Doing feminist political research
Prerequisiti
Open to all PhD and master students
Programma
The course aims at exploring what does it mean to do feminist political research, how it improves rigor, ethics, and transformative impact of social and political research, and how to apply feminist theoretical, epistemological and methodological approaches to political research. It discusses a variety of feminist approaches for doing political analysis -women, gender, intersectionality, deconstruction, and post-deconstruction- and their respective contributions and limitations, applying them to key concepts (power, agency and institutions) and substantive issues in political analysis (polity, politics and policy). It addresses the challenges and joy of doing feminist political research.
Obiettivi formativi
The course aims to familiarize researchers with doing political research from feminist perspectives. This includes understanding the contribution of feminist epistemologies and methodologies to the analysis of social and political phenomena and learning to apply feminist approaches to socio-political research. The course will have a seminar format, alternating theory lectures, reading-informed debates, and oral presentations in class. In their presentations (and only for master students a short 1500-word paper related to these), students are invited to apply one or a combination of approaches for doing feminist political analysis (women, gender, intersectionality, deconstruction, postdeconstruction) to a relevant political phenomenon of their choice (and for PhD students preferably to their PhD topic). Activities in class also include a workshop on critical frame analysis from feminist perspectives and the analysis of PhD dissertations that apply feminist approaches to political research to understand why and how they use feminist epistemologies and methodologies and what can we learn about doing feminist political research.
Riferimenti bibliografici
Ackerly, Brooke and Jacqui True. 2011. Doing Feminist Research in Political & Social Science. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Ackerly, Brooke and Jacqui True. 2018. With or Without Feminism? Researching Gender and Politics in the 21st century. European Journal of Politics and Gender 1(1-2): 259-78, DOI: 10.1332/251510818X15272520831210
Ahrens, Petra, Barbara Gaweda, Valentine Berthet, Johanna Kantola, and Cherry Miller. 2024. Friends, Experts or Witches: Doing Feminist Research in Challenging Political Contexts. European Journal of Politics and Gender XX(XX): 1–24, DOI: 10.1332/25151088Y2024D000000039
Berthet, Valentine, Barbara Gaweda, Johanna Kantola, Cherry Miller, Petra Ahrens and Anna Elomäki. 2023. Guide to Qualitative Research in Parliaments: Experiences and Practices. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Cooke, Jennifer and Line Nyhagen eds. 2025. Intersectional Feminist Research Methodologies. Applications in the Social Sciences and Humanities. London: Routledge.
Harding, Sandra. 1991. Whose Science? Whose Knowledge? Ithaca: Cornell.
Kantola, Johanna and Emanuela Lombardo. 2017. Gender and Political Analysis. Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan.
Mendoza, Breny. 2012. The Geopolitics of Political Science and Gender Studies in Latin America. In Jane Bayes ed. Gender and Politics: The State of the Discipline. Opladen: Barbara Budrich, 33-58.
Verloo, Mieke ed. 2007. Multiple Meanings of Gender Equality. A Critical Frame Analysis of Gender Policies in Europe. Budapest: CEU.