We are pleased to announce the winner of the FWSA 2018 Book Prize competition: Maria do Mar Pereira’s ‘Power, Knowledge and Feminist Scholarship: An Ethnography of Academia’. Thanks to everyone who participated and helped make the competition a success.

2018: Maria do Mar Pereira (University of Warwick) for Power, Knowledge and Feminist Scholarship: An Ethnography of Academia (Routledge).

Feminist scholarship is sometimes dismissed as not quite ‘proper’ knowledge – it’s too political or subjective, many argue. But what are the boundaries of ‘proper’ knowledge? Who defines them, and how are they changing? How do feminists negotiate them? And how does this boundary-work affect women’s and gender studies, and its scholars’ and students’ lives?These are the questions tackled by this ground-breaking ethnography of academia inspired by feminist epistemology, Foucault, and science and technology studies. Drawing on data collected over a decade in Portugal and the UK, US and Scandinavia, this title explores different spaces of academic work and sociability, considering both official discourse and ‘corridor talk’. It links epistemic negotiations to the shifting political economy of academic labour, and situates the smallest (but fiercest) departmental negotiations within global relations of unequal academic exchange.

‘This volume was “a gift”. Rigorously researched, clearly and powerfully argued. Maria do Mar Pereira’s volume on feminist scholarship and its position within the academy is, without a doubt, urgently needed as an insight into the fraught world of the field.  Although it is situated within a specific context, its findings paint a fascinating picture of the climate and shifts taking place in academia today that can be felt across Europe. The book was wonderfully written and thoroughly engaging – the mix of theory, fieldwork and frank discussion made the topic engrossing.’

– Judge’s comment

‘This is a timely and important contribution to feminist knowledges and debates, and in reference to the judging criteria, there is clearly a strong appreciation of the subject matter, interesting, coherent and closely made argument, and consistent use of evidence. Here we see an analysis built through research developed over a period of several years within cross-cultural/cross-national European contexts.’

– Judge’s comment

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