Teaching gender under the rise of postfeminism | Amsterdam University Press Journals Online
2004
Volume 27, Issue 2/3
  • ISSN: 1388-3186
  • E-ISSN: 2352-2437

Samenvatting

Abstract

This paper discusses efforts to re-integrate feminist classroom perspectives and pedagogies within the undergraduate geography curriculum at Utrecht University, the Netherlands. As ‘feminist educators’ of this recently revised programme, we identify the mounting hegemony of postfeminist and neoliberal ideologies as key contextual challenges to our endeavour, coupled with the legacy of Dutch geography as a pragmatic, applied discipline. By zooming in on and collectively reflecting on our roles and practices in the courses we coordinate and teach, we delineate three strategies worth pursuing to achieve a feminist teaching agenda under the current political-institutional climate. The proposed strategies of valuing lived experiences, embodied immersive epistemologies, and partial local knowledges, are rooted in the main concerns of feminist-inspired research and help create and cultivate situated moments of connection, reflection, and learning. While these strategies are certainly not capable of subverting neoliberal and postfeminist tendencies on their own, we contend that they can be useful building blocks for feminist inspired teaching agendas beyond our discipline as they help expose traditional power hierarchies within and outside the classroom, as well as underscore the societal relevance of feminist thinking in times of increased social polarisation and reactionary politics.

Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journals/10.5117/TVGN2024.2-3.008.ZILL
2024-09-01
2024-09-27
Loading full text...

Full text loading...

/deliver/fulltext/13883186/27/2/3/TVGN2024.2-3.008.ZILL.html?itemId=/content/journals/10.5117/TVGN2024.2-3.008.ZILL&mimeType=html&fmt=ahah

