‘We were fighting for our place’: Resisting gender knowledge regimes through feminist knowledge network formation

Abstract

The transformative potential of feminist knowledge in the disciplines of entrepreneurship, business and management has arguably been hindered by persistent gender knowledge regimes that marginalize feminist scholarship and channel widely applicable gender expertise into niche streams, conferences and publication outlets. Whilst offering valuable spaces for feminist knowledge production, removing gender expertise from mainstream fora reduces its centrality to broader debates, maintaining its marginality and limiting its impact. Taking a collaborative autoethnographic approach, we explore the formation and development of a UK‐based organization for feminist entrepreneurship scholars, the Gender and Enterprise Network, as a means of collective resistance to this perpetuation of enforced marginality. Our network challenges extant gender knowledge regimes and offers transformative opportunities within and outside of our respective organizations, providing insights for others wishing to form similar networks and contributing to ongoing debates on the value and valuing of feminist knowledge.

Dangerous Knowledge: The Political, Personal, and Epistemological Promise of Feminist Research in Management and Organization Studies

“…2012; Jones et al . 2018; Lewis and Simpson 2012; Tatli and Ӧzbilgin 2012). Calás and Smircich (2014), in their analysis of feminism in MOS, argue that the politics of gender in society and the conventions of professions and institutions combine to ensure that feminism is associated more with advocacy than as a means of knowledge production.…”

“…Many embody their scholarship, and thereby expose themselves to criticism in patriarchal academic settings (Benschop and Verloo 2016; Jones et al . 2018; Özkazanc‐Pan 2012a). Such embodied theoretical activism is based on a clear realization that ‘[n]o longer is “the knower” imaginable as a self‐contained, infinitely replicable “individual” making universally valid knowledge claims from a “god's eye” position removed from the incidental features and the power and privilege structures of the physical‐social world’ (Code 2014, p. 10).…”

Enacting everyday feminist collaborations: Reflexive becoming, proactive improvisation and co‐learning partnerships

“…Lastly, scholars have also sought to re‐imagine relational dynamics in the context of feminist collaborations. At the structural level, Jones et al () called for building collaborative networks to challenge the marginalization of feminist knowledge. Drawing from their experience building the Gender and Enterprise Network, a UK‐based organization for feminist entrepreneurship scholars, they were able to enhance the professional development of the network's members and support the deepening and mainstreaming of feminist knowledge production and expertise in the male‐dominated field.…”

“…Drawing from their experience building the Gender and Enterprise Network, a UK‐based organization for feminist entrepreneurship scholars, they were able to enhance the professional development of the network's members and support the deepening and mainstreaming of feminist knowledge production and expertise in the male‐dominated field. The network ‘constitutes a collaborative response to individualistic neoliberal trends within the contemporary academy and beyond’ (Jones et al, , p. 2). At the interpersonal level, Rymer () called for incorporating co‐mentoring into everyday collaborative processes in academia.…”

“…Recognizing that the personal can be political and theoretical (Kaplan & Rose, ), we draw from feminist theories and our autoethnographic reflections to surface multiple metaphors that begin to capture feminist forms of collaboration. We argue that collaborative processes can be part of everyday organizing that resists and/or perpetuates inequality regimes, the interlocked processes and practices that sustain inequalities in organizations (Acker, ; Jones, Dy, & Vershinina, ).…”