Call for Papers: Themed Issue on ‘Where are we with feminist methods?’
Debates, tools, and practices have expanded considerably since the signifier
‘feminist’ first attached itself to ‘method’ and ‘methodology’. Early discussions
suggested that feminism required a distinct approach to empirical inquiry; one that
recognised and challenged systemic gender disparities, validated women’s
‘experience’, rejected hierarchies between the researcher and research participant,
and had emancipation as its ultimate purpose and goal. Some of these early defining
claims and their related developments have had uptake and have been used to
experiment with method. Others have been recast in a wide range of practices and
fields that move beyond the category of ‘woman’ to include non-human and inhuman modes of relating in areas such as science and technology studies,
epigenomics, and climatology. Yet, a commitment to make feminism mean
something in the doing of empirical research, cultural analysis, artistic practice and
in activism, has continued to both subvert and supplement the idea of a distinct
feminist methodological imperative.
How might we make sense of the continuing attachment to the idea of feminist
methods and methodologies? In what ways are methods being (re)framed and
approached, including in teaching, the use of tools and techniques, participatory
practices, knowledge exchange networks, reflexivity and the understanding of
ethics? What methods are evolving to face the challenge of newly coordinated social
realities where the porous, non-linear, and virtual are entangled with enduring
material and geo-social inequalities? By posing such questions we hope to incite
contributions that will shed new light on the evolving concerns and implementation
of methodological practices in feminist projects and in interdisciplinary working.
We welcome papers based in any discipline that describe, discuss, and interrogate
methodological experiences, debates, tools and praxis and that engage with one or
all of the following questions:
1. What are the defining features of feminist methodology?
2. What methods, analytic frameworks, and/or methodological collaborations
are being used and/or are needed? What are the challenges that are being
faced?
3. How are feminists teaching methods, including in participative community
based projects, in Higher Education, in other forms of training and knowledge
exchange, and in places that are hostile to feminism?
Possible topics include, but are not limited to explorations of:
 New methodological tools and approaches
 Quantitative methods, measure and value
 Methods of making and producing problems
 Ethical dilemmas and/or reflexive practice
 Performativity, arts-based practices and experimentation
 Digital methods, cyber communication and/or working with e-networks and
communities
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Temporality and/or topology
Observation
Empiricism and affect, including psychoanalytic, multi-sensory and posthuman approaches
Postcolonial, multisited and/or indigenous methods
Research in conflict zones
Risk and danger in the field
Investigating disasters, crisis and vulnerability
Corporate cultures and feminist methods
Queer ontologies, methodologies and ethics
Funding, governance and/or securitization
User and public engagement and involvement
Issue editors: Yasmin Gunaratnam, Carrie Hamilton and Ioana Szeman.
Deadline for first drafts of papers marked clearly ‘METHODS’ submitted online and
following Feminist Review guidelines (http://www.palgravejournals.com/fr/author_instructions.html) by 1 September 2015.
The editors are happy to discuss possible papers informally with potential
contributors. Please contact: y.gunaratnam@gold.ac.uk;
c.hamilton@roehampton.ac.uk; i.szeman@roehampton.ac.uk