Feminist Genealogies in the Writing of the Self

Maria Tamboukou links Foucauldian ideas to feminism and education. Its central argument is that the Foucauldian notion of 'technologies of the self' needs to be gendered and contextualized. This argument is pursued through a genealogical analysis of auto/biographical narratives of women educators at the turn of the nineteenth century. This is a new theoretical approach, since Foucault's work has proved to be of great interest to feminist scholars, but as yet, his theroies have only intermittently been used in educational feminist work. The genealogical analysis of situated female sujectivities has highlighted the importance of space in the 'technologies of the female self' and has reconsidered the private/public couplet. It has acted as a continuous source of uncertainty, experimenting with Foucauldian questions of what we are, of how we have become what we are, but also and perhaps most importantly of how we can become other than what we are already.

‘Is there a right time for gender just peace? Feminist anti-war organising revisited’

This paper addresses the question of totalising gender power relations that have led to and shaped the wars of the 1990s in Yugoslavia and the emerging ethno-national states on the ‘periphery’ of Europe. I argue that the same type of gender power relations continue to dominate the region, notably Serbia, and to perpetuate gender inequalities and gender based violence in its many everyday and structural forms, causing profound levels of human insecurity. My analysis aims to set in motion a debate on how to tackle these continuing gender inequalities and GBV in post-war societies. In so doing, I propose a shift from focusing on the hierarchy of victimisation that has characterised much of the feminist analyses, activism and scholarly work in relation to these (and other) conflicts, to a relational understanding of the gendered processes of victimisation in war and peace, that is - of both women and men. Such an approach holds a potential to undermine the power systems that engender these varied types of victimisation by ultimately reshaping the notions of masculinity and femininity, which are central to the gender power systems that generate gender unjust peace.