Morning 04: Gender Matters – Gendering Alpbach

Anti-feminist discourses and opposition to gender equality are currently growing stronger across Europe and the world. These are tightly interwoven with trends towards authoritarian forms of leadership and anti-democratic governance. These developments are highly worrisome in the light of stalling efforts towards democratisation and peaceful conflict resolution. Against this background, the first part of the seminar will offer an introduction into why and how gender matters in global politics and the global political economy with an emphasis on the relations between gender and other structures of inequality, such as race, class, or nationality (intersectional and decolonial approaches).
The second part will guide participants in a hands-on analysis of how gender informs and structures social spaces, such as the European Forum Alpbach itself. Putting the concepts and approaches taught in the first part to work, the seminar will introduce various quantitative and qualitative methods including (auto-) ethnography to uncover how gender shapes the formal and informal ways knowledge is produced in elite contexts. The Forum and its local environment will serve as a laboratory, in order to understand better its structural, institutional, and discursive levels, and to develop bottom-up strategies for more reflexivity and inclusivity.