‘In academia there is still,at least in Latin America,the hegemony of men’: Interviews with researchers and activists on the androcentric and neoliberal logic of contemporary academia

Abstract

This article presents the findings of a qualitative study. It explores the influence of an androcentric logic and a neoliberal logic on the production of knowledge in a highly feminised field. Based on interviews with feminist disability researchers and activists in Latin America, we identify three interconnected elements that condition their academic work. These elements are associated with the structural spheres of operation of university institutions. In these institutions, binary gendered practices are (re)produced through the division of labour and the operation of a masculine rationality. There is also a disconnection between the processes of theorisation and the communities involved in them, along with practices of resistance and interruption of some of these dynamics. The results invite us to rethink academic practices from a feminist ethic of care and social justice, recognising and redistributing workloads, valuing emerging forms of knowledge at the frontier between academia and everyday life and contributing to the urgent call for a more inclusive and situated science committed to social transformation.