societal othering on Muslim women’s experiences of their human rights, this article concludes that in social contexts that are polemical, becoming the other dehumanises Muslim women who thus become ineligible for “human” rights. In such contexts, a human rights-based approach alone is insufficient to achieve “dignity and fairness” in society. In addition to human rights, societies need robust and rigorous dialogue so that societal differences become part of a new mediated plural reality.</jats:p

Editorial: Feminism, women’s movements and women in movement

Introduction to Special Issue that engages with the increasingly important, separate yet interrelated themes of feminism, women’s movements and women in movement in the context of global neoliberalism

Feminism, women’s movements and women in movement

Non peer reviewedPublisher PD