Lit@CEWS

Inhalt: In discussing the difficulty with transformation, research notes that women and Blacks are excluded and marginalised by the cultures and practices within universities in South Africa. While the literature highlights the invisibility of these minorities in universities, with their bodies only becoming visible as tokens, or when representing minority issues, it is silent on how this plays out in interchanges in the transformation process, the embodiment of gender, and the resistance to women's agency within the field of higher education transformation. Adopting a hermeneutic phenomenological lens and Bourdieu's concept of field and habitus, this study examines ten academics' experiences of having agency to effect transformation. In particular, it explores women's narratives of body‐centered attacks in expressions of resistance to their transformation strategies, revealing the normalisation of the White, male body. This normalisation obscures the gendered processes of transformation and the bodily resistance to women's agency, revealed in tugging, pulling, shutting doors and having metaphorical knives pulled from their backs. The study argues that this not only prevents women from exercising their agency, but also ensures the reproduction of oppressive relations within the university and should be directly addressed in the struggle for transformation.

Schlagwörter:body; Bourdieu; Feldtheorie; Gender; Gewalt; Habitus; higher education; Hochschule; Körper; minority; Organisationswandel; people of color; racism; Rassismus; resistance; sexism; Sexismus; South Africa; Südafrika; Transformation; violence; Widerstand

CEWS Kategorie:Diversity, Europa und Internationales, Hochschulen, Geschlechterverhältnis

Verfügbarkeit:https://dx.doi.org/10.1111/gwao.12425

Dokumenttyp:Zeitschriftenaufsatz

Inhalt: This study argues for recognition of the constitutive role of context in shaping the dynamics of the policy‐practice interface in the field of gender equality in universities. Using a comparative and reflective case‐study approach, we draw on our experiences, as action‐researchers, of developing and implementing Gender Equality Action Plans (GEAPs) in four universities in four different European countries and we explore the role of national and local context in the mediation and translation of the GEAP model. Drawing on the concepts of gendered organizations, dialogic organizational change, and policy mobilities, we argue for the need to be critical of approaches to gender equality in higher education (HE) that presume policy measures and good practice models transfer unproblematically to different HE organizations in different international contexts; instead, we draw attention to the contingent ways in which uneven gender relations articulate and manifest in different contexts, shaping possibilities for, and obstacles to, gender equality intervention. Thus, we argue that context plays a crucial constitutive role in the interpretation, enactment, and impact of gender equality policy in HE.

Schlagwörter:action research; case study; gender equality plan; gendered organization; Gleichstellungsmaßnahmen; Gleichstellungsplan; good practice; Hochschule; internationaler Vergleich; Organisational Change; Organisationswandel; translation

CEWS Kategorie:Europa und Internationales, Hochschulen, Gleichstellungspolitik

Verfügbarkeit:https://dx.doi.org/10.1111/gwao.12594

Dokumenttyp:Zeitschriftenaufsatz

Inhalt: In Denmark, gender equality in academia has seen limited progress during the past 30 years. To improve our understanding of this persistent problem, this article examines gender equality practitioners in relation to the wider discursive context of Danish society. Theorizing Denmark as a “postfeminist gender regime,” I analyze how practitioners negotiate a space for action in a context which generally opposes gender equality initiatives. I introduce the notion of “maneuvering” as a way to understand this negotiation between hegemonic, postfeminist discourses, on the one hand, and marginal and potentially subversive discourses on the other. Practitioners may maneuver in how they understand inequality and potential solutions, and in the meetings between them, their work and the postfeminist gender regime. Successful maneuvering enables the use of more radical change strategies than postfeminism otherwise allows. Practitioners' ability to maneuver rests on their critical reflexivity, which in turn is conditioned by their knowledge of gender and power dynamics. The study thus points to the centrality of selecting highly qualified individuals as gender equality practitioners.

Schlagwörter:academia; change agents; Dänemark; Denmark; Diskurs; gender equality; gender regime; Gleichstellungsarbeit; Gleichstellungsbeauftragte; Gleichstellungspolitik; Machtdynamiken; post-feminism; Postfeminismus

CEWS Kategorie:Europa und Internationales, Hochschulen, Frauen- und Gleichstellungsbeauftragte, Gleichstellungspolitik

Verfügbarkeit:https://dx.doi.org/10.1111/gwao.12556

Dokumenttyp:Zeitschriftenaufsatz