Gender Justice and Neoliberal Transformations Working Group
About
The Gender Justice and Neoliberal Transformations Working Group studies the role of gender and sexuality in intertwined forms of political and economic injustice. For the past half-century, neoliberal policies and practices have transformed the world around us in what often appear to be paradoxical and contradictory ways. Neoliberal policies have been enacted by authoritarian regimes such as the Pinochet government in Chile in the 1970s, as well as by liberal democratic governments like that led by Barack Obama in the United States in the 2000s. Neoliberal policies often serve to weaken governmental structures, as when wealthy countries have instituted neoliberalism to undo the provisions of their welfare states. At the same time, neoliberal policies have been used to bolster the various components of the national security state in both wealthy and less affluent countries. Responses to neoliberalism have been equality contradictory, including both new movements for democratic socialism in some contexts and increasing support for authoritarian governments in others. In other cases, neoliberalism has come to the fore of policy making and then been repudiated and replaced, only to return with new force. Adding to the urgency of this analysis, neoliberal transformations have intersected with other drivers of global transformation, including climate change, expanded migration, and extensive warfare.
The Gender Justice and Neoliberal Transformations Working Group has undertaken a multi-sited, collaborative research agenda to produce innovative ideas about how to address these intersecting social issues more effectively and to contribute to a more just world. Given the centrality of gender and sexuality to both political economy and contemporary operations of statecraft, we argue that the study of gender and sexuality is crucial to theorizing neoliberalism, and particularly so in relation to the rollback of the welfare state, the feminization of migration, and transformations in modes of labor and capital accumulation. This project also documents some of the ways in which people have chosen to respond, whether through global activism or local efforts to pursue social change.
Through comparative and synthetic analysis, the twelve members of this group—whose transnational reach includes Argentina, Denmark, the Dominican Republic, India, Hong Kong, Mexico, Nigeria, the US Virgin Islands, and the United States—build knowledge that draws upon their individual and collective research. The team has built a collaborative process that allows them to analyze the multiple dimensions of global economic and cultural restructuring as they interactively circulate. The Barnard Center for Research on Women took up this collaboration as an outgrowth of existing projects investigating the linkages among gender, sexual, and economic justice, including two reports in its New Feminist Solutions series, Towards a Vision of Sexual and Economic Justice, and Desiring Change.
Research and Results
The research team for the multi-year collaborative Gender Justice project has held multiple meetings to develop their analysis and to engage with local activists and scholars in many research sites, including the Universidad de Buenos Aires, the Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios de Género (CIEG) at the Universidad Nacional Autónama de México (UNAM), the Danish Institute for International Studies, the Agencia Estatal Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC) in Barcelona, Spain, and the Barnard Center for Research on Women. The group has also presented its work at conferences organized by these centers and at major academic conferences such as those sponsored by the International Association for the Study of Sexuality, Culture and Society (IASSCS), the Latin American Studies Association, and the American Studies Association.
The results of this research project have now been published in several venues with broad audiences:
A special double issue of BCRW’s webjournal Scholar & Feminist Online, “Gender Justice and Neoliberal Transformations.” (Fall 2012/Spring 2013). This issue includes a set of widely used videos, that together have been viewed over 200,000 times:
A co-authored book, Paradoxes of Neoliberalism: Sex, Gender, and Possibilities for Justice, published by Routledge Press (2020).
A Spanish translation of the book, Paradojas de Neoliberalismo, with a new Introduction by Ana Amáchastegui and Mario Pecheny, was published by Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios de Género (CIEG) at Universidad Nacional Autónama de México (UNAM) in 2026.
Innovative Pedagogy
The project has also contributed significantly to innovative pedagogy and teaching. Not only have these materials been widely accessed by both undergraduate and graduate students, but members of the research team have also connected courses to the group’s ongoing work. For example, Principal Investigators Elizabeth Bernstein and Janet Jakobsen have used the Gender Justice framework for a course in which students participated in research conducted with community-based organizations that are working to address the effects of contemporary neoliberal transformations in New York City. By partnering with organizations like SAKHI for South Asian Women, The Sex Workers Outreach Project, Queer Survival Economies, and the New York Women’s Foundation, the students in “Theorizing Activisms” were able to conduct research that is of use to the initiatives of local activists.
Working Group Members
Principal Investigators
- Elizabeth Bernstein, Professor and Chair of Women’s, Gender, & Sexuality Studies and Professor of Sociology, Barnard College. Specializes in the convergence of feminist, neoliberal, and evangelical Christian interests in the shaping of contemporary U.S. policies around sex and gender, with a focus on sexual commerce and the “traffic in women.”
- Janet Jakobsen, Claire Tow Professor of Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Barnard College. Specializes in ethics and public policy with a particular focus on social movements related to religion, gender, and sexuality.
Core Participants
- Ana Amuchástegui, Professor of Social Psychology, Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana-Xochimilco. Researches contemporary sexual politics and reproductive rights in Mexico.
- Sealing Cheng, Associate Professor and Chair of Anthropology, Chinese University, Hong Kong. Specializes in questions of gender, migration, and refugees in Hong Kong and South Korea.
- Abosede George, Associate Professor of History and Africana Studies, Barnard College. Specializes in the history of urbanization, gender and neoliberalism in Lagos, Nigeria.
- Maja Horn, Professor of Spanish and Latin American Cultures, Barnard College, Columbia University. Specializes in literature, art and performances of gender and sexuality in the Dominican Republic.
- Kerwin Kaye, Associate Professor and Chair of Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Wesleyan University. Specializes in gender, addiction, and incarceration in New York City.
- Tami Navarro, Associate Professor and Chair of Pan-African Studies, Drew University. Specializes in neoliberal development, gender, subjectivity, the Caribbean.
- Mark Padilla, Professor of Global Studies, Florida International University. Principle Investigator of Ford Foundation Project on inequality, sexuality, and youth in Detroit, Michigan.
- Mario Pecheny, Professor of Political Science, University of Buenos Aires, Argentina. Researching HIV, sexual and health politics in Latin America.
- Sine Plambech, Researcher, Danish Institute for International Studies. Studies international migration, human trafficking, sex work, global care chains, gender, and humanitarianism.
- Svati Shah, Associate Professor of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, University of Massachusetts – Amherst. Researching the political economy of migration, sex work, development, and urbanization in South Asia and South Asian diaspora.