Nina Lykke

Animal Performances An Exploration of Intersections between Feminist Science Studies and Studies of Human/Animal Relationships

Feminist science studies have given scant regard to non-human animals. In this paper, we argue that it is important for feminist theory to address the complex relationships between humans and other animals, and the implications of these for feminism. We use the notion of performativity, particularly as it has been developed by Karen Barad, to explore the intersections of feminism and studies of the human/animal relationship. Performativity, we argue, helps to challenge the persistent dichotomy between human/culture and animals/nature. It emphasizes, moreover, how animality is a doing or becoming, not an essence; so, performativity allows us to think about the complexity of human/animal interrelating as a kind of choreography, a co-creation of behaviour. We illustrate the discussion using the example of the laboratory rat, who can be thought of both in terms of a materialization of specific scientific practices and as active participants in the creation of their own meaning, alongside the human participants in science. There are three, intertwined, senses in which we might think about performativity - that of animality, of humannness, and of the relationship between the two. Bringing animals into discussions about performativity poses questions for both feminist theory and for the study of human/animal relationships, we argue: both human and animal can conjointly be engaged in reconfiguring the world, and our theorizing must reflect that complexity. We are all matter, and we all matter.

The Timeliness of Post-Constructionism

The article defines the notion of post-constructionism and argues for its relevance in Feminist Studies.

Feminist technoscience studies

Feminist technoscience studies is a relentlessly transdisciplinary field of research which emerged out of decades of feminist critiques. These critiques have revealed the ways in which gender, in its intersections with other sociocultural power differentials and identity markers, is entangled in natural, medical and technical sciences as well as in the sociotechnical networks and practices of a globalized world. As the sociocultural embeddedness of all scientific and technological theories and practices is a basic assumption among researchers within this field, the positivist distinction between scientific theories and their technological/practical applications is taken to be unsustainable. The term ‘technoscience’ is meant to challenge critically this distinction and the ensuing separation of ‘basic’ and ‘applied’ science. For researchers within the overlapping fields of science and technology studies (STS) and feminist technoscience studies, there is no such thing as a pure and politically innocent ‘basic’ science that can be transformed into technological applications to be ‘applied’ in ‘good’ or ‘bad’ ways at a comfortable distance from the ‘clean’ hands of the researcher engaged in the former. It is a shared assumption of researchers within the fields of STS and feminist technoscience studies that ‘pure’, ‘basic’ science is as entangled in societal interests, and can be held as politically and ethically accountable, as the technological practices and interventions to which it may give rise. The compound word ‘technoscience’ was coined to emphasize this unavoidable link. Following the tradition of, among others, feminist technoscience scholar Donna Haraway (1997a), we have chosen to emphasize this link as crucial to feminist critiques of science and technology by using the umbrella term feminist technoscience studies for this special issue of the European Journal of Women’s Studies (EJWS). However, to avoid terminological confusion we should underline that the field is sometimes (including in some of the articles in this special issue) referred to by other names, such as feminist science studies, feminist cultural studies of science, feminist studies of science and technology, gender and science, etc. Genealogically, feminist technoscience studies is inspired by social constructionist approaches to gender, sex, intersectionalities, society, science and technology. However, it is important to underline that these studies, together with other kinds of material or postconstructionist feminisms (Lykke, 2008, 2010a), has also transgressed social constructionism, forcefully drawing attention to the ways in which the discursive and material aspects of sociotechnical relations and processes of materialization are inextricably intertwined. This is reflected in the articles on the following pages. They are all, in Editorial

Inequity in waiting for cataract surgery - an analysis of data from the Swedish National Cataract Register.

