This article is an examination of what consequences our passion for critical research has had on our relation to Gender Studies as a discipline. The examination begins with the exclusion from, and escape from, another discipline, to the space and possibilities offered by Gender Studies. This move is, however, also an escape into a new discipline and a new order of normativities. We move on to identifying these normativities: 1) Gender Studies as constituted through a compromise with research ideals, where, for example, the concept gender (genus) is depicted as more inclusive than other concepts, and Gender Studies as less critical and political than Feminist Studies, 2) the dogmatism of sisterhood, as an identity based limitation for research, and 3) the constant mix-up with, and adaptation to, both governmental gender equality politics and activist organisations outside the university. In order to exist, Gender Studies has, in some way or another, compromised with all three of these normativities. We do not assume that this development is automatically bad or good – the normativities do not always reinforce each other, incongruences and gaps sometimes appear when they meet, and a compromise also implies that there still remains something of that which is ‘other’, of that which was ‘too much’ and had to be compromised. However, for the moment they seem to interact with a neo-liberal governmentality that restructures politics, activist demands, and identifications as well as research focus and university organisation. Hence, we see a need for a re-organisation of academic feminism, using Gender Studies as a platform, but constituted by neither the traditional object of study (“women/gender”) nor the idea of infinite inclusion and flexibility (“intersectionality”). Instead we propose that passion for critical research (including responsibility of that research), organised around the untimely idea of a non-competitive collegium, constitutes the guiding rules for a non-nostalgic and non-identical academic feminism.

Vad behövs för att förstå arbetslivets och arbetsmarknadens genusbaserade segreger-ingsprocesser och ojämlika villkor på olika platser och i olika rum? Hur kan forskning som kombinerar perspektiven genus, plats och arbete bidra till ett arbetsliv som är hållbart och betydelsefullt för människor? Vilka frågor behöver ställas och besvaras i en kontext där arbetsmarknader och arbeten beskrivs som i ständig förändring, ofta i relation till megatrender som globalisering, urbanisering, digitalisering och automati-sering (till exempel Schwab 2016; OECD 2019)? Men där samtidigt skilda villkor och genusmässiga konsekvenser – här och nu – på lokala arbetsmarknader och i specifika organisationer och näringar synliggörs? Frågor om framtidens arbetsmarknad och arbetsliv handlar om komplexa skeenden på olika nivåer och platser och har med hela samhällsutvecklingen att göra. Vilka de största utmaningarna och förändring-arna är varierar men vi vet att de ofta får könade och genusifierade konsekvenser, att förändringar i arbetslivet drabbar kvinnor och män, rasifierade, migrerade, queera och funktionsvarierade olika, och att det hänger ihop med hur vi förstår ’arbete’. Till exempel att produktionen är överordnad reproduktionen, att normer om heltidsarbe-ten och lönearbeten osynliggör arbeten som utförs under osäkra och ’flexibla’ former. Även utbildningens förändrade roll villkorar människors möjligheter i både arbets- och vardagsliv, ofta i relation till plats/platser (till exempel Johansson med flera 2017; Dølvik och Steen 2018). Genom att samla bidrag som på olika sätt studerar och belyser arbete med utgångspunkt i teori om plats och rum i kombination med genusteori, vill vi visa hur denna forskning fortsatt har en viktig plats för att förstå de mekanis-mer och maktrelationer som skapar segregering i arbetslivet och i samhället i stort. Vi skriver fortsatt här för att vi anser att dessa perspektiv, som tidigare haft ett stort fokus inom såväl genus- och arbetslivsforskning som kulturgeografi, idag hamnat mer i skymundan. Vi vill med detta temanummer visa aktualiteten och angelägenheten att diskutera dessa frågor och behovet av teoretisk belysning.

The aim of this article is to investigate interferences between

gender, class, sexuality, and ethnicity among international students

by looking at migration patterns and living conditions of international

master and PhD-students at three Swedish universities (Luleå

University of Technology (LTU), Linköping University (LiU), The

Royal Institute of Technology (KTH)). The experiences of these

students with regard to transnationalism, higher education and

research is a point of departure for discussing global stratification

and transformation in the contemporary neoliberal knowledge

economy. The article interprets the transnational flows of higher

education in relation to a critical understanding of knowledge

society and higher education by introducing the notion of eduscapes.

This concept refers to the contemporary transnational flow

of ideas and people with regard to higher education, and where

nodes of knowledge centres and peripheries shift over time but are

connected through modern communication technologies and

different epistemic, ethnic, and student communities. In the

transnational practices of higher education where students travel

the globe in search and dreams of knowledge, a better life and

future career possibilities, routes and imaginaries to a large extent

reproduce and follow geopolitical power patterns. In this respect

education by going global is shrinking the world but also stratifies,

creating new patterns of inequality and competition.

