Maria do Mar Pereira
I am a feminist ethnographer with a background in Sociology and a commitment to interdisciplinary research and teaching in women's and gender studies.
I joined the University of Leeds in September 2011, after working as a Teaching Fellow on LSE100 at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) and as a Visiting Research Fellow at the Centre for Excellence in Gender Research (GEXcel) at the University of Örebro (Sweden).
I hold a PhD in Gender from the Gender Institute at LSE and a BSc+MSc (Distinction) in Sociology from the Lisbon University Institute (ISCTE-IUL, Portugal).
My current research project is an ethnographic study of negotiations of the epistemic status of women's, gender, feminist studies (WGFS) in Portugal. By epistemic status, I understand the degree to which, and terms in which, knowledge claims are recognised as fulfilling the requisite criteria to be considered credible and authoritative. The project draws on feminist epistemology, Michel Foucault’s work and debates in science and technology studies to analyse how WGFS and non-WGFS scholars discursively and institutionally demarcate the boundaries of ‘proper’ scholarly knowledge and how they position WGFS in relation to those boundaries. Using a combination of qualitative methods (including participant observation in a range of sites of academic work and sociability, interviews and archival research), the project maps these negotiations, characterises their protagonists and the sites where they take place, identifies the resources deployed in them and examines their effects on research and teaching.
I have also conducted research on the negotiation of gender and sexuality among children and young people in school settings, feminist methodologies and pedagogies, contemporary transformations in higher education and science policy in Europe, men’s discourses about masculinity and fatherhood, and issues of language difference and translation in social science research.
Address: University of Warwick
Department of Sociology
Social Sciences Building
Coventry
CV4 7AL
I joined the University of Leeds in September 2011, after working as a Teaching Fellow on LSE100 at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) and as a Visiting Research Fellow at the Centre for Excellence in Gender Research (GEXcel) at the University of Örebro (Sweden).
I hold a PhD in Gender from the Gender Institute at LSE and a BSc+MSc (Distinction) in Sociology from the Lisbon University Institute (ISCTE-IUL, Portugal).
My current research project is an ethnographic study of negotiations of the epistemic status of women's, gender, feminist studies (WGFS) in Portugal. By epistemic status, I understand the degree to which, and terms in which, knowledge claims are recognised as fulfilling the requisite criteria to be considered credible and authoritative. The project draws on feminist epistemology, Michel Foucault’s work and debates in science and technology studies to analyse how WGFS and non-WGFS scholars discursively and institutionally demarcate the boundaries of ‘proper’ scholarly knowledge and how they position WGFS in relation to those boundaries. Using a combination of qualitative methods (including participant observation in a range of sites of academic work and sociability, interviews and archival research), the project maps these negotiations, characterises their protagonists and the sites where they take place, identifies the resources deployed in them and examines their effects on research and teaching.
I have also conducted research on the negotiation of gender and sexuality among children and young people in school settings, feminist methodologies and pedagogies, contemporary transformations in higher education and science policy in Europe, men’s discourses about masculinity and fatherhood, and issues of language difference and translation in social science research.
Address: University of Warwick
Department of Sociology
Social Sciences Building
Coventry
CV4 7AL
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Papers by Maria do Mar Pereira
Over the past decade we have witnessed profound transformations of the models of organisation and evaluation of academic work in Portugal and elsewhere. These transformations have included processes of extensification, elasticisation and casualisation of scientific and academic labour, as well as an expanding institutionalisation of regimes of performativity supported by structures of measurement and auditing. These interacting trends are having significant impacts not only on working conditions in academia, but also on our projects and opportunities for social and political intervention outside the academy. In this article, I analyse the possibilities and impossibilities of articulation of activism and academic work which have been generated by these transformations. I argue than in the contemporary “academia without walls” this articulation can be extremely difficult, but I propose that we cease to conceptualise that difficulty as an individual challenge, and instead reframe and denounce it as a structural problem that requires – urgently – a collective response.
Estas são algumas das questões que M. M. Pereira explora nesta obra inovadora na Sociologia e Estudos de Género em Portugal. Tomando como ponto de partida uma etnografia do quotidiano de uma turma de 8.º ano de uma escola lisboeta, problematiza-se a performatividade do género, isto é, o modo como masculinidades e feminilidades são negociadas na interacção. Examinando como é que as/os jovens constroem e contestam fronteiras de género, demonstra-se que, mais do que um traço determinado pela socialização, o género é uma construção diária laboriosa, que produz tanto prazer e união como desconforto e exclusão, e na qual rapazes e raparigas investem de forma activa mas ambivalente.
Aliando uma sofisticada discussão teórica a uma análise rica e acessível do dia-a-dia das/os jovens, esta é uma obra de grande utilidade não só para investigadoras/es e estudantes interessadas/os em género, sexualidade, culturas juvenis, educação, e metodologias feministas e etnográficas, mas também para jovens, pais e professoras/es.