BackgroundSwedish Health and Medical Services act states that good care should be given to the entire population on equal terms. Still studies show that access to care in Sweden differ related to for example gender and socioeconomic variables. One of the areas in Swedish health care that has attracted attention for potential inequity in access is Cataract Extraction (CE). Previous studies of access to CE in Sweden show that female patients have in general poorer vision before they are operated and longer waiting times for CE than male patients. The aim of the study was to describe the waiting times in different patient groups with regards to visual acuity, gender, age, native country, educational level, annual income and whether the patient was retired or still working.MethodsThe study was designed as a register study of 102 532 patients who have had CE performed in Sweden 2010–2011. Linear regression was used to analyse the association between patient characteristics and waiting times. Mean waiting times for women and men were calculated for all groups.ResultsAt significance level p < 0.05 longer waiting times corresponded to patients having good visual acuity, being of female gender, high age, retired, born outside the Nordic countries and having low income and education. Calculations of mean waiting times for all groups showed that women had longer waiting times than men.ConclusionsThe differences between groups defined, for example, by gender, age, native country, income, education and retirement are statistically significant. We do not consider them as clinically significant, but we consider the consistent pattern that we have found noteworthy in relation to the principle of equity in health care.

An Analysis of Gendered Employment in the Portuguese Tourism Sector

Tourism is crucial for the Portuguese economy. But what are the numbers behind tourism employment in Portugal? This article analyzes employment in two tourism characteristic activities, namely accommodation services and travel agencies and tour operators. A matched employer-employee data set is used. Despite having higher levels of education, women are more prevalent in low qualified jobs, while men are more likely to hold executive and management positions. Moreover, womens pay is consistently lower. It is also concluded that the accommodation sector and the travel sector have very distinct characteristics. It is suggested that future studies analyze the sectors in a disaggregated way.

Between particularism, universalism and transversalism. Reflections on the politics of location of European feminist research and education

Against the background of the intense cross‐national networking activities, which have characterized feminist research and education in Europe since the beginning of the 1990s, the article discusses politics of national and regional location. Illustrated by a discourse analysis of three Europe‐based feminist research journals with an explicitly marked international scope, it is pointed out that it seems to be a difficult task to avoid the pitfalls of universalism, on the one hand, and particularism, on the other. The three selected journals are: Feminist Theory, The European Journal of Womens Studies, and NORA, Nordic Journal of Womens Studies. Along the lines of Yuval‐Davis (1997), the article argues for a feminist approach to European networking, which should be based on a dialogic and transversal feminism. The assessments of the politics of location of the three journals are, moreover, inspired by the notion of transnational feminism, developed within the context of post‐colonial feminism (Grewal and Kaplan 1994; Kaplan, Alarcón and Moallem 1999). The article has two main sections. First, it discusses tenacious universalisms, using examples from the journal Feminist Theory. Afterwards it proceeds to a complementary pitfall – that of particularism. Examples are here drawn from NORA and The European Journal of Womens Studies. In conclusion, some guidelines are suggested that might usefully be taken into account when engaging in European feminist activities such as publishing journals, organizing conferences and networks etc.

Rethinking socialist and Marxist legacies in feminist imaginaries of protest from postsocialist perspectives

ABSTRACT The article raises questions about the neoliberal discursive erasures of socialist and Marxist legacies in feminist histories and imaginaries of protest. However, far from promoting an uncritical recycling of feminist Marxisms and socialisms as they unfolded in feminist movements during the 1970s, the article instead reassesses these trends in feminist thought through the analytical lens of the revised notion of ‘postsocialism’ in focus of this special issue, aiming at unmooring it from addressing only the twentieth-century past of a particular geopolitical region, the ‘Second World’. To rethink feminist Marxisms and socialisms from the perspective of this revised notion of postsocialism, the article discusses how the erasure of Marxist and socialist legacies works in contemporary feminist histories with a particular focus on the Nordic countries and my past as a feminist socialist activist there. Moreover, a genealogical analysis of a couple of still centrally performing feminist thought figures – situated knowledges (Haraway) and de/naturalizations of gender/sex binaries (Butler) – is undertaken. The aim is to consider how these thought figures can be understood as postsocialist, when the ‘post’ is defined as marking a combination of resonance and critical transgression, as the ‘post’ in, for example, ‘post-structuralism’. Finally, the article addresses the troubled relationship of Marxism with whiteness, race, racism and Eurocentric understandings of histories of revolutionary transformation. In particular, the flaws of European socialisms and Marxisms, and their resonances with Eurocentric thought more generally, are addressed, while giving attention to their implications for a reassessment of Marxist and socialist legacies in feminism.

