Voices from Gender Studies: Negotiating the Terms of Academic Production, Epistemology, and the Logics and Contents of Identity

The book is aimed at providing an assertion of Gender Studies as a vital community in our time, united in a commitment to inquiry. It brings forward an interdisciplinary set of early career researchers’ accounts of their motives for engaging in Gender Studies and, of the encounters with limitations as well as possibilities they experience on the paths they have chosen.

Each chapter is accompanied by a brief response paper where a more senior researcher involves in conversation with respective chapter’s content and shares reflections regarding Gender Studies, its integration, and developments. The first level corresponds with the significance of research in the field and its transformative power in and, crucially, outside the academia. The second relates to the value of networking and community building for doing research.

The book presents Gender Studies in a communicative, open manner that invites the reader to engage in and continue the displayed discussions. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of gender studies, sociology, queer studies, women’s studies, trans studies, anthropology, and literary studies.

Edyta Just is a Senior Lecturer and Associate Professor at the Division of Gender Studies, Department of Thematic Studies, Linköping University, Sweden. Her latest publications include: Åkesson, E., Just, E., and Eriksson Barajas, K. (2022). Closer to and further away: emergency-remote teacher education, orientations, and student-bodies. Högre Utbildning, 12(1): 66–78 and Edyta Just (2021). Learning and Students’ Experiences with Blended Education. International Journal of Higher Education, 10(6): 213–223.

Maria Udén is a Professor in Gender and Technology at the Design research unit, Luleå University of Technology, Sweden. Since the early 1990s, she has taken interest in the implications of feminist theory of science. Her research revolves around gender equality and feminist concepts of alternative technology paradigms and explores interfaces between technology development and social and organizational movements. A recent publication is “NomaTrack and the LoRa-DTN protocol: DTN in innovation for reindeer husbandry” from 2021 (with Samo Grasic, Kerstin Kemlén, and Annelie Päiviö).

Vera Weetzel is a hairdresser, a former PhD candidate in Gender Studies at Linköping University, and an activist. Vera has left the academic path, and is now working as a hairdresser at a salon called Ohyes in Stockholm. They’re focusing on creating LGBTQIA+ welcoming spaces while developing the craft of doing hair. Academically, Vera is interested in and has explored a range of topics and areas, including posthumanism, ecofeminism, new materialism, queer, and trans studies.

Cecilia Åsberg is Professor of Gender, Nature, Culture at Linköping University. Åsberg did the first Scandinavian PhD in Gender Studies, but has since been researching and teaching across the arts and sciences, traversing the “two cultures” and built bridge-building feminist communities with grants in Sweden and abroad, also beyond the confines of academia. Recently published works include “More-than-human care in creative AI-interactions” in Nordic HCI; “Science and gender” (KTH, 2022), “Toxic Embodiment” (in More Posthuman Glossary, 2022), and “Afterword” (in Eco Critique, 2023).