References

  1. Aalst, I., & Nijenhuis, G. (2023). Closing the gap: The city studio as a creative method. Ediapolis: A Journal of Cities and Culture, 8(4). https://www.mediapolisjournal.com/2023/11/closing-the-gap/
    [Google Scholar]
  2. Adams-Hutcheson, G., & Johnston, L. (2019). Flourishing in fragile academic work spaces and learning environments: Feminist geographies of care and mentoring. Gender, Place & Culture, 26(4), 451–467. doi:10.1080/0966369X.2019.1596885
    [Google Scholar]
  3. Bono, F., De Craene, V., & Kenis, A. (2019). My best geographer’s dress: Bodies, emotions and care in early-career academia. Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography101(1), 21–32. doi:10.1080/04353684.2019.1568200
    [Google Scholar]
  4. Boschma, M., & Daalmans, S. (2021). What a girl wants, what a girl needs: Analyzing postfeminist themes in girls’ magazines. Media and Communication, 9(2), 27–38. doi:10.17645/mac.v9i2.3757
    [Google Scholar]
  5. Bronsvoort, I., Hoffman, J., & Hajer, M. (2020). Wat hoe en wie: Vormgeven aan inclusieve ontmoetingen in de energietransitie. Utrecht: Urban Futures Studio, Universiteit Utrecht. Retrieved from https://www.uu.nl/sites/default/files/Wat%20Hoe%20en%20Wie%3F%20Vormgeven%20aan%20inclusieve%20ontmoetingen%20in%20de%20energietransitie-Urban%20Futures%20Studio%202020(web).pdf
    [Google Scholar]
  6. Burke, S., Carr, A., Casson, H., Coddington, K., Colls, R., Jollans, A., Jordan, S., Smith, K., Taylor, N., & Urquhart, H. (2017). Generative spaces: Intimacy, activism and teaching feminist geographies. Gender, Place & Culture24(5), 661–673. doi:10.1080/0966369X.2017.1335293
    [Google Scholar]
  7. Coddington, K. (2015). Feminist geographies ‘beyond’ gender: De-coupling feminist research and the gendered subject: Feminist geographies ‘beyond’ gender. Geography Compass, 9(4), 214–224. doi.org/10.1111/gec3.12207
    [Google Scholar]
  8. De Craene, V., Van Eenoo, E., Imeraj, L., Caset, F., Aernouts, N., Bruggeman, D., & Juwet, G.(2023). De genderdimensies van ruimte (Special issue). Tijdschrift Voor Genderstudies, 26(1), 1–112.
    [Google Scholar]
  9. Droogleever Fortuijn, J. (2002). Gender issues in Dutch geography. Espace, Populations, Sociétés20(3), 411–414. doi:10.3406/espos.2002.2050
    [Google Scholar]
  10. Droogleever Fortuijn, J. (2019). Gender and geography in the Netherlands: From separation to integration. Gender, Place & Culture, 26(7–9), 1297–1303. doi:10.1080/0966369X.2018.1554557
    [Google Scholar]
  11. Droogleever Fortuijn, J. (2020). Teaching feminist geography: Practices and perspectives. In A.Datta, P.Hopkins, L.Johnston E. Olson, & J.Maria Silva (Eds.), Routledge handbook of gender and feminist geographies (pp. 501–510). London: Routledge.
    [Google Scholar]
  12. Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York: Continuum.
    [Google Scholar]
  13. Freire, P. (2008). The ‘banking’ concept of education. In D.Petrovsky, & A.Petrovsky (Eds.), Ways of Reading (8th ed.) (pp. 242–254). Boston: Bedford- St. Martin’s.
    [Google Scholar]
  14. Fritzsche, L. (2022). Integrating contemplative pedagogy and anti-oppressive pedagogy in geography higher education classrooms. Journal of Geography in Higher Education, 46(2), 167–184. doi:10.1080/03098265.2021.1946766
    [Google Scholar]
  15. Gill, R. (2016). Post-postfeminism?: New feminist visibilities in postfeminist times. Feminist Media Studies, 16(4), 610–630. doi:10.1080/14680777.2016.1193293
    [Google Scholar]
  16. Gill, R. (2017). The affective, cultural and psychic life of postfeminism: A postfeminist sensibility 10 years on. European Journal of Cultural Studies, 20(6), 606–626. doi:10.1177/1367549417733003
    [Google Scholar]
  17. Gill, R., & Orgad, S. (2015). The confidence cult(ure). Australian Feminist Studies, 30(86), 324–344. doi:10.1080/08164649.2016.1148001
    [Google Scholar]
  18. Haraway, D.J. (1988). Situated knowledges: The science question in feminism and the privilege of the partial perspective. Feminist Studies, 14(3), 575–599.
    [Google Scholar]
  19. Hiemstra, N., & Billo, E. (2017). Introduction to focus section: Feminist research and knowledge production in geography. The Professional Geographer, 69(2), 284–290. doi:10.1080/00330124.2016.1208103
    [Google Scholar]
  20. hooks, b. (1994). Teaching to transgress: Education as the practice of freedom. New York London: Routledge Taylor & Francis Group.
    [Google Scholar]
  21. Karsten, L. (1988). Combining tasks in everyday life. The Netherlands Journal of Housing and Environmental Research, 3(2), 107–121. doi.org:10.1007/BF02496432
    [Google Scholar]
  22. Karsten, L. (1989). The challenge of feminist geography: Feminist geography in the Netherlands. Journal of Geography in Higher Education, 13(1), 104–106. doi.org:10.1080/03098268908709071
    [Google Scholar]
  23. Kern, L. (2020). Feminist city: Claiming space in the man-made world. New York: Verso.
    [Google Scholar]
  24. Kinkaid, E. (2023). Whose geography, whose future? Queering geography’s disciplinary reproduction. Dialogues in Human Geography (online first), 1–5. doi:10.1177/20438206221144839
    [Google Scholar]
  25. Knopp, L. (2007). On the relationship between queer and feminist geographies. The Professional Geographer, 59(1), 47–55. doi.org:10.1111/j.1467-9272.2007.00590.x
    [Google Scholar]
  26. Laing, A.F. (2021). Decolonising pedagogies in undergraduate geography: Student perspectives on a decolonial movements module. Journal of Geography in Higher Education, 45(1), 1–19. doi:10.1080/03098265.2020.1815180
    [Google Scholar]
  27. Laliberté, N., Bain, A., Lankenau, G., & Bolduc, M. (2017). The controversy capital of stealth feminism in higher education. ACME: An International Journal for Critical Geographies, 1, 34–58.
