| 1. |
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| 2. |
- Cavaghan, Rosalind, et al.
(författare)
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Experts, Idiots, and Liars : The Gender Politics of Knowledge and Expertise in Turbulent Times
- 2020
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Ingår i: Social Politics. - Oxford : Oxford University Press. - 1072-4745 .- 1468-2893. ; 27:4, s. 643-647
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This special issue advances feminist inquiry and theorizing of the politics of knowledge within our current, highly paradoxical societal landscape. It draws together feminist analyses of “expertise” with feminist epistemologies of situated knowledge, Black feminist thought, theory of affect and emotions, sociology of knowledge, and science and technology studies (STS). As such, it enables a timely interdisciplinary engagement with current paradigmatic shifts in knowledge production and claims to expertise as well as an examination of the gendered and racialized epistemic authority.For several decades, the study of “knowledge,” changing modes of knowledge production, and the dynamics shaping the recognition of expertise were largely confided to the specialized subfields of sociology of knowledge..
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| 3. |
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Geschlecht und Biomedizinpolitik. Vergleichende Perspektiven.
- 2003. - 32, nr 2
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Samlingsverk (redaktörskap) (refereegranskat)abstract
- PolitologInnen sind in der gegenwärtigen kontroversen Debatte zur Biomedizinpolitik sowohl mit wissenschaftlichen Analysen als auch als ExpertInnen in einschlägigen Beratungsgremien erstaunlich abwesend. Dabei könnte die Politikwissenschaft mit ihren unterschiedlichen Teildisziplinen wichtige Beiträge zur Erforschung von Biomedizinpolitik leisten. Für das Fehlen kann ein Bündel von Faktoren identifiziert werden, von der Spezifik des Politikfeldes über methodologische und theoretische Orientierungen der Politikwissenschaft bis hin zu wissenschaftspolitischen Motiven. Ein zentraler Grund ist die Überschneidung dreier Themen- und Problemfelder, die im politikwissenschaftlichen Mainstream tendenziell als außerpolitisch gelten und/oder in unzureichender Weise theoretisch erfasst sind: Körper, Ethik und Naturwissenschaften/Technologie. Feministische Politikwissenschaft ist in verschiedener Hinsicht für die Analyse von Biomedizinpolitik besser gerüstet, da sie mit der Analyse von Körperpolitik und mit normativen Fragen Erfahrungen hat.
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| 4. |
- Kulawik, Teresa
(författare)
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Eugenics and the Making of Universal Citizenship in Sweden : The Social Democratic State Revisited
- 2006
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Ingår i: “Silence,Suffering,& Survival”. ; , s. 128-
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- The multifarious paths to modernity correspond with the various dramatizations of national narratives. Sweden’s development has been composed as a linear success story. As the story goes: since the 1930s when the Social Democrats came into power, they had managed to lead the deprived smallish nation at the outskirts of Europe from the darkness of the poor house into the light of a prosperous welfare state combining a maximum of social security and equality with economic growth. In comparative perspective the Swedish welfare state was not only seen as outstanding in terms of class justice, but also in terms of gender equality. Some scholars have there deemed it to be a “women-friendly welfare state”.[i] However, regardless of the importance of such narratives for the formation of national identity, success stories inevitably also produce distortions and omissions. The dark side of Sweden’s success story became most painfully apparent at the latest in autumn 1997. An article about forced sterilizations in the “peoples’ home” (folkhem), published in the country’s largest daily newspaper not only set off a heated national debate but it also caused an international sensation.[ii] Contrary to what the media suggested, knowledge of these practices was not a “recent” discovery.[iii] The new and challenging aspect, however, was that publicist Maciej Zaremba no longer attributed the sterilization policy to the zeitgeist or deemed it as a regrettable—although in the greater narrative as a negligible—episode but rather as an integral part of Sweden’s social democratic reform project. Through addressing the dark side of] the Swedish welfare state he broke a taboo that formed the quintessential core of Swedish identity. International reactions added insult to injury by comparing these sterilizations to practices of Nazi Germany.[iv]The abundance of international attention, among other things, incited the Swedish government to install a commission to investigate the policies during that time and to draft a bill that would afford compensation to victims of forced sterilization. Compared to how victims of sterilization in other countries, particularly in Germany, [v] were dealt with, the Swedish investigative commission and compensation act were exemplary. Yet, for Swedish historians and social scientists it was no easy task to deal with these dark sides of modernity and statehood. A sense of loyalty toward the social democracy and the Swedish model has caused many scholars to oscillate—as some have self-critically admitted—between engaging in scholarship and ideology production.