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The Gender Institute was established in 1993 to address the major intellectual challenges posed by contemporary changes in gender relations. This remains a central aim of the Institute today, which is the largest research and teaching unit of its kind in Europe. The Gender Institute is interested in mapping and intervening in the gendered nature of social processes, and believes that an integrated interdisciplinary and global approach is needed to do so, making the Institute the only gender centre globally that combines theory and practice with such an interdisciplinary and transnational scope.
Research falls under four broad strands:
Bodies and sexualities: Research in this field includes analysis of the body as property, and body as commodity, and what, if anything, makes the body special. It also addresses the relationship between gender and sexuality, with an emphasis on local and transnational spaces and flows.
Gender and social policy: Using a gendered perspective, research in this theme documents social, economic and political change, and critically analyses individual, family, and policy responses, using both cross-national comparative methodologies and in-depth case studies.
Globalisation, development and inequalities: Research in this theme includes social and economic transformation in the global North and South, focusing on gendered relations, on rights, citizenship and social justice and resilience and change with respect to work, security, migration, poverty and the social reproduction of daily life.
Representation, narrative and culture: This theme brings together colleagues who work on gendered representations in film, literature and theory. This work addresses ageing and subjectivity, affect, classed dimensions of narrative, and the history of feminist theory.