SammanfattningMode är ett ämne som förtjänar seriös uppmärksamhet. I denna artikel argumenteras för de möjligheter som ett närmande mellan genusforskning, kritisk mansforskning, nyare maskulinitetsforskning, queer och nyare mode- och konsumtionsforskning samt visuella kulturstudier kan ge, inte enbart teoretiskt, utan också empiriskt genom att grunda undersökningarna i nyare etnografi. Den etnografi som förordas är inriktad både på större rörelser i modesystemet och lokala praktiker. Inledningsvis diskuteras den problematiska relationen mellan feminismerna och modeforskning. Connells modell av hegemonisk maskulinitet kritiseras för att förhindra en mer dynamisk och komplex förståelse av maskulinitet. Författarna pläderar för en mer öppen förståelse av såväl maskulinitet som av mode, där förekomsten av flerfaldiga och konkurrerande hegemoniska maskulinitetsideal och moden beaktas och forskning inriktas på att undersöka hur maskulinitet skapas och iscensätts genom varierande, och idag till stor del sällan uppmärksammade, manliga estetiseringspraktiker ett forskningsområde som författarna tillskriver stora potentialer. De begränsningar som finns i dagens modeforskning kan överskridas, hävdar författarna, om de utmaningar som nyare förståelser av kön, genus och sexualitet erbjuder tas seriöst och genus istället för att ses som en struktur eller diskurs, med Butlerska termer förstås som pågående kroppsliga upprepningar och göranden. Paradoxalt nog tenderar modestudier att befästa sin marginaliserade ställning i vetenskapssamhället eftersom kläder och frisyrer främst förstås som speglingar av andra kulturella och sociala fenomen och inte ses som starka diskursiva krafter i sig. I den andra delen av artikeln beskrivs den etnografiska metod och det material som författarna använt i ett nyligen avslutat forskningsprojekt, Den dekorerade mannen, och två empiriska exempel, en frisörkurs och en bolagsstämma, presenteras och analyseras.SummaryFashion is a topic that deserves to be taken seriously, and our contribution sets out to explore the vitalizing possibilities of combining critical men´s studies/gender studies and queer with new impulses in fashion, consumer and visual studies, not only in terms of theory, but also in terms of grounding this work empirically in new ethnography. Through ethnographical observation we have followed masculinity being groomed and performed through different aesthetical practices, in particular we have focused on the pleasure culture of the hair studio and the business suit in the context of annual meetings. Our approach seeks to span the large scale movements of the fashion system and local practices. We discuss the problematic relationship between feminism and fashion studies and argue that Connell´s hugely successful conceptualisation of hegemonic masculinity prevents a more dynamic and differentiated understanding of competing masculinities, performed through varying, although largely unacknowledged aesthetic practices - a neglected field of study we think is highly promising. On the other hand, we also suggest that fashion studies today suffers from limitations that could be overcome by taking seriously the challenge of the new conceptualisations of gender and sexuality, not as given macro systems or discourses, but in butlerian terms as ongoing embodied iterations. It is a curious paradox that fashion studies often seems marginalise itself, making clothes and hair simply mirror other cultural and social entities, not as important discursive forces in themselves. We call for more traffic between gender and fashion studies, in terms of theory, but without neglecting the necessity to ground with careful ethnographic work in writing bodies in movement.

This article scrutinises how gender equality is filled with meaning in Swedish national policy, and how these constructions could be understood in terms of neo-liberal forms of governmentality. Thus, gender equality is regarded as an empty signifier in contrast to the everyday use of the concept where gender equality often is presented as a self-evident political goal. In today’s society the ideal of the market has become the ideal of the public, and new public management is regarded as the indisputable way of organising the public – a process that also brings with it processes of de-politicisation of politics. By analysing national policy documents that address the doing of gender equality, including gender mainstreaming, the article aims to show what happens with gender equality in this neo-liberal context – including its political consequences. The analysis includes both how gender equality is defined in overall policy goals and in hands-on documents. The main results show that gender equality is transformed into administration and into different forms of administrative techniques. Prominent forms of governing include different forms of auditing, through checklists, evaluations and methodological tools for change. In addition it is also possible to discern a gap between how the problem of gender equality is represented in overall policy goals and the representations when the policy is to be implemented. Problem representations related to issues of gendered power relations are transformed into problem representations that fit the rule of auditing.

Norrland is often represented and constructed as a “typical male” region, a region dominated by rural problems. The “male” power structure is often depicted as a static problem, a part of a rural traditionally bound periphery which cannot be changed. In public discourse, Kiruna is positioned as a town adjusted to men which is a situation in need of change; it is argued that gender equality is a necessity for Kiruna’s survival. Put differently: there are clear ambitions for change. By studying how gender equality is made and how gender equality is produced in different practices, this article studies the implications of these ambitions. A key analytical starting point is that gender equality is regarded as something “made” by various actors in specific contexts. Gender equality is understood as an empirical field filled with meaning, or produced, in different contexts, not as a “fact” that can be measured. With place as an analytical hub, and inspired by Carol Bacchi’s critical approach to policy analysis we examine how gender equality is articulated and how place is produced. Using policy documents, newspaper materials and interviews, we conclude that gender equality is filled with partially different meanings in the three themes, but attractiveness stands out as a central underlying rationality – often in combination with participation and the absence of conflict between women and men. These representations of gender equality create a win-win, a non-conflictual understanding of gender equality, underpinned by an understanding of men and women as different and complementary subjects. In spite of clear articulations of men’s privileged position and women’s subordinate position, the measures suggested for achieving change target the image of Kiruna rather than gendered power relations. We explain this result in the context of overall processes of de-politicisation in contemporary society and by the need for Kiruna to be seen as “good” and “attractive” in order to challenge and avoid reproducing the picture of the Northern periphery as backward and traditional.

Ur redaktörernas förord

"Magnus Dahlstedt och Mekonnen Tesfahuney diskuterar hur den nya forskningspolitiken görs begriplig genom postpolitiska antaganden. De menar att forskningspolitikens ramar och i förlängningen forskningens innehåll allt mer bestäms av ekonomins eller ”marknadens” behov och villkor samtidigt som detta paradoxalt nog uppfattas som opolitiskt. De diskuterar också vilka tänkbara konsekvenser detta kan få för kritisk samhällsvetenskaplig forskning."