| Popis: |
Living under the threat of demonising feminism along with its de-politicisation and commodification in an age of “postfeminist sensibility” (Gill, 2007), and the reduction of women’s/gender studies programmes worldwide is more than a reason to revisit the feminist politics of knowledge here and now. Since the neoliberal trend is impregnated “with old-fashioned academic design that counts on (neo)conservativism” (Kašić, 2016), retrograde claims and (neo)traditional morality, one challenge is how to respond to the sexist, androcentric, anti-gender and racist assumptions that are deepening inequality and fostering social exclusion and discrimination as well as to disrupting the mainstream knowledge of scientificity (Pereira, 2017). By using the Centre for Women’s Studies in Zagreb as an example, the paper argues that an alternative form of education outside mainstream academic institutions, despite various obstacles and inner problems, can ensure a freeing up from hegemonic and misogynist knowledge more than a university education by creating a powerful space toward feminism as an epistemic disobedience and activist theory, and by providing the political subjectivisation of both teachers and students. In this regard, three topics are of analytical interest here: feminism as subversive knowledge; critical pedagogy from the perspective of “epistemology of discomfort”; and the potential held by feminism as an engaged (activist) theory. The questions and themes proposed are not new but continue on previous epistemic dilemmas and disputes both around feminism and progressive ideas around education, and coming to terms with feminist urgency and ethical responsibility (Spivak, 2012). |
