Research Methods for Gender and Politics

This section offers a forum for raising and discussing a wide range of methodological issues arising in research on gender and politics. These issues include (but are not limited to): data collection/generation, data analysis, external and internal validity, concept formation, research strategies, and ethical and epistemological issues. The section as a whole aims to take stock of current developments, continue existing debates, and open up spaces for new concerns in the study of feminism, gender, sexuality, and politics. We welcome constructive criticism, but also encourage the discussion of solutions, guidelines and best practices. We particularly encourage paper, panel and roundtable submissions that focus on the following aspects: - Methodological concerns related to the analysis of key themes of feminist and gender research (such as intersectionality, private/public, identities, the body, sexuality, research on vulnerable groups, etc.) and specific topics within substantive fields of interest to gender and politics scholars (such as institutional politics and policies, environmental, social and security policies, nationalism, democratisation and state-building, social movements, gender and political conflict, etc.); - Methodological developments and innovations and their implications for research in the field of politics and gender – for example, new quantitative and qualitative methods, new tools, mixed methods, new software solutions, interdisciplinary research, etc.; - Methodological challenges arising in specific types of research (such as large-scale comparative research, collaborative research, cross-cultural research); - Issues of concept formation and theorisation, and different ways of using theory and contributing to theory building in the field of gender and politics; - Issues of measurement, uses of existing indicators and the elaboration of new indicators to measure gender equality as well as the implementation and success of gender equality policies; - Debates over epistemological, ethical and practical issues such as reflexivity, the ontological positioning of the researcher (including emancipatory and action research), access, secrecy and silence in the research process, power relations in the field, ethical dilemmas, etc. - Methodological issues related to institutional as well as macro-level research policies (such as funding bodies, ethical review boards, the peer review process, career promotion issues, etc.); - Issues related to the dissemination and ‘impact’ of research outputs in general, and of ‘applied’ or policy research in particular; - Pedagogical issues related to methodological training and teaching in the field of gender and politics and more broadly gender mainstreaming in the teaching of politics and student learning (best practices, innovative pedagogical experiences, etc.).