[ecrea] 9th Biennial International Interdisciplinary conference - cfp: Gender, knowledge production and knowledge work in education, training and cultural spheres

9th Biennial International Interdisciplinary conference,
29th June-1st July, 2016
Keele University, UK

GWO2016 Call for Abstracts

Gender, knowledge production and knowledge work in education, training 
and cultural spheres

Stream convenors:
Pauline Cullen, Sociology, Maynooth University, National University of
Ireland, EIRE
Anne O' Brien, Media Studies, Maynooth University, National University of
Ireland, EIRE
Myra Marx Ferree, Sociology, University of Wisconsin, USA
Rosella Ciccia, Sociology, Social Work and Social Policy, Queens University,
Belfast, UK
Anna Elomäki, History, Philosophy, Culture & Art, University of Helsinki,
FINLAND
Mary P. Murphy, Sociology, Maynooth University National University of
Ireland.  EIRE
Kathrin Zippel Associate Professor of Sociology, Northeastern University,
USA
Delma Byrne Sociology and Education, Maynooth University, EIRE


Organisational contexts where knowledge production and knowledge work
predominate provide an opportunity to explore the agents, contests and
consequences of projects aimed to acknowledge and address gender inequality
and promote diversity. Contexts including higher education and cultural
industries such as the media are well established as gender unequal spheres
of knowledge production and work where public and private interests have
aimed to diversify, gender mainstream and improve gender representation
drawing on a variety of rationales.  In this interdisciplinary stream, we
are interested in scholars who have explored the implications that the
commercialization of knowledge, and the adoption of corporate practices and
ideologies has had on issues including working conditions, career paths of
knowledge workers and control over the production of knowledge along
gendered lines.  We seek scholarship that takes a critical perspective to
assess the dynamics of organisational structures, ideologies, actors,
discourses and apparatus where efforts to transform knowledge production and
work along neo-liberal and mangerialist lines is evident. Papers that focus
on where these dynamics also address gender and diversity are particularly
welcome. Potential topics include:  gendered structures and cultures of
knowledge production organisations; gender dynamics and conditions  of
knowledge production  in educational, or cultural settings; technology,
knowledge workers and working time;  gender equality and academic
managerialism;  gender and precarity in universities and cultural
industries; gender, leadership and higher education; men as feminist
academics; slow scholarship: diversity and gender equality training in
higher education; work life balance/conflict, intersectional perspectives on
knowledge production and work in educational and cultural spheres;
employment conditions and collective organising ; control of recognition and
reward surrounding knowledge production and work; collective  resistance to
these changes and or the cooptation of feminist knowledge.  This list of
topics is suggestive rather than exhaustive. We invite scholars from a
variety of disciplines; sociology; political science; cultural studies;
geography; management and organisational studies.

We acknowledge the role of the state, international organisations including
the European Union and the market/private sector as agents in changing the
conditions under which education, training and knowledge production exist
with gendered consequences.  We aim to move beyond analyses that have
substantiated the degree of gender inequality in knowledge production
organisational contexts toward research that explores reconfiguration or
reform,  addressing: gender parity in decision making; career paths; funding
for research; terms and conditions of employment; and control of knowledge
production and dissemination.  Policies for change such as emphases on
accountability, excellence, improving gender representation in leadership
roles, diversifying disciplines and workplaces have had profound impacts on
the dynamics of power and gender in these different contexts (Avdelidou,
Fisher and Kirton,2015; Ferree and Zippel, 2015; Gill 2002; Hesmondalgh and
Baker, 2011; Mayer et al., 2009; O¹Connor, 2014;Prugl and True, 2014;
Roberts, 2014).  An analysis of these dynamics involves an assessment of the
paradoxes that arise as  gender equality politics intersect with liberal as
well as neoliberal reform projects in universities and in other public and
private spheres (Bustelo, Ferguson and Forrest in press;  Elomäki,2015;
Ferree and Zippel 2015; Mountz, 2015 et al.).  Such developments raise
issues as to how contexts of higher education and spheres of cultural
production, both contexts for knowledge work, operate as gendered domains
that create challenges and opportunities for gender equality advocates and
feminist knowledge production. We are interested in scholarship that
explores the implications for workers but also the responses and strategies
that knowledge workers employ as they operate in neo-liberal contexts,
including feminist collective resistance.  As such this stream also allows
for an assessment of debates around the intersection between feminism and
neoliberalism (Eschle and Maiguashca,2013; Fraser, 2013; McRobbie , 2008;
Newman,2013; Walby,2011) in specific empirical contexts where competing and
or overlapping agendas to pursue change may  serve or deny the interests of
different categories of workers in terms of race, class and gender (Emejulu,
2011).   Ultimately we are interested in papers that explore issues related
to organisations including higher education and cultural industries where
knowledge production and knowledge work are changing and being changed in
gendered terms as a function of struggle and contest over what constitutes
`reform¹ in a neo-liberal context.

