Doing Gender Lecture – Maria Tamboukou

The Netherlands Research School of Gender Studies in cooperation with her partners organises the eighteenth round of the DOING GENDER Lecture Series. These lectures stress the importance of doing gender work combined with an active involvement in the practice of gender theory and research. The concept of DOING GENDER supports a hands-on approach to gender issues in the sense of social and political engagement with the new forms of gender inequalities that are taking shape in the world today. The lecture series wants to give space to the new generations of gender theorists and practitioners and to perspectives that innovate the field and do gender in new ways. Key is the notion of doing gender: what is the state of the art definition of gender? How do contemporary scholars and activists utilise this definition?

Lecture: Doing Gender in the Archive In this lecture Prof. Tamboukou draws on archival research with seamstresses’ narratives at the Bibliothèque Historique de la Ville de Paris. She considers in particular two themes: the power of place and the force of gendered memories and she raises the question of why serendipity and chance have become conditions sine qua non of archival research. Drawing on neo-materialist approaches, what she suggests is the possibility of considering archival research as a process that is both embodied and embedded.

Maria Tamboukou (BA, MA, PhD) is Professor of Feminist Studies, at the University of East London, UK. Her research activity develops in the areas of philosophies and epistemologies in the social sciences, feminist theories, narrative analytics and archival research. Writing feminist genealogies is the central focus of her work. She is the author of 7 monographs and more than 70 journal articles and book chapters. Recent publications include the monographs Sewing, Writing and Fighting, Gendering the Memory of Work, Women Workers’ Education, as well as the co-authored book The Archive Project.

Doing Gender Lecture details: