Page 38 - Šolsko polje, XXXI, 2020, 5-6: Teaching Feminism, ed. Valerija Vendramin
P. 38
šolsko polje, letnik xxxi, številka 5–6
its cognitive and educational texture, but how and whether at all femi-
nism itself resonates with this type of academy and marketability-orient-
ed knowledge in particular.
Going back to Bahovec’s key argument on feminism as being oppo-
sitional, namely subversive knowledge, we can see two evident tendencies
in the Croatian academic framework which are quite opposite from the
feminist drive. In addition to systematically excluding or reducing educa-
tional subjects with a clear feminist agenda at Croatia’s universities over
the last decade, on-going “disciplining” disciplines are in place. Central
to the latter point, a hybrid type of bureaucratic-disciplinary surveillance
has been established, by governing the scientific disciplines and their edu-
cational curriculum it insists on a “purity” of disciplines, namely the cen-
tring of scientific disciplines around their core subject and methodolog-
ical axis (Kašić, 2011). Maria do Mar Pereira (2017) quite clearly noted
that we should deal with the mainstream knowledge of scientificity while
women’s, gender, feminist studies (WGFS) “is not quite proper academ-
ic knowledge” (Pereira, 2017, p. 1) One consequence of this process is con-
cealing, misusing or giving up the interdisciplinarity that is dramatical-
ly changing educational settings (Hemmings, 2008; Liinason & Holm,
2006).
An emerging question here then is what is the place for feminism
and critical pedagogy within this educational framework? While the situ-
ation within the university is not promising for either the epistemic status
of Women’s/Gender Studies1 or feminism as a theoretical or activist ‘pro-
ject’ that reflects processes in academia worldwide, alternative education
seems like the only desirable place or, better, a theoretical “asylum” for ex-
perimenting, self-reflecting and subverting self-evident clichés and canons
of knowledge production as well as a different entry into feminism.
In the research project on women’s studies education at the Centre for
Women’s Studies, whose results were published in the book Privilegiranje
rubova. Intervencije i prilozi feminističkoj epistemologiji /Privileging the
Margins. Interventions and Contributions to Feminist Epistemology/
(Čakardić et al., 2010), students of Women’s Studies frequently identify it
1 One of the paradoxes concerning Women’s/Gender studies in the Croatian Academy is
that Gender Studies is entered in the scientific categorisation of programmes recognised
by the National Council for Science (in 2009 it was classified as an interdisciplinary field
of science; source: “Ordinance on scientific and artistic areas, fields and branches”, from
22. 09. 2009), despite the fact that neither Gender nor Women’s Studies as an integral field
of knowledge has become a part of the academic curricula in Croatia. It should be noted
that this initiative for verifying Gender Studies as an academic field came from the Centre
for Women’s Studies in collaboration with the Department of Ethnology and Cultural
Anthropology, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Zagreb.
36
its cognitive and educational texture, but how and whether at all femi-
nism itself resonates with this type of academy and marketability-orient-
ed knowledge in particular.
Going back to Bahovec’s key argument on feminism as being oppo-
sitional, namely subversive knowledge, we can see two evident tendencies
in the Croatian academic framework which are quite opposite from the
feminist drive. In addition to systematically excluding or reducing educa-
tional subjects with a clear feminist agenda at Croatia’s universities over
the last decade, on-going “disciplining” disciplines are in place. Central
to the latter point, a hybrid type of bureaucratic-disciplinary surveillance
has been established, by governing the scientific disciplines and their edu-
cational curriculum it insists on a “purity” of disciplines, namely the cen-
tring of scientific disciplines around their core subject and methodolog-
ical axis (Kašić, 2011). Maria do Mar Pereira (2017) quite clearly noted
that we should deal with the mainstream knowledge of scientificity while
women’s, gender, feminist studies (WGFS) “is not quite proper academ-
ic knowledge” (Pereira, 2017, p. 1) One consequence of this process is con-
cealing, misusing or giving up the interdisciplinarity that is dramatical-
ly changing educational settings (Hemmings, 2008; Liinason & Holm,
2006).
An emerging question here then is what is the place for feminism
and critical pedagogy within this educational framework? While the situ-
ation within the university is not promising for either the epistemic status
of Women’s/Gender Studies1 or feminism as a theoretical or activist ‘pro-
ject’ that reflects processes in academia worldwide, alternative education
seems like the only desirable place or, better, a theoretical “asylum” for ex-
perimenting, self-reflecting and subverting self-evident clichés and canons
of knowledge production as well as a different entry into feminism.
In the research project on women’s studies education at the Centre for
Women’s Studies, whose results were published in the book Privilegiranje
rubova. Intervencije i prilozi feminističkoj epistemologiji /Privileging the
Margins. Interventions and Contributions to Feminist Epistemology/
(Čakardić et al., 2010), students of Women’s Studies frequently identify it
1 One of the paradoxes concerning Women’s/Gender studies in the Croatian Academy is
that Gender Studies is entered in the scientific categorisation of programmes recognised
by the National Council for Science (in 2009 it was classified as an interdisciplinary field
of science; source: “Ordinance on scientific and artistic areas, fields and branches”, from
22. 09. 2009), despite the fact that neither Gender nor Women’s Studies as an integral field
of knowledge has become a part of the academic curricula in Croatia. It should be noted
that this initiative for verifying Gender Studies as an academic field came from the Centre
for Women’s Studies in collaboration with the Department of Ethnology and Cultural
Anthropology, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Zagreb.
36
