Gender and Economic Governance Expertise

Abstract

Abstract Gender scholars have made three key contributions to studies of experts and expertise in economic governance. First, they have explored how experts mobilize intersectional gendered assumptions to make expert claims intelligible and authoritative, while rendering alternative claims unrecognizable. Second, by taking expertise as a series of practices, and not just a claim, gender scholars have explored the points of tension and conflict embedded in the work experts do to establish authority in economic policymaking. Third, gender scholars have studied expertise as institutional processes in which claims, people, and organizations are incorporated into networks that stabilize specific configurations of economic expertise over time. The chapter is an invitation to expand the reach of gender scholars’ contributions, in a dialogue that not only explores how expertise sustains social oppression, but also how expertise can be deployed as a tool for social justice.