    [Google Scholar]
  28. Laliberté, N., Driscoll Derickson, K., & Dowler, L. (2010). Advances in feminist geography. In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of International Studies. doi:10.1093/acrefore/9780190846626.013.116
    [Google Scholar]
  29. Lefebvre, H. (1996). The right to the city. In E.Kofman & E.Lebas (Eds.), Writings on cities (pp. 147–159). Cambridge: Blackwell Publishers.
    [Google Scholar]
  30. Light, T.P., Nicholas, J., & Bondy, R. (Ed.). (2015). Feminist pedagogy in higher education: Critical theory and practice. Waterloo, Ontario, Canada: Wilfrid Laurier University Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  31. Love, M.A., & Helmbrecht, B.M. (2007). Teaching the conflicts: (Re)engaging students with feminism in a postfeminist world. Feminist Teacher, 18(1), 41–58. doi:10.1353/ftr.2008.0008
    [Google Scholar]
  32. Lucas-Palacios, L., García-Luque, A., & Delgado-Algarra, E.J. (2022). Gender equity in initial teacher training: Descriptive and factorial study of students’ conceptions in a Spanish educational context. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 19(14), 8369. doi:10.3390/ijerph19148369
    [Google Scholar]
  33. McDowell, L. (1997). Women/gender/feminisms: Doing feminist geography. Journal of Geography in Higher Education, 21(3), 381–400.
    [Google Scholar]
  34. McDowell, L., & Sharp, J.P. (Ed.). (1997). Space, gender, knowledge: Feminist readings. New York: Wiley.
    [Google Scholar]
  35. McRobbie, A. (2004). Post-feminism and popular culture. Feminist Media Studies, 4(3), 255–265. doi:10.1080/1468077042000309937
    [Google Scholar]
  36. Monk, J. (1994). Place matters: Comparative international perspectives on feminist geography. The Professional Geographer, 46(3), 277–288. doi:10.1111/j.0033-0124.1994.00277.x
    [Google Scholar]
  37. Moss, P.J., & Falconer Al-Hindi, K. (2008). Feminisms in geography: Rethinking space, place, and knowledges. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield.
    [Google Scholar]
  38. Mountz, A., Bonds, A., Mansfield, B., Loyd, J., Hyndman, J., Walton-Roberts, M., & Basu, R. (2015). For slow scholarship: A feminist politics of resistance through collective action in the neoliberal university. ACME: An International Journal for Critical Geographies, 14(4), 1235–1259.
    [Google Scholar]
  39. Nash, M. (2013). Reflections on teaching gender to Australian sociology undergraduates in the neoliberal postfeminist classroom. Journal of Sociology, 49(4), 411–425. doi:10.1177/1440783313504053
    [Google Scholar]
  40. Nygren, A., & Quesada, F. (2020). Imagining cities of inclusion: Formulating spaces of justice. Urban Planning, 5(3), 200–205. doi:10.17645/up.v5i3.3465
    [Google Scholar]
  41. Off, G. (2023). Complexities and nuances in radical right voters’ (anti)feminism. Social Politics: International Studies in Gender, State & Society, 30(2), 607–629. doi:10.1093/sp/jxad010
    [Google Scholar]
  42. Ormond, M., & Vietti, F. (2022). Beyond multicultural ‘tolerance’: Guided tours and guidebooks as transformative tools for civic learning. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 30(2–3), 533–549. doi:10.1080/09669582.2021.1901908
    [Google Scholar]
  43. Outshoorn, J., & Oldersma, J. (2007). Dutch decay: The dismantling of the women’s policy network in the Netherlands. In J.Outshoorn & J.Kantola (Eds.), Changing state of feminism (pp. 182–200). London: Palgrave Macmillan.
    [Google Scholar]
  44. Prast, H. (2017). De mythe van de voltooide emancipatie. MeJudice (blog), https://www.mejudice.nl/artikelen/detail/de-mythe-van-de-voltooide-emancipatie
    [Google Scholar]
  45. Pratt, G. (2008). Reflections on poststructuralism and feminist empirics, theory and practice. In P.Moss & K.Falconer Al-Hindi (Eds.), Feminisms in geography. Rethinking space, place and knowledge, (pp. 49–59). Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield.
    [Google Scholar]
  46. Rose, G. (1997). Situating knowledges: Positionality, reflexivities and other tactics. Progress in Human Geography, 21(3), 305–321.
    [Google Scholar]
  47. Rosenthal, I. (2006). Inleiding op het feminismedossier. Krisis, 3, 24–27.
    [Google Scholar]
  48. Sanders, R., & Dudley Jenkins, L. (2022). Control, alt, delete: Patriarchal populist attacks on international women’s rights. Global Constitutionalism, 11(3), 401–429. doi:10.1017/S2045381721000198
    [Google Scholar]
  49. Vacchelli, E., & Kofman, E. (2018). Towards an inclusive and gendered right to the city. Cities, 76, 1–3. doi:10.1016/j.cities.2017.10.013
    [Google Scholar]
  50. Van Hoven, B. (2009). ‘Can you write a memo on why we have to do gender, please?’ An experiential account of teaching gender geography in the Netherlands. Journal of Geography in Higher Education, 33(3), 315–325. doi:10.1080/03098260902742409
    [Google Scholar]
  51. Van Hoven, B., Been, W., Droogleever Fortuijn, J., & Mamadouh, V. (2010). Teaching feminist geographies in the Netherlands. Learning from student-led fieldtrips. Documents d’Anàlisi Geogràfica, 56(2), 305-321.
    [Google Scholar]
  52. Verloo, M., & Paternotte, D. (2018). The feminist project under threat in Europe. Politics and Governance, 6(3), 1–5. doi:10.17645/pag.v6i3.1736
    [Google Scholar]
  53. Women Make the City. (2023). https://womenmakethecity.nl/
http://instance.metastore.ingenta.com/content/journals/10.5117/TVGN2024.2-3.008.ZILL
Loading
/content/journals/10.5117/TVGN2024.2-3.008.ZILL
Loading

Data & Media loading...

Dit is een verplicht veld
Graag een geldig e-mailadres invoeren
Approval was a Success
Invalid data
An Error Occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error