The Krantijyoti Savitribai Phule Women’s Studies Centre

Abstract

The article examines women’s studies as a moment that mediates the conflict between the women’s movement and the university on the question of knowledge and knowledge-production. The starting point is the assertion made by historical–materialist feminists that knowledge is produced in and through political struggle. The article argues that social movements, as much as the science practised in institutional settings, may be studied in terms of practices of knowledge-production. It is with the concept of ‘knowledge-practice’ that the article traces the influence of social movements on the Krantijyoti Savitribai Phule Women’s Studies Centre (KSP-WSC), University of Pune, Maharashtra. The article traces the links between such practices at the Centre and various social movements, so as to understand how the Centre negotiates with the university while also engaging with social movements and activism. This particular women’s studies centre, the article shows, attempts to import the knowledge-practices of movements. This is most distinctively visible in the Centre’s critical research methodologies and critical pedagogies derived from Phule–Ambedkarite–Feminist (PAF) perspectives.