Abstract
This chapter explores the production of work knowledge, through an account of a research journey from institutional capture to discovery. The chapter is based on a study I conducted of epistemic inequalities in Finnish gender studies, from the standpoint of feminist academics. My initial plan for the research project was to focus on how experiences of epistemic exclusion where organized by the Finnish neoliberal higher education reforms and hegemonic feminist epistemic orientations. However, I learned that my interests in epistemic exclusion and hegemonies blocked me from seeing people’s actual activities and challenges. Rather this focus, I realized, directed me toward confirming existing theory. The particular analysis I was able to produce, in the end, was only possible through a focus on the work of producing gender studies—that allowed me to take seriously the complexities and contradictions of people’s experiences, and their socially organized possibilities for participation.
The for people signifies a manner of distinguishing the purpose of Institutional Ethnography from approaches that do research about people.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Atkinson, R. (1998). The life story interview. New York: SAGE Publishing.
Campbell, M., & Gregor, F. (2004). Mapping social relations: A primer in doing social relations. Lanham: AltaMira Press.
Dahl, U., Liljeström, M., & Manns, U. (2016). The geopolitics of Nordic and Russian gender research 1975–2005. Huddinge: Södertörns högskola.
DeVault, M. L. (1996). Talking back to sociology: Distinctive contributions of feminist methodology. Annual Review of Sociology, 22(1), 29–50.
DeVault, M. L., & McCoy, L. (2006). Institutional ethnography: Using interviews to investigate ruling relations. In D. Smith (Ed.), Institutional ethnography as practice (pp. 15–44). Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield.
do Mar Pereira, M. (2017). Power, knowledge and feminist scholarship: An ethnography of academia. London: Routledge.
Fawcett, B., & Hearn, J. (2004). Researching others: Epistemology, experience, standpoints and participation. International Journal of Social Research Methodology, 7(3), 201–218.
Fricker, M. (2007). Epistemic injustice: Power and the ethics of knowing. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Gershon, I. (2011). Neoliberal agency. Current Anthropology, 52(4), 537–555. https://doi.org/10.1086/660866.
Griffin, G., & Braidotti, R. (Eds.). (2002). Thinking differently: A reader in European women’s studies. London: Zed Books.
Haraway, D. (1988). Situated knowledges: The science question in feminism and the privilege of partial perspective. Feminist Studies, 14(3), 575–599.
Harding, S. (1993). Rethinking standpoint epistemology: What is “strong objectivity”? In A. Linda, & P. Elizabeth (Eds.), Feminist epistemologies (pp. 49–82). London: Routledge.
Harding, S. (1995). “Strong objectivity”: A response to the new objectivity question. Synthese, 104(3), 331–349. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01064504.
Harding, S. (2007). Feminist standpoints. In S. N. Hesse-Biber (Ed.), Handbook of feminist research: Theory and praxis (pp. 46–64). London: Routledge.
Hekman, S. (1997). Truth and method: Feminist standpoint theory revisited. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 22(2), 341–365. https://doi.org/10.1086/495159.
Hemmings, C. (2011). Why stories matter: The political grammar of feminist theory. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Hemmings, C. (2012). Affective solidarity: Feminist reflexivity and political transformation. Feminist Theory, 13(2), 147–161. https://doi.org/10.1177/1464700112442643.
Korvajärvi, P., & Vuori, J. (2016). A classroom of our own: Transforming interdisciplinarity locally. Women’s Studies International Forum, 54, 138–146. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wsif.2015.06.012.
Lund, R. (2012). Publishing to become an “ideal academic”: An institutional ethnography and a feminist critique. Scandinavian Journal of Management, 28(3), 218–228.
Lund, R. (2015). Doing the ideal academic: Gender, excellence and changing academia (Doctoral Dissertations 1998/2015). Aalto University Publication Series, Helsinki.
Lund, R. (2020). The social organisation of boasting in the neoliberal university. Gender and Education, 32(4), 466–485.
Lund, R. & Tienari J. (2019). Passion, care, and eros in the gendered neoliberal university. Organization, 26(1), 98–121.
Messer-Davidow, E. (2002). Disciplining feminism: From social activism to academic discourse. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Mykhalovskiy, E., & McCoy, L. (2002). Troubling ruling discourses of health: Using institutional ethnography in community-based research. Critical Public Health, 12(1), 17–37. https://doi.org/10.1080/09581590110113286.
Probyn, E. (2003). Sexing the self: Gendered positions in cultural studies. London: Routledge.
Rolin, K. (2006). The bias paradox in feminist standpoint epistemology. Episteme, 3(1–2), 125–136.
Rolin, K. (2015). Values in science: The case of scientific collaboration. Philosophy of Science, 82(2), 157–177. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.shpsa.2015.10.008.
Scott, S. (2017). Helsinki University change review, beyond the changes: The effects of, and lessons from, the downsizing and restructuring process of 2015–2017. Helsinki University Change Review Group. Available from: http://yliopisto2020.fi/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Beyond-the-Changes-SUE-SCOTT-fullreport.pdf.
Smith, D. E. (1974). Women’s perspective as a radical critique of sociology. Sociological Inquiry, 44(1), 7–13.
Smith, D. E. (1987). The everyday world as problematic: A feminist sociology. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Smith, D. E. (1990). The conceptual practices of power: A feminist sociology of knowledge. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Smith, D. E. (1997). Comment on Hekman’s “Truth and method: Feminist standpoint theory revisited.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 22(2), 392–398. https://doi.org/10.1086/495164.
Smith, D. E. (1999). Telling the truth after postmodernism. Writing the social (pp. 96– 113). Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Smith, D. E. (2005). Institutional ethnography: A sociology for people. Lanham: Altamira Press.
Smith, D. E. (Ed.). (2006). Institutional ethnography as practice. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
von der Fehr, D., Rosenbeck, B., & Jonasdòttir, A. G. (Eds.). (1998). Is there a Nordic feminism: Nordic feminist thought on culture and society. London: University College London Press.
Wylie, A. (2003). Why standpoint matters. In R. Figueroa, S. Harding, & A. Wylie. (Eds.), Science and other cultures: Issues in philosophies of science and technology (pp. 26–48). London: Routledge.
Ylijoki, O. H. (2005). Academic nostalgia: A narrative approach to academic work. Human Relations, 58(5), 555–576. https://doi.org/10.1177/0018726705055963.
Acknowledgment
I would like all the people who have participated in this research. I would also like to thank Marja Vehviläinen, Päivi Korvajärvi, Louise Morley, Tiina Suopajärvi, Helene Aarseth, Ann Christin Nilsen, and May-Linda Magnussen for fruitful discussions and comments, as well as editors, Paul Luken and Suzanne Vaughan, for comments on the early versions of this chapter.
Funding
Funded by Academy of Finland, project number 310795/326765.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2021 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Lund, R.W.B. (2021). Invoking Work Knowledge: Exploring the Social Organization of Producing Gender Studies. In: Luken, P.C., Vaughan, S. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Institutional Ethnography. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54222-1_10
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54222-1_10
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-54221-4
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-54222-1
eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)