2017 Berkshire Conference on the History of Women, Genders and Sexualities

June 01 - 04, 2017

As public universities lose support from federal and state governments, social science departments contend with administrations influenced by private funding, diminishing enrollment, and waning support for research challenging powerful institutions, corporations, and individuals. This panel will reflect upon methodologies and propose new frameworks for feminist researchers conducting work on sexual, intimate, and medical violence in neoliberal and academic contexts. Feminist scholars of color have made important contributions to the development of methodological approaches in academic work, but disciplines often do not train students in this legacy. Coming from four disciplines, we argue that each school can build upon the traditions of Audre Lorde, Assata Shakur, and Amy Richards and engage new conversations about methodological approaches to research on sexual violence.

Panelists will discuss methodological approaches to their work as they expose the colonial, imperial, state, and intersectional roots of harm perpetrated against poor, indigenous, and black communities in Latin America, and particularly on women. Their work confronts questions such as: what are the epistemological and ideological bases of Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)? How can the canonical approaches of disciplinary training contribute to the perpetration of harm against individuals and communities? How can we, as researchers, avoid repeating the epistemological and ideological violences that researchers and state actors have conducted in the past? What strategies of self-care can we adopt to responsibly engage with our research? We invite activists to join this discussion on contending with the structures that inform universities, state, and federal institutions in the present day.