The Work of Ambivalence: Autonomy, Collaboration, and Care in the Neoliberal US University

Abstract

Abstract:Can science be feminist? Can feminist science emerge from and take hold within the neoliberal university? As a collaboratory of researchers and educators under the name Star Fem Co*Lab, the previous questions have shaped our in-progress book, The Science We are For: A Feminist Pocket Guide. The aim of the guide is to take readers, with a focus on undergraduate and popular audiences, away from routinized ways of thinking about and doing science–such as science in the service of profit over people–towards a feminist science practice that is focused on always asking "who is science for?" In this article, we discuss how feminist collaboration might take shape within the neoliberal university as a challenge to the Eurocentric models of scientific knowledge production and valuation on which the institution rests. Our six-member collaboratory reflects on the experiences and motivations that shaped our co-labor of thinking, writing, and care to shed light on roots and routes toward a feminist pedagogy invested in equipping students with practical tools for social justice science engagement. As such, this article makes the case for a vision of feminist science that brings together feminist theory with scientific research and social studies of science to retool and reclaim scientific knowledge production by and for social justice imperatives to redirect power, resources, and knowledge to benefit communities most impacted by imperialistic science and its histories.