Course Name: Feminist Theories and Organization Studies: Dialogue on New Bases
Time and place: June 2025 (4.-6.6.2025), University of Lapland, Pyhätunturi
Learning goal and objectives: This course focuses on contemporary feminist theoretical debates in the field of organization and management studies. The aim is to enable students to develop a critical appreciation of different feminist approaches to the study of organization, organizing and social relations at work. During the course, central feminist theories will be scrutinized to see how they theorize power differences and are able to reveal different forms of discrimination and processes of inclusion and exclusion, as well as offer emancipatory possibilities for change in contemporary organizations. To address and challenge inequalities in organizations students will be acquainted with new theorizing on connections between contemporary feminisms and different forms of ethics, including moralities, which are based on affective solidarity, ethics of care and recognition-based ethics.
After completing the course, students will be better able to:
* create dialogue and compare different streams of feminist theorizing in the field of management and organization studies.
* analyse power differences and processes of inclusion and exclusion, discrimination, and emancipation in contemporary organizations.
* generate contemporary, innovative research questions within the framework of current feminist debates.
* handle theoretical topics orally and in a written form, at a level appropriate for a doctoral students.
Instruction and examination: The students will write a 10-15-page final research report and submit it one month after the intensive course. Active participation in discussions during the intensive 3-day period is expected.
Credits: 6 ECTS
Grading: Five-level grading scale (0-5): sufficient, satisfactory, good, very good, or excellent. The instructor of the course makes the evaluation based on the final research report written after the course.
Prerequisites: Required readings. Students are required to read all the assigned journal articles (ca. 10-15) and submit a 1-page summary report of each article before the course. Active student engagement is essential and the readings are critical to developing individual ideas and contributing to discussions in the class.
Admittance: Maximum number of participants is 25.
Deadline for course applications: March 14, 2025. Applications should be sent by email in one pdf document (with file name firstname_lastname_course_application) to the course coordinator: ilmarimiettunen@gmail.com. Students will be notified of acceptance April 10, 2025.
The application to the course should include the following information:
Name:
email:
University:
Faculty/Department
Discipline:
Year when officially accepted as doctoral student:
Phase of doctoral studies:
Supervisor(s):
Research area/subject of dissertation
Motives for participating in the course:
Instructors:
Alison Pullen Professor of Gender, Work and Organization, Macquarie University, Australia.
Alison was born and raised in Wales and now lives on Gadigal land. As a feminist researcher, Alison has worked with feminist philosophy and methodologies to disrupt dominant institutional norms (including knowledge practices) and explore alternative ways of living. Alison and colleagues’ recent publications focused on sexism in business schools, feminist social movements, the importance of hope and inclusion for everyday activism, the good business school and organizational responses to domestic violence. In 2023 Alison was awarded the British Academy of Management Research medal for her sustained contributions to gender research and was inducted as Fellow of the British Academy of Management. She is reading feminist plant philosophy with Sheena Vachhani, queer theory with Elo Reiss and Anna Stöber, democratic organizing in universities with Carl Rhodes, and feminist responsibilities with Alice Wickström.
Susan Meriläinen Professor of Management, University of Lapland, Finland.
Susan is an organization studies scholar whose current projects relate to the embodied and material aspects of feminist knowledge production practices. Together with her like-minded colleagues Susan has actively sought to counter hegemonic academic practices that (re)produce inequalities and hierarchies in academia by using both conventional (e.g. academic writing, curriculum redesign) and more unconventional (e.g. organizing shared knowledge production retreats in the wilderness) means. Susan’s recently co-edited (with Saija Katila and Emma Bell) Handbook of Feminist Methodologies in Management and Organization Studies is a good example of her passion and commitment to change the taken-for-granted practices in organization studies and academia in general. Currently Susan is leading an EU funded research consortium ‘AECED – Transforming Education for Democracy through Aesthetic and Embodied Learning, Responsive Pedagogies and Democracy-as-becoming’ (2024-2026). Susan serves as Associate Editor for Organization.
Saija Katila, Adjunct professor, Senior Lecturer, Aalto School of Business, Finland
Saija is organization studies scholar whose current projects relate to intersection of space and gendering as well as embodiment and materiality in the construction of inclusion and exclusion in organizations be it academia, business or else. In her studies Saija has drawn especially from feminist as well as practice-based theories. Her latest publications have been inspired by affect theories as well feminist new materiality. Recently she co-edited (with Susan Meriläinen and Emma Bell) Handbook of Feminist Methodologies in Management and Organization Studies to highlight the key contributions of feminist theorizing to the methodological practice in organization studies and to envision future directions. Saija served as an Associate Editor for Gender, Work and Organization for 20 years and currently serves in the Editorial Board of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion: An International Journal. She further is a board member of Hilma, the National Gender Studies Network.
Guest lecturers:
Adjunct professor, University lecturer Pikka-Maaria Laine, University of Lapland
Professor Janne Tienari, Hanken
Professor Anu Valtonen, University of Lapland
Course coordinator and contact information: ilmarimiettunen@gmail.com