Tracking the nomadic life of the educational researcher :- what future for feminist public intellectual(s) and/in the performative postmodern university

Is the idea of the liberal university dead, has the post modern university any chance of being emancipatory, has the theory practice divide merely collapsed in an era of 'new knowledge work', or has the university just become one aspect of market state and global capitalism. Knowledge based economies simultaneously locate universities as central to the commodification and management of knowledge while the legitimacy of the university and the academic as knowledge producers is challenged by post modernist, feminist, postcolonial and indigenous claims within a wider trend towards the 'democratisation of knowledge' and a new educational instrumentalism and opportunism. What becomes of the educational researcher, and indeed for their professional organizations, in this changing socio political and economic scenario? Is our role one of policy service or policy critique, technical expert or public intellectual? In particular what place is there for feminist public intellectuals in a socalled era of post feminism and public-/private convergence? The paper draws on recent debates around the nature of knowledge based societies, trends in relations between policy and educational research, and draws upon feminist and critical perspectives to mount a case for the importance of the postmodern university and the public intellectual.

The emerging importance of feminist research paradigms in built environment research

Purpose – This paper seeks to establish and demonstrate the relevance of feminist research methods within built environment research. While no one definition of feminist research exists, many feminist researchers identify characteristics which distinguish it from traditional social science research; it is research that studies women, or that focuses on gender.
Design/methodology/approach – There is a growing body of research into women and the built environment adopting feminist paradigms. This paper explains the dynamic, evolving philosophical basis of feminist research methods drawing comparisons to traditional positivist methodologies and demonstrates that feminist research has characteristics that can be imported into other research paradigms.
Findings – The paper shows that there is much to be learned from an understanding of feminist research for all researchers in the built environment and that by adopting different approaches to research, researchers may find new and original ways of examining complex issues.
Research limitations/implications – The implications are that all researchers in the built environment should consider the benefits of adopting a feminist approach in their research especially where the researcher is seeking to gain a deeper understanding of peoples' experiences.
Originality/value – This paper seeks to raise awareness of the benefits of adopting feminist research methods in a discipline dominated by traditional approaches to research.

Mothers in family literacy : a critical feminist analysis

This research addresses the invisibility of mothers in the Family Literacy movement and explores the work of the mother in maintaining and extending family literacy practices. Despite the centrality of mothers in their children's education, mothers are largely invisable in the research literature theorising and decribing family and intergenerational literacy practices and programs, or they are viewed as somehow deficient in their literacy practices. In this study I aim to address this absence and offer a feminist analysis of the Family Literacy movement throught an exploration of the mother's literacy practices within families. I make visible the complexity of the literacy work performed by mothers within families, and extend further feminist discussion on the body through an analysis of the embodiment of language and literacy practices within the mother/child reading dyad. I reconceptualise family literacy programs within a post structuralist feminist framework, and suggest pedagogies which acknowledge the multiple subjectivities of womenas mothers. learners and teachers of their children.

Within/against: feminist theory as praxis in higher education research

This chapter will explore how different feminist theories and theorists have informed what counts as research, what is defined as a research issue, and methodological approaches to research in higher education. It will consider the theoretical and methodological tools feminist academics have mobilized in order to develop more powerful explanations of how gender and other forms of difference work in the relation to the positioning of the individual, higher education and the nation state within globalized economies. It pays particular regard to the feminist political project of social justice.

On a neglected argument in French philosophy: Sceptical humanism in Montaigne, Voltaire and Camus

