strategies to promote dignified and feminist academia: some collaborative reflections from Chile

Abstract

During the COVID-19 pandemic, scholars around the world warned about increasing gender inequalities within academia. In this context, we created Red Feminista de las Ciencias Sociales to support initiatives among women researchers in Chile. Our objective is to appeal for gender equality in academia and to promote structural changes that guarantee dignified feminist academia in the social sciences. This article draws on various self-training and discussion activities developed by the Red Feminista between mid-2021 and mid-2022 to discuss the role of women in academia, with implications for other marginalised groups in Chile and possibly other countries where inequality in academia is also a reality. Based on our discussions, we propose strategies to promote a decentralised, decolonised and feminist social science academia that guarantees gender equality as a fundamental human right and as a crosscutting axis in producing knowledge and access to it. We organise these strategies into four pillars: 1) equity and justice in the production of knowledge, 2) dignified work conditions in the production of knowledge, 3) a work environment free from harassment and 4) the democratisation of access to knowledge. Whilst these aspects have been studied in other countries, this article addresses the specific context of Chile. We argue that it is possible to reflect on feminisms (in plural) within academia and propose practical strategies for establishing new dynamics through collaborative work.