EIGER · Embodied Institutionalism: A New Model for Gender Equity Reform

Embodied Institutionalism: A New Model for Gender Equity Reform

The importance of gender equity for enhancing the quality of scientific, legal, economic, and social policy research is well-documented. ‘Embodied Institutionalism: A New Model for Gender Equity Reform’ (‘EIGER’) investigates the following question: Why are particular reforms targeting gendered discrimination effective in one institutional context, yet non-effective in another? What accounts for this difference? EIGER argues that accounting for the success or failure of particular reforms requires close consideration of how affect and imagination operate in institutional spaces. My project considers how institutions shape particular imaginings and affects among gendered actors, and the impact of this dynamic on attempts to address gender inequity. This is a novel approach that goes beyond the existing literature, which tends to focus on affect, imagination, and material structures in isolation from one another, rather than seeing how these things interrelate. EIGER focuses on gender inequity in the university, insofar as the university remains a central site of knowledge creation and dissemination and plays a formative role in the career trajectories of many young adults. Higher education institutions formally prohibit all forms of discrimination, yet women and other minorities continue to confront discriminatory practices and outcomes. EIGER has the following key objectives: first, to map out the relationship between imagination, affect, social identity, and institutional structures; and second, to show how this theoretical framework can be used to guide more effective reform efforts within the space of the university. Thirdly, it aims to widely disseminate its findings to academic as well as non-academic audiences.

Текст от CORDIS, на английски · Данни: CORDIS, © Европейски съюз