Hard Heads and Soft Hearts

Embodied Institutions and Epistemic Exclusions: Affect in the Academy

“…Such experiences are, of course, not confined to philosophy (nor are they distributed equally across different academic disciplines). 11 In the political sciences, the imagined separation between the private and public sphere makes itself felt in the continued lack of legitimacy and equal recognition accorded to scholarship that focuses on issues of race and gender, and the prevalence of state-centric, macrolevel analyses of political phenomena (Johnson 2014;Pearce et al 2019). In the field of international relations as well as economics, analyses of institutional processes and institutional actors remain governed by a conservative, masculinist conception of individuals as homo economicus: as radically autonomous, disembodied, self-sufficient actors that act purely according to self-interest.…”

“…In the academy, differential investments in the epistemic frameworks that have been developed by diverse social communities are reflected in the discursive construction of certain research areas as 'hard' or 'soft,' in ways that map on to the public/private, objective/subjective, masculine/ feminine, white/black divide (Johnson 2014). Black legal professor Jacquelyn Bridgeman recounts an incident where her colleague expressed a concern that in contrast to Bridgeman's other publications in legal theory, Bridgeman's work on issues of Black racial identity "did not demonstrate the kind of rigorous legal analysis" that Bridgeman's review board would count towards "a favourable tenure decision" (2020, p. 18.…”

Can We Change How Political Science Thinks? “Gender Mainstreaming” in a Resistant Discipline

“…Evidence of successful gender mainstreaming requires some impact of feminist ideas on CPS's frameworks and use of gender as an analytic category outside FPS. While the extent of gender-focused knowledge is increasing, Johnson (2014) concludes that in Australia, it is becoming harder to make mainstream political scientists think in “gender-inclusive ways,” because of the increased influence of neoliberalism. Insisting that feminist scholarship in the UK has had significant impact, Randall also acknowledges the existence of “indicators of continued marginalization” and that “attempts to widen disciplinary conceptions of [the] … political” (2014: 28–29) usually fail.…”

“…Drawing from reports and studies about the five Anglo-American democracies, the paper argues that more women professors, robust politics and gender fields and feminist sub-fields haven't resulted in transformative change in how conventional political scientists think. The paper first maps the judgments of many leading feminist scholars (Curthoys, 1998, 2014; Curtin, 2013; Hartsock, 2001; Johnson, 2014; Keränen, 1990; Randall, 2014; Trimble, 2002) that, while FPS has added much new knowledge, it hasn't been “transformative of the discipline” (Sawer, 2004: 563). This claim is then supported with evidence showing that much of the new knowledge is invisible to the rest of the discipline and gender isn't used as an analytic category outside of FPS.…”

“…For example, Curtin found that more women professors didn't change the marginalization of gender scholarship in New Zealand or mainstream scholars' reluctance “to recognize … women as political actors and scholars and … engage with gender as an analytic category” (2013: 4). Johnson (2014) concludes that, despite decades of feminist research, Australian political science remains “markedly resistant” to change, especially compared to history and sociology.…”