A shelf of one's own and a room with good views: the importance of place in negotiations of the status of feminist scholarship. Issue 7 (3rd July 2022)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Pereira, Maria do Mar
• Is Part Of: Gender, place and culture. Volume 29:Issue 7(2022)
• Page Start: 983
• Page End: 1008
• Publication Date: 2022-07-03
• Subjects: Academic conferences -- affect and emotion -- ethnography -- Portugal -- Women's -- Gender -- Feminist Studies -- science; Human geography -- Periodicals; Feminism -- Periodicals; Géographie féministe -- Périodiques; 305.305
• DOI: 10.1080/0966369X.2021.1972283
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0966-369X

Abstract

Abstract: Place is not a neutral backdrop against which knowledge production unfolds; it plays an important role in academic practice on many levels, namely in negotiations of what counts as proper knowledge. Specific places are invested with epistemic authority, and thus lend credibility to the knowledge claims produced or presented within them. Place can, therefore, be a valuable resource for academics, especially those working in marginal fields – like Women's, Gender, Feminist Studies (WGFS) – who are under pressure to prove the value of their work. In this article, I focus on negotiations of the status of WGFS, asking how WGFS scholars strategically use place to build credibility and community for the field. To do this, I draw on a longitudinal ethnography of Portuguese academia, and explore two different types of place. I begin with a discussion of conference venues, using data on two events to analyse how WGFS scholars try to locate conferences in specific places to access particular audiences and create certain moods. In the second example, I zoom in on a bookshelf – a familiar, but overlooked, micro-place – asking how such small but valuable places of WGFS visibility are created and invested with meaning and emotion. Through these examples, I demonstrate that place is very significant in negotiations of the status of WGFS. It is significant not just because of the epistemic credibility it may bestow, but also because of the affective and emotional impacts it may have on the individuals and communities involved in those negotiations.