The Value of Feminist Scholarship

Abstract

The past few years have seen an increasing wave of anti-genderism in Eastern Europe; and in 2020, teaching gender studies in Romania almost became illegal. Within this broader context, we reflect on the process of (re)negotiating spaces to teach gender and geography within a Romanian university for 15+ years, the grit required to overcome structural, ideological and political barriers and the value of feminist scholarship. Our analysis is based on complexity theory that analyses the ways in which under particular circumstances the systems develop and change. In our case the system is represented by the geographical curricula in Romania with a focus on gender and geography progress and the continuous negotiations and tensions between acceptance and rejection. The key points we review are as follows: (1) the early role of international exchange programs for raising the awareness of the academic staff on emerging research topics that were inaccessible in former totalitarian regimes, (2) the crucial role of inclusive academic international networking ranging from personal networks to institutionalized networks such as the IGU Gender and Geography Commission, (3) the importance of different strategies for creating and maintaining space for gender and geography institutionally and politically ranging from how we introduced the subject to how to adapt to the Bologna teaching system and the more recent ban on gender studies and (4) the continuous adaptation of the topics in syllabi adapted over the years and empirical analysis of student evaluations. In conclusion, we affirm the importance of personal networks in the struggle to shape institutional spaces of higher education to make the teaching of gender and geography more accessible. The work is not finished yet!