[vi] This might explain why outstanding feminist scholars such as Yvonne Hirdman, which has been a pioneer of a more critical stand on Swedes social and gender policies, has joined the chorus of the welfare state defenders in that debate. [vii] The fact that Swedish politics have been highly successful in so many ways makes theories, which categorically establish the ambivalences of modernity and the welfare state, not exactly a Swedish specialty.The same could be said about international comparative research that presents the development of the welfare state as a continuous extension of social rights. The establishment of a social democratic regime with universal benefits based on citizenship is often regarded the ultima ratio of this development. This is not so surprising, as the power resources approach promoted by Scandinavian social scientists Walter Korpi and Gösta Esping-Andersen decisively contributed to establishing the Nordic state’s model status. Viewing Sweden in terms of a success story is not necessarily problematic because of what it says, but because of what it leaves out. None of the common national or comparative interpretations can account for how the Swedish social democratic model’s supposedly inclusive welfare state and its universalistic programs could have been compatible with measures that classified people as “inferior” and propagated selection and institutionalization of their own people as well as sterilization as solutions to social problems.This essay is committed to resolving this puzzle. It focuses on what, today, is subsumed under “family policies” and contains an analysis of the emergence of social benefits in the 1930s, which were geared toward subsidizing and encouraging child rearing, and were thus a forerunner of the universal child allowances introduced in Sweden in 1948. This case study will reveal that measures primarily aimed to meet the needs of women (as mothers)—and were therefore largely considered part of the “women-friendly” concept of social citizenship in Sweden— were actually characterized by an amalgamation of pro-natalism and anti-natalism. In effect, amalgamation meant that those classified as “inferior” or “unwanted” were barred from social benefits.
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| 5. |
- Kulawik, Teresa
(författare)
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Explaining Gender Regimes of Welfare State Formation : A Plea for Gendered Discursive Institutionalism
- 2008
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Feminist scholars have provided us with an array of analytical perspectives on the comparative analysis of welfare states. However despite the reachness of feminist scholarship in that field, it is also marked by a clear limitation. Feminist research focused, above all, on gender-specific contents and outputs of social policies. Much more widely neglected is the question of how country-specific differences may be explained, and whether gender contributed to the politics that created different welfare state regimes. There is one exeption however: scholars working within the tradition of historical institutionalism such as Theda Skocpol, Ann Orloff and Diane Sainsbury have made important efforts in order to explain the early formation of gendered welfare states.The aim of this paper is both theoretical and empirical. First it explores the contribution of gender sensitive historical institutionalism for the explanation of gendered welfare states regimes. In contrast to the way that this approach has frequently been understood, I do not see institutionalism’s major contribution simply as adding on a new set of variables – the variables of state capacity and structure – as it suggested within the policy analysis aproach launched by Amy Mazur und Dorothy Stetson. Rather, the central new insight that institutionalism imparts to comparative politics comes from its reflexive perspective on the political. This goes hand in hand with a concept of configurative causation acknowledging that political developments are contextual, relational, and process-oriented. A critical review of feminist historical institutionalism reveals one important limitation of its conceptual framwork however as it reduces “gender” to “women”, to be more precise: to the impact of women´s movements on welfare state formation. I regard this reductionsm as the last vestige of determinism. Within institutionalism, to be sure, collective identities constitute an important point of reference, but since the processes of identity formation as such are not theorized any further, the precise connections linking institutions and the ability to act remain vague. In order to overcome this reductionism I propose to broaden institutionalism’s framework by formulating an approach based on interweaving historical institutionalism with discursive analysis. Such an integrated approach enables to conceptualize gender as relational and a relevant analytical category, even if womens agency might be deemed an irrelvant explanatory factor in specific national contexts.The second aim of the paper is to demonstrate the fruitfulness of such an analytical approach in a comparative case study focusing on the emergence of gendered welfare state regime in Sweden and Germany. Sweden and Germany are ideal subjects for a comparative study of two countries. On the one hand, they present two similair cases of sociohistorical development. On the other hand, despite these similarities they produced quite different types of welfare states: Germany a conservative welfare state representing a strong male breadwinner and Sweden a social democratic, universalistic welfare state with a rather weak breadwinner model.
