RESEARCH NETWORKS
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GENIE
The Paradoxes of Finnish Gender Power Order: Law, Politics, and Multilevel
Governance
Funded by Academy of Finland 2007-2010 research programme Power and
Society in Finland
The aim of the project is to study the changes in social power structures
brought on by the recent developments in society, especially from the
viewpoint of gender issues. The membership in the European integration
and globalisation has rapidly changed the social power structures and
mechanisms in Finland . The changes are not yet known too well, but
they seem to contain a certain paradox: at the same time as especially
women's opportunities to political participation and contribution have
increased, the changes in the power structures, as e.g. new forms of
politics, governance and discourses, seem to weaken women's actual subject
positions and opportunities to influence. The interest of this project
lies specifically in these new paradoxes of gendered power.
This multi-disciplinary research project will generate
new empirical and theoretical insights on the Finnish gender power order.
The research results can be used in education as well as state and municipal
administration. Within the scope of the project, we will also organise
workshops, where both Finnish and international power researchers will
take part.
The project is managed by Prof. Kevät Nousiainen
from the University of Helsinki, and other participants are post doc
researchers LLD Satu Paasilehto, D.Soc.Sc. Anne-Maria Holli, D.Soc.Sc.
Eeva Raevaara and D.Soc.Sc. Johanna Kantola. At the moment, two PhD
students (Outi Anttila, Milja Saari) are participating in the project,
as well as a few affiliated doctoral students with their own funding.
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Multidimensional Equality and Democratic Diversity (DEMDI)
The overall objective of the DEMDI network is to create a forum stimulating Nordic research and collaboration on multidimensional equality policies and democratic diversity in the intersections between gender, ethnicity and religion on both individual and institutional levels. This comprises topics and processes in relation to legislative reform and judicial practice, political and public spheres, public policy making, political participation and representation and civil society based mobilisation, on local, regional, and trans-national bases. All the researchers who take part in the network have these topics as their particular fields of interest and competence - both on senior, junior and PhD Levels.
An important aim of the network is to develop the quality of research and doctoral training theoretically and methodologically. The ambition of this network is to stimulate comparative research within the Nordic/European contexts and facilitate exchange of empirical data/knowledge with the aim of developing more explicitly comparative research designs as a basis for future project applications. The strengthening of a cross- and inter disciplinary exchange of knowledge between researchers working mainly within the disciplines of political science, sociology and law further aims to contribute to promoting recognition and publishing of Nordic research internationally. For the topics outlined above, a strengthened cross-disciplinary approach is of vital importance.
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European
Comparative Substantive Representation Project
Karen Celis, Professor, Hogeschool Gent, Belgium
Sarah Childs, Senior Lecturer, University of Bristol, England
Johanna Kantola, Senior Lecturer, University of Helsinki, Finland
Mona Lena Krook, Assistant Professor, Washington University in St. Louis,
US
Over the last ten years there has been extensive discussion by gender
and politics scholars of women’s political representation, taking
both theoretical and empirical forms. Although political representation
is widely regarded as having a number of dimensions - formalistic, symbolic,
descriptive and substantive, much of the feminist work explores substantive
representation and not least, claims that the descriptive and substantive
representation of women are linked. Recently, however, there have been
suggestions that existing frameworks of analysis are inadequate: not
only do the fail to capture the richness of contemporary mainstream
political and feminist theory - not least in respect of women’s
heterogeneity - they also fail to acknowledge the complexity of the
SRW in practice – in particular the recognition of multiple actors,
acts and claims and sites and contents of representation.
The aim of this research network is the rethink women's substantive
representation and to address the question: ‘what is going on’
in representation?
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RNGS
- Research Network on Gender, Politics and the State
I am a researcher in the Research Network on Gender,
Politics and the State (RNGS), which is a large international research
network consisting of over 40 researchers from over 15 countries.
It studies late 20th century women’s movements and the way governments
have responded to these movements. The project has so far resulted in
five books from top publishers (Routledge, Cambridge University Press,
Oxford University Press) and innumerable articles. My contributions
include Kantola and Squires (2004), (2004a), and Holli and Kantola (2005).
Currently, I am editing Changing State Feminism with Professor
Joyce Outshoorn. More about that under the link CURRENT RESEARCH.
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FIIN - Feminism
and Institutionalism International Network
Directors: Fiona Mackay (University of Edinburgh)
and Mona Lena Krook (University of Washington in St. Louis)
FIIN members include Viola Burau (Aarhus), Paul Chaney
(Cardiff), Lenita Freidenvall (Stockholm), Meryl Kenny (Edinburgh),
Petra Meier ( VUB), Marjolein Paantjens (VUB), Georgina Waylen
(Sheffield), Johanna Kantola(Helsinki), Vivien
Lowndes (De Montfort)
Feminist research as well as political research
more generally has recently taken an institutionalist turn, analyzing
the broad political structures and processes that shape patterns of
political stability and change. This approach adopts a wide definition
of institutions that includes the formal features of political systems,
but also the more informal practices and norms that structure political
life as if they were formal rules, promoting or foreclosing certain
interpretations of particular problems or situations. Gender and politics
scholars often incorporate formal and informal institutions in their
explanations of interactions between women, political parties, and the
state, but rarely view their work within an institutionalist framework.
To explore the potential for mutual influence, this network seeks to:
(1) take stock of the state of gender and institutions research, (2)
survey what is being and what could be taken from institutional theory
and approaches for work on gender and politics, and (3) explore whether
there is a feminist institutionalism and, if so, what it comprises.