Abstracts of approximately 500 words (ONE page, Word document NOT PDF,
single spaced, excluding references, no header, footers or track changes)
are invited by 1st November 2015 with decisions on acceptance to be made by
stream leaders within one month. All abstracts will be peer reviewed. New
and young scholars with 'work in progress' papers are welcomed. Papers can
be theoretical or theoretically informed empirical work. In the case of
co-authored papers, ONE person should be identified as the corresponding
author. Due to restrictions of space on the conference schedule, multiple
submissions by the same author will not be timetabled. Abstracts should be
emailed to:     (pauline.cullen /at/ nuim.ie)       Abstracts should include FULL
contact details, including your name, department, institutional affiliation,
mailing address, and e-mail address. State the title of the stream to which
you are submitting your abstract. *Note that no funding, fee waiver, travel
or other bursaries are offered for attendance at GWO2016*.

References
Avdelidou-Fischer,Nicole and Kirton,Gill (2015) Beyond burned bras and
purple dungarees: Feminist orientations within working women¹s networks
European Journal of Women's Studies
Bustelo, María, Lucy Ferguson, and Maxime Forest, eds. (2015 in press). The
politics of feminist knowledge transfer: a critical reflection on gender
training and gender expertise.
Connell, Raewyn. (2013). The neoliberal cascade and education: an essay on
the market agenda and its consequences. Critical Studies in Education 54
(2):99-112
Eschle Catherine, and Maguisha, Bice,(2013)   Reclaiming Feminist
Futures:Co-opted and Progressive Politics in a Neoliberal Age¹ Neoliberal
Age., Political Studies,
Elomäki, Anna. (2015). The economic case for gender equality in the European
Union: Selling gender equality to decision-makers and neoliberalism to
women¹s organizations. European Journal of Women¹s Studies.
Emejulu, Akwugo. (2011)'Can ³the people² be feminists? Analysing the fate of
feminist justice claims in populist grassroots movements in the United
States' Interface : a Journal for and about Social Movements, vol 3, no. 2,
pp. 123-15
Fraser, Nancy. (2013) Fortunes of Feminism: From State-Managed Capitalism to
Neoliberal Crisis (New York:Verso Books)
Ferree, M, M. and Zippel, K. ( 2015) Gender Equality in the Age of Academic
Capitalism: Discursive intersections and university restructuring Working
Paper Alexander von Humboldt Foundation TRANS-COOP grant ³TARGET:
Transatlantic Applied Research on Gender Equity Training: Restructuring of
Modern Knowledge Economies and Management²
Gill, Rosalind.( 2002) ³Cool, Creative and Egalitarian? Exploring Gender in
Project-Based New Media Work in Europe.² Information, Communication &
Society 5 (1): 70­89.
Hesmondalgh, D & Baker, S. (2011) Creative Labour: Media Work in three
cultural industries. New York & London: Routledge.
O¹Connor, Pat. (2014). Understanding success: a case study of gendered
change in the professoriate. Journal of Higher Education Policy and
Management 36 (2):212-24.
Prügl, Elisabeth, and Jacqui True.( 2014). Equality means business?
Governing gender through transnational public-private partnerships. Review
of International Political Economy 21 (6):1137-69
Prügl, Elisabeth. 2011. Diversity management and gender mainstreaming as
technologies of government. Politics & Gender 7 (01):71-89
 Roberts. Adrienne (2014) "The Political Economy of 'Transnational Business
Feminism': Problematising the corporate-led gender equality agenda."
International Feminist Journal of Politics.
Mayer, Vicki, Miranda J. Banks, and John Caldwell. (2009). Production
Studies: Cultural Studies of Media Industries. New York: Routledge.
Mountz, Alison, Anne Bonds, Becky Mansfield, Jenna Loyd, Jennifer Hyndman,
Margaret Walton-Roberts, Ranu Basu, Risa Whitson, Roberta Hawkins, Trina
Hamilton, Winifred Curran.( 2015).  For Slow Scholarship: A feminist
politics of resistance through collective action in the neoliberal
university. ACME: An International E-Journal for Critical Geographies .
McRobbie, Angela (2008). The Aftermath of Feminism: Gender, Culture and
Social Change, June, Sage London
Newman, Janet. (2013). ŒSpaces of Power: feminism, neoliberalism and
gendered labour¹, Social Politics 20, 2: 200-221.
Walby (2011) The Future of Feminism Cambridge: Polity Press





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