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| 6. |
- Kulawik, Teresa
(författare)
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Feminist concepts of bodily citizenship: a historical and comparative perspective : (PANEL) The body owner, the labourer and the victim citizen: citizenship and the female body in the age of biosciences
- 2010
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- In contrast to issues concerning bodily integrity (abortion, violence) reproductive technologies represent a topic,which has been highly controversial among feminist activists and scholars. Some regard it as an expansion of power over women´s bodies through medical expertise. Especially reprogenetics - the fusion of assisted reproductive technics and genetical knowlege - is percieved as a new form of biopower, where life itself is becoming objectified through instrumental sociotechnologies. Others welcome reproductive technologies as an extension of women´s autonomy and right to choose, with regard to their bodies. As such reproductive technologies challenge the liberal notion of selfdetermination. Related to the classical integrity issues selfdetermination meant a "negativ" liberty right as freedom from various forms of coersion or force, when it comes to reproductive technologies, selfdetermination is linkd to a "claim right, namely to have a healthy baby. But can there be a right to have a healthy baby? Should it be an issue of state concern to satisfy the poeples yearning for children? In addition to such challenging question, reproductive technolgies profoundly destabilize central categories of the political and cultural order, on which feminist demands for bodily citizenship have rested. Drawing on sholarship from governmentality studies this paper aims to rethink the concept of bodily citizenship. I will discuss the fruitfullness of such an approach drawing on empirical research covering Sweden, Germany and Poland
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| 7. |
- Kulawik, Teresa
(författare)
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Gender, Discourses, and Institutions : The Formation of the Welfare State in Sweden and Germany
- 1999
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper examines the relevance of gender in accounting for the formation of different welfare state regimes in Sweden and Germany. Recent feminist scholarship has provided us with an array of approaches to the comparative analysis of social policies. However, it has not fully succeeded in conceptualizing gender as an analytic category. Concerning the welfare state, Joan W. Scott's a critique of feminist theorizing is substantially correct today. Gender is still often used as a substitute for »woman,« as for example in Skocpols work. Gender relations - here meaning gendered welfare state institutions - are usually explained in terms of »non-gendered« causal relations. Thus Jane Lewis claims, referring among other countries to Sweden among other countries that gender was irrelevant to the formation of different welfare regimes. My hypothesis, by constrast is, that gender plays a constitutive role in the creation of the early welfare state in Sweden and Germany. The purpose of this paper is therefore twofold: first to develop a theoretical framework which moves beyond the conceptual limitations of feminist inquiry mentioned above; and second to demonstrate its empirical usefulness in a comparative case study focusing on the emergence of protective labour legislation in both countries. The research strategy I pursue includes three levels of analysis: 1) processes of social and economic change; 2) political forces and institutions; 3) discourses and interpretative frameworks. My aim is to explore the mutual and complex relations among these different levels, in order to avoid a slippage into a determinist epistemology, whether conceptualized in terms of discourses, institutions or social/economic structures. Sweden and Germany are extremely well suited to this comparison. From the perspective of social history, they share several similarities: the tradition of a strong bureaucratic state, a weak liberal bourgeoisie, and an early political mobilization of the labour movement. With regard to the subject of inquiry, they differ considerably. Germany passed numerous gendered regulations in the field of protective legislation before 1914-- such as maternal leave in 1878 (repeatedly extended), prohibition of night work, and limitation of daily working hours for women in 1891. The Swedish development was in contrast rather modest: the first protective law in 1889 did not include any gender distinctions, a maternal leave was enacted in 1900 and women's night work was prohibited in 1909. This analysis shows that the policy differences between the two countries can not be adequately explained in terms of socioeconomic structures indicated, by e.g. women's employment rates. The legal differences correspond to variations in formations of national discourses. Demands for protective legislation in Germany were formulated in a gender specific way from the outsest. This was not the case in Sweden. Characteristic of the German debate was an early enmeshment of moral with scientific discourses defining women's factory work as undesirable and harmful for the female and social body, as well as an explicitly articulated masculine political interest. The interpretative frameworks of the Swedish dabate were quite different. This is well illustrated by the strategies of the early labour movements in both countries. The close relations between the Swedish and German labour movements led Swedish social democracy to take over the Gotha programme though with one notable exeption however: the paragraph demanding special protective legislation for women was excluded.