This paper wants to draw out a common argument in three great philosophers and littérateurs in modern French thought: Michel de Montaigne, Voltaire, and Albert Camus. The argument makes metaphysical and theological scepticism the first premise for a universalistic political ethics, as per Voltaire's: "it is clearer still that we ought to be tolerant of one another, because we are all weak, inconsistent, liable to fickleness and error." The argument, it seems to me, presents an interestingly overlooked, deeply important and powerful contribution to the philosophical discourse of modernity. On one hand, theological and post-structuralist critics of "humanism" usually take the latter to depend either on an essentialist philosophical anthropology, or a progressive philosophy of history. The former, it is argued, is philosophically contestable and ethically contentious (since however we define the human "essence," we are bound to exclude some "others"). The latter, for better or worse, is a continuation of theological eschatology by another name. So both, if not "modernity" per se, should somehow be rejected. But an ethical universalism - like that we find in Montaigne, Bayle, Voltaire, or Camus - which does not claim familiarity with metaphysical or eschatological truths, but humbly confesses our epistemic finitude, seeing in this the basis for ethical solidarity, eludes these charges. On the other hand, philosophical scepticism plays a large role in the post-structuralist criticisms of modern institutions and ideas in ways which have been widely taken to license forms of ethics which problematically identify responsibility, with taking a stand unjustifiable by recourse to universalizable reasons. But, in Montaigne, Voltaire and Camus, our ignorance concerning the highest or final truths does not close off, but rather opens up, a new descriptive sensitivity to the foibles and complexities of human experience: a sensitivity reflected amply, and often hilariously, in their literary productions. As such, a critical agnosticism concerning claims about things "in the heavens and beneath the earth" does not, for such a "sceptical humanism," necessitate decisionism or nihilism. Instead, it demands a redoubled ethical sensitivity to the complexities and plurality of political life which sees the dignity of "really-existing" others, whatever their metaphysical creeds, as an inalienable first datum of ethical conduct and reflection. After tracking these arguments in Montaigne, Voltaire, and Camus, the essay closes by reflecting on, and contesting, one more powerful theological argument against modern agnosticism's allegedly deleterious effects on ethical culture: that acknowledging ignorance concerning the highest things robs us of the basis for awe or wonder, the wellspring of human beings' highest ethical, aesthetic, and spiritual achievements.

Feminist challenges to the constraints of law : donning uncomfortable robes?

Legal judgment writing mobilises a process of story-telling, drawing on existing judicial discourses, precedents and practices to create a narrative relevant to the specific case that is articulated by the presiding judge. In the Feminist Judgments projects feminist scholars and activists have sought to challenge and reinterpret legal judgments that have disadvantaged, discriminated against or denied women’s experiences. This paper reflects on the process of writing as a feminist judge in the Australian Project, in an intimate homicide case, R v Middendorp. Drawing on the work of Judith Butler on intelligibility, iterability and the communality of violence and vulnerability, this article argues that feminist judgments necessarily require some uncomfortable compromises with unjust gendered institutions. While ‘donning the robes’ may be an uncomfortable process, a feminist re-articulation of the law’s carceral power serves to unsettle and challenge some aspects of gendered oppression, even though it cannot unsettle the operation of the institution. The article concludes that effective feminist interventions by members of the judiciary may require donning robes that are not entirely comfortable in order to persuade and advocate for change.

A bit of a dirty word: 'feminism' and female teachers identifying as feminist

Following the identification of a gap in the literature around reasons for contemporary women’s self-identification as ‘feminist’ (Swirsky & Angelone, 2015), this paper discusses an empirical study of an intergenerational group of contemporary Australian female teachers collaboratively designing English curriculum around girls’ media. The paper explores the group’s shared conversations around feminism, over a series of meetings, as we (teachers and researcher) plan curriculum and negotiate broader subject positions possible for girls and women. These contexts include the competing discourses of feminism and postfeminism and how these mediate texts chosen for study, our pedagogical approaches, and the ways we experience our own lives. In this study, we struggle to find a shared language, across generations, with which to work collaboratively in a community of practice committed to the critical study of media, but involving different individual orientations to ‘feminism’. This is a space in which impediments to the feminist study of girls’ media quickly emerge. The paper also serves as a reminder that feminist scholarship takes place in schools, as well as in the academy, and that the gender studies work teachers do in schools is potentially whole population work, worthy of keen attention in the gender studies academic mainstream.

Gender justice and the English citizenship curriculum: a consideration of post-September 11 national imperatives and issues of 'Britishness'

Although much contention has surrounded the introduction of the English citizenship curriculum, its political agenda clearly reflects a transformative approach to issues of justice and equity. In light of this agenda, this article supports feminist work in further problematizing the curriculum's silence around relations of gender and citizenship. It extends this work by exploring the implications of such silence within the context of the contemporary post-September 11 climate, where discourses around security and militarism have amplified social/gender inequities worldwide while further reducing the spaces available for active social and political engagement toward the "common good." In the U.K. context, these trends are considered in light of the recent high-profile political debate around the issue of Britishness. Here, concern is expressed about how superficial engagement with this debate may be mobilized in exclusionary ways that do little to militate against the masculinist framings of the citizenship curriculum. Conversely, critical engagement in debates around British national identity are also presented as being potentially generative in terms of their capacity to strengthen the discourse of ideal citizenship in the United Kingdom in ways that foster a more critical and gender-just approach to citizenship education.