Gender, Economic Change and Organization

This subtheme concerns how gender orders, gender relations and gender identities develop, change, interact and vary in relation with other power orders and in different societal and cultural contexts at different levels in society. Here we investigate the reproduction of existing orders and social closure, as well as how they change and how new ones develop. Comparisons between groups, countries or time periods are often fruitful.

Gender-related problems that are studied may include:

1. Long-term change of socioeconomic conditions, of the subsistence and welfare systems of societies and the different power orders that develop around them.

2. The change of work: service work, cultural production and intellectual work, their growth and effects for social stratification.

3. The effects of internationalization and migration, for instance on socioeconomic stratification and on the interaction of gender orders, that have developed out of different historical conditions.

4. Economic and political participation and the access of different groups/categories to power resources and power positions, including the arenas for public opinion and debate.

5. Regional differences in economic structure and social infrastructure on one hand, and gender orders, social structure and ethnic backgrounds on the other.

6. Competition, exclusion and inclusion mechanisms in professions and organizations.

7. The education system as a power order between politics and market mechanisms, its role as a producer of knowledge and a cause of social stratification in society.

8. Kinship, class and networks: social capital as a means of power, of trust and of limiting competition.

9. The growing role of consumption and market mechanisms in society, and for instance the effects of aesthetic expressions for social belonging and stratification.

10. The transfer of resources, status and ambition between different generations: reproduction or class travels?


For further information, please contact professor Anita Göransson, phone +46 13 28 66 67.