Embodied Institutionalism: A New Model for Gender Equity Reform

Project Information

EIGER

Grant agreement ID: 896455

DOI

10.3030/896455

Project closed

EC signature date 8 April 2020

Start date 1 September 2021

End date 1 January 2024

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions

Total cost

€ 162 806,40

EU contribution

€ 162 806,40

Coordinated by

FREIE UNIVERSITAET BERLIN
Germany

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - EIGER (Embodied Institutionalism: A New Model for Gender Equity Reform)

Reporting period: 2021-09-01 to 2023-08-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The importance of gender equity for enhancing the quality of scientific, legal, economic, and social policy research is well-documented.

‘Embodied Institutionalism: A New Model for Gender Equity Reform’ (‘EIGER’) investigates the following question: Why are particular reforms targeting gendered discrimination effective in one institutional context, yet non-effective in another? What accounts for this difference?

EIGER argues that accounting for the success or failure of particular reforms requires close consideration of how affect and imagination operate in institutional spaces. My project considers how institutions shape particular imaginings and affects among gendered actors, and the impact of this dynamic on attempts to address gender inequity. This is a novel approach that goes beyond the existing literature, which tends to focus on affect, imagination, and material structures in isolation from one another, rather than seeing how these things interrelate.

EIGER focuses on gender inequity in the university, insofar as the university remains a central site of knowledge creation and dissemination and plays a formative role in the career trajectories of many young adults. Higher education institutions formally prohibit all forms of discrimination, yet women and other minorities continue to confront discriminatory practices and outcomes.

EIGER has the following key objectives: first, to map out the relationship between imagination, affect, social identity, and institutional structures; and second, to show how this theoretical framework can be used to guide more effective reform efforts within the space of the university. Thirdly, it aims to widely disseminate its findings to academic as well as non-academic audiences.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

EIGER engaged in a comparative study of higher education cultures in Australia and in Europe. This study explored differences in the experiences of academics and students in different geo-political contexts, and the form that successful activism and reforms took on in these contexts. Charting these differences supported EIGER’s key hypothesis: that standardized approaches to promoting gender equity must be supplemented by context-sensitive strategies that meaningfully engage with people’s situated imaginings and affective attachments in order to encourage support for change.


As part of this project, I conducted secondary research as well as extensive interviews with Humanities and Social Sciences scholars in Germany and Australia. These interviews
appear on my blog page, ‘Looking Local in the Academy’. (https://lookinglocalintheacademy.wordpress.com/). I have widely circulated this blog to academics and reformers to give them insight into local dynamics, so that they may come up with more tailored solutions to issues of inequity within their ranks.


To date I have published my findings in a volume entitled ‘Affect, Power, and Institutions’ (Routledge 2022). As lead editor for this volume, I co-authored an editorial introduction entitled ‘The Many Lives of Institutions: A Framework for Studying Institutional Affect’, and contributed a single-authored chapter entitled ‘Conflicting Imaginaries in the International Academy’. I also have a forthcoming peer-reviewed journal paper with the top-ranked feminist journal, Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy, which focuses on how affective relations and inequalities of power in the sphere of sexual relations carry over into formal institutional settings, such as higher education.

I have completed a full draft of a journal paper entitled ‘Embodied Institutionalism: Imaginaries, Affect, and Localised Dynamics of Institutional Change,’ which will be submitted to a top-ranking interdisciplinary journal in mid-2024.

Lastly, I am a lead editor for a special issue entitled ‘Looking Local: Embodied Imaginaries and Praxis in Higher Education’, which has been accepted for publication in 2025 with the prestigious journal, Studies in Philosophy and Education. This project will feature 8 contributions from non-Indigenous and Indigenous scholars embedded in diverse geopolitical and cultural contexts. For this special issue publication, I will co-author an editorial introduction and will complete a single-authored chapter contribution entitled ‘The University as Apprentice: Global Imaginaries and the Politics of Place.’

All publications resulting from EIGER are published under an open access model.


I have been able to widely and rapidly disseminate my research to diverse audiences not only via academic workshops and conferences but also through my contribution to a public blog (https://affective-societies.de/2021/sfb-1171/looking-local-affective-benefits-and-burdens-in-the-academy) a podcast interview (https://uk-podcasts.co.uk/podcast/travelling-concepts-on-air/se3ep6-institutions) plus a YouTube video abstract of my research for the 2023 #4GenderStudies Science Day at the Free University Berlin (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbgt1bxcN78).


With EIGER, I participated in several outreach activities in Germany as well as the Netherlands. These activities included a poster session for students at Witten/Herdecke University; three seminar sessions with philosophy students at the Free University Berlin on the relationship between imagination and institutions; and a student lecture at Utrecht University outlining EIGER’s findings.

My skills in communication and dissemination, and my knowledge of how to exploit EIGER’s key findings, were enhanced through my participation in two online training courses with the Dahlem Research School at Freie Universität Berlin on science communication and public engagement, and my completion of the P2i Postdocs to Innovators online course (‘Empowering researchers to innovate’).

The establishment of partnerships with government bodies, NGOs, policy-makers, and other relevant stakeholders to apply EIGER’s findings not only in higher education settings but in other kinds of institutional settings represents the next phase of the project to be completed.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

EIGER developed a novel theoretical framework that drew together bodies of scholarship heretofore overlooked in studies of institutional change. EIGER was able to go beyond the existing state of the art by using this framework to analyse the value and limitations of mainstream institutional reforms, and to defend context-sensitive, localised approaches to addressing issues of institutional inequity.

EIGER’s findings have the potential to guide more innovative reform efforts not only in the space of the university but also in other kinds of institutional spaces (e.g. the corporate workplace, state parliament, and medical contexts).

By spotlighting more effective ways of improving the representation of minorities and their valuable knowledge bases in key social institutions, EIGER promises to have society-wide benefits that are aligned with European policy objectives concerning the promotion of social, scientific, and technological progress, as well as the promotion of social justice, equality, and respect for diversity.


Through its capacity to illuminate effective approaches to addressing gendered and other forms of institutional discrimination, EIGER has the potential for widespread application and high impact. Potential users of EIGER’s results include academic scholars and activists, as well as government and industry consultants.

Poster Presentation at Witten/Herdecke University