Gender studies unit

Presenting the people active in the Gender studies unit at the Department of Cultural Studies, University of Gothenburg.

Arman Heljic

Elin Lundsten, Senior lecturer    
Research interests: Body politics, health care professions, hbtq rights and health care

Erika Alm, Senior lecturer, Associate professor    
Research interests: Body politics, intersex studies, trans studies, queer theory, feminist epistemology, decolonial theory

Eva Zetterman, Senior lecturer, Associate professor    
Research interests: Visual culture, street art, activist art, critical museum studies, critical historiography

Jeanette Sundhall, Senior lecturer
Children's rights, age categorizations , adulthood norms, children's and young people's  activism

Juan Velasquez, Senior lecturer, Associate professor    
Research interests: Participatory Action Research, Video-power, Barrio feminism, Critical Animal Studies, decolonial pedagogy, intersectionality, diffraction, tentacularity, Latin America and The Caribbean (Abya Yala)

Lena Martinsson, Professor    
Research interests: De-colonial theory, Intersectionality, feminist, queer and class perspectives; political subjectivities, critical gender equality -and diversity studies, digital and transnational activism, anti-gender movement

Mathias Ericson        

Mia Liinason, Professor    
Research interests: Feminist and LGBTI+ activisms; social change; space/place; technocultural assemblages; post/decolonial theories; transnational methodologies; multi-scalar approaches

Onur Kilic, Doctoral student    
Research interests: Politics of place, digital activism, citizenship studies, queer theory

Olga Sasunkevich, Associate senior lecturer    
Research interests: Feminist and LGBTQI+ activism, transnational encounters, post-socialism, Russia, Eastern Europe

Selin Çağatay, Postdoctoral researcher    
Research interests: Women's activism, gender politics, political history, intersectionality, transnational methodologies, secularism, gender and labour

In the Gender Studies Unit, junior and senior researchers work independently as well as collaboratively around a set of questions at the forefront of gender studies and feminist research within and across the following three thematic areas:

• Digital technologies, emergent communities, transnational activism and social change;
• Discourses and practices of gender and sexuality at the intersection of critical race and feminist queer studies and post/decolonial methodologies;
• New approaches to bodies and embodiment: subjectivity/agency, vulnerability and precarity.

United by our critical approach to gender studies as a field of teaching and research, the Unit offers inspiring and challenging research exchanges in our Gender Studies Seminar Series, and each year, an annual Summer Symposia takes place. Researchers in the Unit are keen to think and work together, and delighted to welcome guest researchers for shorter or longer periods of stay. If you are interested in visiting our environment, please send an application with a personal letter and a 2-page CV to Lena Martinsson.

Unpacking gender science: Issues and concepts in gender research and education

How can we approach gender from an inclusive perspective? In the context of controversies around gender studies and anti-gender mobilizations in Sweden and beyond, how can we address issues around normativity, binarity, feminist and LGBTQI+ movements, visual cultures and digital technologies? Featuring researchers from the Gender Studies Unit at the University of Gothenburg, this clip series looks at different aspects of gender studies, research, and education. Production of the clip series was funded by Stiftelsen Gustaf Adolf Bratts föreläsningsfond and coordinated by Selin Çağatay, Ph.D.

Gender studies at the University of Gothenburg is an expansive, international and interdisciplinary research and education environment. Postgraduate students attend the Gender Unit and contribute to the continuous development of the department and the subject. A common starting point for the Unit is that we approach the research field with a critical approach, whether the research questions are about feminist theory, political subjectivity, organization and resistance in a neoliberal, postcolonial and global era, about norms about age, gender, functionality and sexuality or on feminist knowledge production. The department's researchers investigate issues that are at the absolute center of the social debate and develop knowledge that provides new insights on complex phenomena. We continuously participate in debates and knowledge development about, for example, trans issues, gender equality policy, care, reproduction and care, decolonial or critical animal studies or about the importance of digital technologies for transnational social movements.  
 
PhD students in the Unit have the opportunity to develop as independent, critical and reflective gender researchers with the ability to contribute to developing theoretical perspectives, methodologies and ethical approaches. The department is part of the international research school Intergender and doctoral students have access to international as well as national networks. All PhD students are eligible to teach or carry out administrative duties during postgraduate education.

The Gender Hub and the Ph.D. /Post-Doc hub are spaces that connect gender studies scholars and other researchers with a strong interest in questions of social justice, gender and sexualities, and serves as a collaborative, semi-formal space of exchange and support in research, education and collaboration. They emerged as a response to anti-gender campaigns and increased rhetoric and practices limiting academic freedom and freedom of conducting research and education in an independent environment that our institution provided for decades.

The Gender Ph.D. and Post-Doc hub has been developed with the aspiration to create a network and supporting environment in research and writing processes based on students' and researchers' solidarity. The hub is a space of exchange of ideas and thoughts but also social action, network building and collaboration across the university, but also between universities in Sweden and abroad.

Both networks are open spaces for participation in various forms such as reading groups, get-together, sharing networks, and co-organizing events.