Sydney Calkin recently organized and hosted
an international postgraduate conference on feminist politics and the financial
crisis.
The politics of austerity and crisis are
deeply gendered and open up a wide range of feminist debates around
neoliberalism, resistance, and gender justice.
The Gender, Neoliberalism, and Financial Crisis Postgraduate Conference,
which took place at the University of York on 27 September 2013, sought to map
the multiple impacts of financial crisis, austerity, and neoliberalism on women
and to articulate an alternative feminist agenda. It brought together
researchers from around the world working on feminist political economy,
sociology, development studies, economics, and related disciplines to present
their findings and development networks for future research collaboration.
In their opening keynote address, Diane
Elson and Ruth Pearson delivered two closely linked papers that first
considered the impact of the financial crisis and austerity policies on women
and then moved to suggest alternative, gender just economic arrangements. While
they encouraged feminist researchers to continue to document the deficiencies
and obstacles embedded in neoliberal gender regimes, they also challenged
feminists to move beyond critique to articulating alternative anti-neoliberal
economic discourses and policies. In the closing keynote address, Sylvia Walby echoed
this sentiment, demonstrating the importance of articulating a gender growth
model, using feminism as a counter hegemonic project to critique and dismantle
the current neoliberal gender regime. To this end, she proposed a social
democratic gender regime with high levels of female wage labour and political
representation, substantial public expenditure on welfare and state provision
of health, education, and care services. A recording of Diane Elson and Ruth Pearson’s
opening keynote address is available for download and streaming here: https://soundcloud.com/genderconfyork/elson-and-pearson-keynote
Panels throughout the day presented a
diverse range of perspectives on gendered neoliberalism and austerity, both
demonstrating the impact of the financial crisis and advocating alternative
approaches to the current political and economic gender regimes. From a
feminist institutionalist perspective, several researchers presented findings
on gender equality policy in governmental and financial institutions, from the
European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, to the European Union and
Macedonian government. Others examined the impact of austerity on the third
sector and feminist organizations in particular. Both groups of researchers,
those concerned with government and civil society, articulated a trenchant
critique of neoliberalization of government policy and the impact of austerity
on funding, policy, and discourse. In particular, they challenged the dominance
of reductive efficiency-based gender policy, evident in the popular ‘business
case’ for gender equality narratives which render equality a function of
economic growth strategies and marginalize transformative approaches.
Particularly invisible in discourses of crisis and austerity is the role of
social reproduction and its value; another strand of researchers challenged the
marginality of social reproduction from dominant political discourses and
sought, through a variety of methodological approaches, to demonstrate the
value and impact of social reproduction.
The postgraduate work presented here
reflects the continuing significance of some enduring feminist debates and also
opens up new directions for feminist research. Given the range of disciplinary
backgrounds, methodological approaches, and subject matter, the conference
contributions demonstrated the diversity of feminist research and articulated a
coherent and compelling narrative of feminist analysis on the financial crisis
and resistance to the politics of austerity. The conference succeeded in
bringing together postgraduates from around the world to establish research
connections with each other and to meet leading researchers in the field; I
hope it will generate enduring research networks and facilitate future
collaboration among young feminist scholars. This conference was funded in part
by the Politics Department (alongside the York Annual Fund, Political Studies
Association, and York Graduate Students’ Association). It would not have been
possible without the support of Lisa Webster, Caroline Carfrae, and Carole
Spary, so many thanks to them for their support.
