Disputing “Gender” in Academia: Illiberalism and the Politics of Knowledge

Yasmine Ergas, Jazgul Kochkorova, Andrea Pető and Natalia Trujillo
Additional contact information
Yasmine Ergas: School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University, USA
Jazgul Kochkorova: School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University, USA
Andrea Pető: Department of Gender Studies, Central European University, Hungary
Natalia Trujillo: School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University, USA

Politics and Governance, 2022, vol. 10, issue 4, 121-131

Abstract: This article explores the attacks to which gender studies programs in Central and Eastern Europe have been subject and the responses such attacks have elicited in the context of analogous phenomena in other parts of the world. The undermining of gender studies in recent years has been aggravated by the effects of the Covid‐19 pandemic that has exacerbated financial crises of educational institutions while also—in some contexts—providing cover for restrictions on academic freedom. Our specific focus here, however, is on how illiberal policies have limited the scope of academic gender studies, sometimes calling into question their very existence. To identify the modalities through which illiberal governments may narrow gender studies programs, we draw on Pirro and Stanley’s analysis of illiberal policymakers’ toolkit based on “forging,” “breaking,” and “bending.” We consider these categories useful for our analysis but add a fourth: “de‐specification”—a purposeful submersion, or redefinition, of gender studies into other programs, such as family studies. Our purpose is not to present an exhaustive analysis but rather to delineate a framework for analyzing such attacks and the responses to which they have given rise, and then to indicate some questions for further research. As such, this article should be read as a work in progress that seeks to explicate the modalities of the attacks on gender studies in higher education to which contemporary illiberalism has given rise concomitantly with attacks on gender rights and emerging forms of resistance that bespeak the resilience of the gender academy.

Keywords: anti‐gender attacks; Eastern Europe; gender studies; illiberalism; resilience; resistance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/5529 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cog:poango:v10:y:2022:i:4:p:121-131

DOI: 10.17645/pag.v10i4.5529

Access Statistics for this article

Politics and Governance is currently edited by Carolina Correia

More articles in Politics and Governance from Cogitatio Press
Bibliographic data for series maintained by António Vieira () and IT Department ().