Is Scholar-Activism an Oxymoron? Reflecting on the Challenges and Opportunities for Scholarly Activism or Activist Scholarship in the Politics and Gender Field
Garcia, Daniela Philipson, True, Jacqui, Abbashar, Aida, Akbari, Farkhondeh, Asadi, Pardis, Aung, Isabella, Dadpour, Rana, Cárdenas, Magda Lorena, Dhanani, Priya, Lai, Ruby, Matveiva, Olga, Navumau, Vasil, Rudnik, Alesia, Scheyer, Victoria, Manoilenko, Hanna, Zulver, Julia, and Hanifah, Hana (2025) Is Scholar-Activism an Oxymoron? Reflecting on the Challenges and Opportunities for Scholarly Activism or Activist Scholarship in the Politics and Gender Field. Politics & Gender, 21 (4). pp. 1110-1118.
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Abstract
Scholar-activism, which we define as scholarship that seeks to contribute knowledge to activism is often underappreciated. From a methodological perspective, the positionality of scholar-activists is too often misunderstood. Yet scholar-activism is a relatively common approach to generating new knowledge about hard-to-access, repressive contexts while also assisting political movements and their strategies. Feminist-informed scholarship necessitates scholar-activism because it is driven by an emancipatory purpose that demands critical reflexivity about the power of epistemology, boundaries, relationships, and the researcher’s situatedness (Ackerly and True 2020, 22). We argue that a deeper understanding of scholar-activism and lived experiences is vital for furthering knowledge and impact in the politics and gender field.
| Item ID: | 88718 |
|---|---|
| Item Type: | Article (Research - C1) |
| ISSN: | 1743-9248 |
| Copyright Information: | © The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Women, Gender, and Politics Research Section of the American Political Science Association. This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/bync/4.0), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original article is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained prior to any commercial use. |
| Date Deposited: | 23 Jun 2026 07:10 |
| FoR Codes: | 44 HUMAN SOCIETY > 4405 Gender studies > 440504 Gender relations @ 100% |
| SEO Codes: | 23 LAW, POLITICS AND COMMUNITY SERVICES > 2301 Community services > 230108 Gender and sexualities @ 100% |
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