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| 8. |
- Kulawik, Teresa
(författare)
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Gender, Institutions, and Solidarity : The Struggle for a Motherhood Insurance in Sweden and Germany
- 2000
-
Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper examines the paradoxes of maternalist politics in Sweden and Germany at the turn of the century. Feminist scholarship on maternalism has convincingly demonstrated the importance of policy measures directed to women and children as well as women’s political agency for the early welfarestate formation. It has also provided us with insights into the limitations and failures of maternalist strategies due to different political opportunity structures as well as conflicting concepts of maternalism within women’s movments itself.In comparative historical perspective Sweden and Germany are usually portrayed as similair cases of well developed welfare states, with weak women’s movements however, and therefore strong paternalist policies, directed to women as dependents rather than in their own right as women and mothers. The difference between the two countries with regard to gender policies is considered to be a later phenomenon, due to the divergent paths of conservative and socialdemocratic welfarestate formation. This paper challanges such a view in several respects. The similairity of both countries refers to similair – as compared to the United States and Great Britain - trajectories of social development: the tradition of a strong bureaucratic state, a weak liberal bourgeoisie, and an early political mobilization of the labour movement. With regard to the early welfare state Sweden and Germany have produced quite divergend institutional solutions, which cannot be conflated into „paternalism“. From the outset both countries differed considerably, as will be argued in the paper, when it comes to gender. Inquiring maternalist policies and politics, no easy equatations – such as between „good“ policies and „strong“ women’s movments - can be made. The analysis of the struggle for a motherhood insurance in Sweden and Germany reveals a rather contradictory and paradox picture.Germany was the first country to invent a paid maternity leave. The sickness insurance law of 1883 - introducing a mandatory insurance for factory workers – included a payment for the period of three weaks after delivery. This maternity benefit was extended in the following years in correspondance with the protective labor legislation, which regulated the maternity leave for female factory workers. The campaign for a motherhood insurance, which started after the turn of the century, was carried by a variety of political forces with quite different motives. In its most radical version the concept aimed at an comprehensive insurance plan, which would give benefits to all mothers, not only to factory workers and not just for a couple of weeks after delivery but for a much longer - up to one or three years –period of time. Such an insurance was not only considered fiscally utopian. The more moderate bourgeois women’s movment opposed such a motherhood endowment on more fundamental grounds. Enableing women to become mothers without depending on men, such an institution would lead to a dissolution of the family, or even, as Alice Salomon feared, to the distruction of loving relations between men and women. She favored therefore a more „practical“ solution, e.g. the extension of the benefits to other professional groups. The principle, that the benefit should be a replacement for the loss of wages and not a payment for motherhood was central to this concept. With the reformact of 1911 (Reichsversicherungsordnung) major improvments of the paid maternity leaves within the sickness insurance were enacted. At that time the German welfare state included the best maternity benefits - when measured as coveragae rate of the female population and the duration of payments – in the industrilized world. In the long run however benefits for mothers were locked in an institutional logic based on principles of solidarity, which were rather hostile to the rights of women as mothers. Not only was motherhood treated as a sickness, the benefits were constructed according to criteria – professional status groups, replacment of the loss of wages – which were external to the social conditions of motherhood, creating different categories of mothers.The Swedish development took quite a different course. Compared to Germany, Sweden was a late comer with regard to regulations for mothers. A maternal leave was enacted in 1900. Because Sweden had no compulsory sickness insurance at that time, a law proposal for the introduction of an own motherhood insurance for female factory workers was elaborated in order to compensate for the loss of wages. In case the law would have been enacted in 1912, the motherhood