Networks between „East” and „West“. Intensifying scholarly communication between Austria and Eastern Europe in Women’s and Gender History. A comment on Edith Saurer, Margareth Lanzinger and Elisabeth Frysak eds., Women’s Movements. Networks and Debates in post-communist Countries in the 19th and 20th Centuries, Köln et. al 2006
Therese Garstenauer
Commenting on the volume edited by Edith Saurer, Margareth Lanzinger and Elisabeth Frysak, I am not only interested in the impressive variety of contributions but also in the conditions of the making of this book. Furthermore, I am interested in the connotations of „East“ and „West“ in this context. Collaboration across borders, here, does not only imply the necessity to put up with different academic cultures (as has been mentioned in the introduction to the volume), but also with hierarchies. The conference held in 2004 and the volume that collects the contributions to the conference represent an attempt to overcome hierarchies, or at least to deal with them in a productive manner.
I quote from the conference’s call for papers: „Even today, thirteen years after the fall of the Iron Curtain, it is often only the western part of the continent that is meant when there is talk of Europe. The situation is especially condensed in terms of women’s studies and gender research: in its western form, this is closely linked with the social and political experiences and situations or recent decades in the contexts of the genesis, its further developments and changes. Scholars from eastern and south-eastern Europe were not integrated, or at least not to the same degree, in the development of new issues, themes and approaches, and subsequently in changing terminologies and alternating discourses.“
This paragraph aptly describes a situation in which Eastern European scholars are not fully acknowledged as subjects and Eastern Europe is not fully acknowledged as an object of European historiography. The call for papers states furthermore: „One aim was the foundation for a democratic way of dealing with diversity in Europe and for political integration. Beyond established contacts the project would like to stimulate research work and history(ies) about feminism, gender and women’s movement within post-Communist countries. The project is interested in•the most important paradigms, phases, developments concepts, terms, history of feminism and/or gender origins of women’s movement(s) within the several countries.“ Continue reading →