Em Portugal não tem havido uma problematização teórica e empírica alargada da dimensão performativa do género, isto é, dos modos como diferenças, semelhanças e desigualdades de género vão sendo (re)construídas e negociadas quotidianamente na interacção. Com este artigo, pretende-se contribuir para aprofundar essa reflexão através da discussão de uma etnografia realizada com jovens de uma turma de 8º ano de uma escola em Lisboa. Partindo de dois estudos de caso (a gestão do acesso a espaços do recreio e o carácter heteronormativo e homofóbico da regulação das masculinidades), argumenta-se que uma abordagem performativa é um útil e pertinente instrumento de problematização do género e de análise crítica dos modelos teóricos actualmente usados para estudar género na investigação sociológica mainstream no nosso país.
Palavras-chave: Género, Performatividade, Jovens, Escola, Etnografia.
Abstract (ENG):
Doing Gender in School: a performative analysis of gender negotiation among young people
In Portugal, we have not yet seen widespread theoretical and empirical examination of gender from a performative perspective, interrogating the ways in which gendered differences, similarities and inequalities are produced and negotiated on an ongoing, daily basis in a range of contexts of interaction. With this article, I aim to contribute to the development of such research through a discussion of an ethnography carried out with young people in a school in Lisbon. Drawing on two case-studies (management of access to playground space and the role of heteronormativity and homophobia in the regulation of masculinities), I argue that a performative approach is a useful and pertinent tool for analysis of gender issues and for critical examination of the analytical models most often used to study gender in current mainstream Portuguese sociological research.
Key-words: Gender, Performativity, Youngsters, School, Etnography.
Over the past decade we have witnessed profound transformations of the models of organisation and evaluation of academic work in Portugal and elsewhere. These transformations have included processes of extensification, elasticisation and casualisation of scientific and academic labour, as well as an expanding institutionalisation of regimes of performativity supported by structures of measurement and auditing. These interacting trends are having significant impacts not only on working conditions in academia, but also on our projects and opportunities for social and political intervention outside the academy. In this article, I analyse the possibilities and impossibilities of articulation of activism and academic work which have been generated by these transformations. I argue than in the contemporary “academia without walls” this articulation can be extremely difficult, but I propose that we cease to conceptualise that difficulty as an individual challenge, and instead reframe and denounce it as a structural problem that requires – urgently – a collective response.
Estas são algumas das questões que M. M. Pereira explora nesta obra inovadora na Sociologia e Estudos de Género em Portugal. Tomando como ponto de partida uma etnografia do quotidiano de uma turma de 8.º ano de uma escola lisboeta, problematiza-se a performatividade do género, isto é, o modo como masculinidades e feminilidades são negociadas na interacção. Examinando como é que as/os jovens constroem e contestam fronteiras de género, demonstra-se que, mais do que um traço determinado pela socialização, o género é uma construção diária laboriosa, que produz tanto prazer e união como desconforto e exclusão, e na qual rapazes e raparigas investem de forma activa mas ambivalente.
Aliando uma sofisticada discussão teórica a uma análise rica e acessível do dia-a-dia das/os jovens, esta é uma obra de grande utilidade não só para investigadoras/es e estudantes interessadas/os em género, sexualidade, culturas juvenis, educação, e metodologias feministas e etnográficas, mas também para jovens, pais e professoras/es.
Em Portugal não tem havido uma problematização teórica e empírica alargada da dimensão performativa do género, isto é, dos modos como diferenças, semelhanças e desigualdades de género vão sendo (re)construídas e negociadas quotidianamente na interacção. Com este artigo, pretende-se contribuir para aprofundar essa reflexão através da discussão de uma etnografia realizada com jovens de uma turma de 8º ano de uma escola em Lisboa. Partindo de dois estudos de caso (a gestão do acesso a espaços do recreio e o carácter heteronormativo e homofóbico da regulação das masculinidades), argumenta-se que uma abordagem performativa é um útil e pertinente instrumento de problematização do género e de análise crítica dos modelos teóricos actualmente usados para estudar género na investigação sociológica mainstream no nosso país.
Palavras-chave: Género, Performatividade, Jovens, Escola, Etnografia.
Abstract (ENG):
Doing Gender in School: a performative analysis of gender negotiation among young people
In Portugal, we have not yet seen widespread theoretical and empirical examination of gender from a performative perspective, interrogating the ways in which gendered differences, similarities and inequalities are produced and negotiated on an ongoing, daily basis in a range of contexts of interaction. With this article, I aim to contribute to the development of such research through a discussion of an ethnography carried out with young people in a school in Lisbon. Drawing on two case-studies (management of access to playground space and the role of heteronormativity and homophobia in the regulation of masculinities), I argue that a performative approach is a useful and pertinent tool for analysis of gender issues and for critical examination of the analytical models most often used to study gender in current mainstream Portuguese sociological research.
Key-words: Gender, Performativity, Youngsters, School, Etnography.