Lesbian Studies, Lesbian Lives, Lesbian Voices

If we browse the book catalogues of major international publishing houses from the 1990s, lesbian studies appears with a substantial number of titles. In the world of international publishing, lesbian studies counts as an area which has proved both its academic quality and its marketability. In contrast, when we take a look at the curricula and teaching programmes of the majority of European universities, quite a different picture emerges. Here, lesbian studies is a non-issue. Only very few universities announce courses, modules or programmes within the field. In European academia, lesbian studies is firmly on the margins. It seems as if the thought of an institutionalization of lesbian studies as a regular and normal part of academic activities is too ‘queer’, ‘monstrous’ and ‘alien’ for the majority of European universities. Keeping in mind this paradoxical gap between the attitudes of mainstream European academia and international publishing towards lesbian studies, this special issue seeks to contribute to the growing body of important lesbian scholarship. We hope that its acknowledgement by publishers will have an eye-opening effect and lead to more recognition within universities. Seen from the point of view of a women’s studies journal, it is important, in theoretical terms, to give ample space to lesbian studies and lesbian feminist perspectives. This will contribute to the deconstruction of heteronormative assumptions which might appear even within women’s and gender studies. Whether based in a lesbian identity politics insisting on lesbian visibility in culture and society, or engaged in a lesbian queer deconstruction of essentializing and normative subject constructions, lesbian studies fulfils an important critical task as part of feminist studies. It stresses that a constant focus on the multilayered quality of oppression, on the intersectionality of power differentials and on the entanglement of

Can’t bibliometric analysts do better? How quality assessment without field expertise does not work

The article is an invited comment on Guy Madison and Therese Söderlund (M&S): Comparisons of content and scientific quality indicators across peer-reviewed journal articles with more or less gender perspective: Gender studies can do better. Scientometrics 115(3):1161–1183. The article pinpoints a series of serious problems in M&S’s quantitative quality assessment and analysis of the field of gender studies, pertaining to their overall conceptual framework, their general approach and their specific analysis. It is argued that the over-arching problem in M&S’s study is their lack of expert knowledge of the field of gender studies, their lack of respect for differences between qualitative and quantitative research, and their research design, which is biased towards quantitative social and natural science research. Firstly, it is demonstrated that a key concept, ‘gender perspective’, is used in an incoherent and confusing way in M&S’s analysis. Secondly, it is argued that the confusion is not an isolated definitional problem, but related to a series of slippages between M&S’s source of inspiration (Ganetz in Genusvetenskapliga projektansökningar inom humaniora-samhällsvetenskap – en uppföljning av Vetenskapsrådets beredning och utfall år 2004. Vetenskapsrådets rapportserie, Stockholm 15/2005, 2005) and their own adoption of the category. Thirdly, differences between qualitative and quantitative research, and between hermeneutic and explanatory knowledge production, are discussed more broadly to sustain the argument that the mentioned slippages occur, because M&S transfer analytical tools from Ganetz’ qualitative study, based on a peer review methodology, to a quantitative quality assessment, carried out without field specific expert knowledge. It is argued that, to be adequate and relevant, a quality assessment would need to respect these differences, and develop tools and research designs accordingly. Fourthly, the validity of M&S’s content analysis—the core of their study—is questioned in detail because of its use of inadequate analytical categories, and because of its exclusion of central elements from the analysis. Finally, it is argued that the bias in M&S’s research design is reproduced in their results.

Passionately Posthuman. : From Feminist Disidentifications to Postdisciplinary Posthumanities.

This companion is a cutting-edge primer to critical forms of the posthumanities and the feminist posthumanities, aimed at students and researchers who want to catch up with the recent theoretical d ...