Feminism, culture and the intellectual process

• Main Author: Nava, Mica
• Published: University College London (University of London) 1991
• Subjects: 301; Sociology
• Online Access: http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.302698

This submission to the University of London for a PhD by publication is composed of ten articles published in journals and edited collections between 1980 and 1990. The work covers a wide span chronologically and thematically and for the purpose of this presentation has been divided into four sections. The articles in Section I examine the history and implications of key debates within feminism and were published between 1980 and 1983. An additional piece of the same period, which covers some of the same ground but was written and published in Spanish, is included in the Appendix. The articles in Section II were published between 1982 and 1984 and focus on gender in youth work and schooling. The first piece is an ethnographic study of young women in north London who attended a girls project. The second is a historical analysis of gender difference in youth service provision and the third explores the symbolic meaning of the urban and the domestic in the education of girls. Section III contains two pieces on child sexual abuse. The first, published in 1984, looks at questions of power and policy in the context of a school; the second, published four years later, focuses on the politics of representation. The three articles in Section IV, published since 1987, confirm this movement into cultural analysis and investigate theorisations of consumerism, advertising and identity. The ten articles are linked to each other by the introduction which traces the historical, biographical and conceptual context in which the work was produced and provides a framework in which the intellectual process itself becomes an object of study. The commentary, which explores in greater detail aspects of the production and reception of each piece and highlights key themes, provides an additional connecting thread.