Challenging gender – normalization and beyond
FGVs skriftserie work in progress 3
Ed Siv Fahlgren
The research programme Challenging Gender at Umeå University with Mid Sweden University as a partner was awarded the Swedish Research Council’s funding for Centres of Gender Excellence 2007–2011. The study of gender is a dynamic and growing research field which often challenges traditional forms of knowledge production. These challenges are also directed at its own activities – hence the title of this research program. One of the five themes, Challenging Normalization Processes, has its base in the interdisciplinary Forum for Gender Studies at Mid Sweden University. Its focus is on cultural normalization processes: the demands for conformity and sameness and how technologies of power create boundaries which define "them" and "us" within a wide variety of social institutions.
One of the most important objectives of this program has been to increase the internationalization of Swedish gender research. Thus two international networks wer founded at Mid Sweden University; The MING network (The Mid Sweden internationa network on gender studies, financed by Mid Sweden University, Department of social work and Department of healt science) and FlickForsk (The international network for girlhood studies, financed by RJ). This book presents, as work in progress, some of the presentations that have taken place within the MING network during 2009 and 2010 and the joint network meeting with MING and FlickForsk 2009. We have chosen to present the papers as a discussion taking place within the theoretical framework of Challenging normalization processes.
Contents
1 .Introduction: Challenging normalization and beyond
Siv Fahlgren
Part I: Challenging “the normal” and normalization processes
2 Reflections on sexism at school on the basis of a study conducted in Northwest Russia and Northern Finland
Vappu Sunnari
3 Teaching children and youth about sexual harassment, gender violence and bullying in schools
Nan Stein
Part II: Challenging normalized knowledge positions
4 Rural and remote women and resilience:Grounded theory and photovoice variations on a theme
Beverly Leipert
5 Transcending subject–object dualism. Challenging normalized power relations in research practice
Katarina Giritli Nygren and Ulrika Schmauch
6 Daughter-girls, sister-girls, mom-girls and old lady-girls: Thoughts on subjectivity and reflexivity in girlhood-studies
Annelie Bränström Öhman
7 Reading as transgressing “the normal”: On the importance of literary reading for social research
Anders Johansson
Part III: … and beyond
8 Listening: a radical pedagogy
Bronwyn Davies
9 From picture – to subject: Some thoughts about studying the function of speaking and clothed animals in children’s literature
Eva Söderberg