insurance would have become the first branch of mandatory social insurance introduced in Sweden. However, the government never presented the law to the parliament. This was also due to an outspoken opposition of the different strands of the women’s movment. They rejected the plan because of its mode of finance. According to the proposal the insurance should be financed mainly with contributions from the employees and female factory workers in the age of 15 to 50. The women criticized the plan also because the benefits were restricted to women factory workers. They demanded payments for all mothers, but at least for all working women. The sharpest protests however were directed against the financing principles in which the fathers were left aside and women treated as en enforced community of solidarity. The Swedish debate on the motherhood insurance demonstrates the limitations of maternalism as a political strategy. Swedish women explicitly rejected the notion there can be solidarity among women based on the experience of maternity, which could give rise to redistributional policies. The failure of the motherhood insurance project finaly refers to structural limitations of justice within market society and social insurance institutions forged on this principles: Motherhood is simply not an insurable risk as sickness, accident or olde age. It has no „value“ and it is not a „damage“ to compensate for. The Swedish women were strong enough to prevent the institutionalization of a program which, as they percieved, was based on false solidarities. They had to wait for more than twenty years, until in 1931 a tax financed program was implemented, which - far from solving all problems of justice for mothers – laid the ground for much more mother friendlier policies, than in Germany
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| 9. |
- Kulawik, Teresa
(författare)
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Gender Representations and the Politics of Biotechnology in Sweden : Eplaining liberal Regulations in a Social Democratic State
- 2003
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- What makes Sweden especially relevant for this case study? At first, Sweden appears to have quite a puzzling policy pattern indeed. As a social democratic regime with an extensive statist governance system, Sweden stands out in its biomedical policy through remarkably liberal, lenient regulations which, in European comparison, are closest to those of Great Britain. Sweden's legislation allows for the use of so-called "spare" human embryos, resulting from IVF procedures, for research purpose, pre-implantation diagnosis, and egg donation. This country also has a considerable amount of embryonic stem cell lines at its disposal and has recently initiated an entire research program involving their use. Furthermore, legislative processes have been initiated, which could legalize the creation of – instead of the use of "spare" – human embryos for research purposes and so-called therapeutic cloning. This policy-making process provoked only a moderate deal of controversy. Parliamentary resolutions concerning the issue were backed by a broad consensus among all parties in Parliament. To say the least, the politicization of biomedical issues has been quite limited. This corresponds well to the virtual lack of noticeable mobilization of extra-parliamentary groups.Throughout the course of this essay I will de-riddle the puzzling features of Sweden's biopolitics through presenting the juncture between institutionalist and discursive approaches. In short, I argue that the Swedish model is based on a productivist paradigm, the institutional and discursive parameters of which have not been decisively extended through its "new politics." In this way, elitist policy-making structures within environmental and technology policies have remained intact. Ironically, this relative openness, which enabled the rapid integration of new issues and political actors, was what led to the blockage of extensive participatory rights (as a counter-concept to the elitist policy style) and hindered the development of oppositional public spaces and forms of knowledge. Sweden's heritage of utilitarian ethics and pragmatic legal tradition and its assertions make it even more difficult for leftist or feminist to formulate a critical stance. Therefore, the only anti-embryo research position taken in the political arena was by the Christian Democratic Party.I will start providing an overview of policy regulations, then analyze the peculiar relation between the social democratic state, and the so-called new politics. I will then examine the institutions and actors in the biomedical policy field, and finally reconstruct the lines of argumentation within policy discourse.
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| 10. |
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