Institut du Genre

Founded in 2012 on the initiative of the Institute of Human and Social Sciences of the CNRS, the Gender Institute brings together thirty institutional partners involved in research on gender and sexualities. Dedicated to the coordination, scientific hosting and promotion of these researchs in France and abroad, the Institut du Genre is hosted by the Maison des Sciences de l’Homme Paris Nord at the Condorcet Campus in Aubervilliers.

Objectives

• Contribute to the scientific recognition and geographical extension of research on gender and sexualities in France
• Support young research through a series of targeted measures
• Give international visibility to research conducted in French in this field through various support actions
• Encourage the emergence of new forms of scientific collaboration, both within the French academic world and with international partners
• Encourage and promote interdisciplinary or transversal research with multiple perimeters and circumferences, within the SHS but also between the SHS and other scientific fields.

Context

Women’s, gender and sexuality studies are expanding. In addition to the pioneering disciplines of anthropology, history and sociology, literature, philosophy, psychology, language sciences and, in recent years, political science, performing arts, geography, economics, information and communication sciences, education sciences and law have been added. All of this research constitutes an important part of the current research landscape in the humanities and social sciences, which is rich, innovative and inventive, and where quality work on gender abounds.

The multiplicity and diversity of this field of research, which is still not very unified and organised due to the dispersion of researchers, is often carried out by temporary and insufficiently recognised structures. These structures do not have the necessary coherence to allow for the long-term development and ensure the international influence of gender studies in France, despite the significant demand from institutions and social actors, and the marked interest of young researchers in these issues.

This is why the INSHS decided in 2011 to place gender studies at the top of its priorities, and to act in favour of a more ambitious scientific development of gender research, and in particular of certain hitherto neglected areas. Following on from other operations such as the national census of research on women and/or gender conducted by the Mission pour la place des femmes at the CNRS, a coordination structure was created in 2012 to articulate the work, research units and disciplines around such an object. Through the involvement of the various partners, the aim is to build on an already considerable scientific heritage, to perpetuate existing scientific mobilisations and to encourage new ones throughout the country, while contributing to the necessary institutionalisation of this field of research.

Our actions

The Institut du Genre therefore aims to decisively increase the scope, recognition and influence of research conducted in France on gender and sexualities. Its vocation is to bring together the forces of research in this field, to facilitate the emergence of themes and cooperation, to encourage dialogue between disciplines and methodologies, to offer specific funding and to encourage a fruitful articulation of the work carried out on these issues, so as to ensure the vitality and renewal of this field.

To this end, the Gender Institute carries out several types of actions. It encourages and supports young researchers (thesis prizes, mobility grants, master’s prizes), which it also supports by making resources available (directory of master’s degrees on gender and sexuality in France and Europe) and by financing summer schools. It supports more established research with calls for scientific projects on priority areas. It gives visibility to recent or ongoing research by organising the Jeudis du Genre and by subsidising translations of French works into other languages. It encourages the development of international cooperation by inviting recognised foreign researchers in the framework of the Gender Chair or scientific residencies, by encouraging the development of international gender networks by partner universities, and by setting up a seminar on gender led by CNRS units abroad (UMIFRE). Once every four years, it organises Gender Studies Conventions, which bring together several hundred French and foreign researchers. Finally, it initiates conversations with other ways (artistic, physical or visual) of understanding gender and sexuality issues, within the framework of the Genre en mouvement programme.

The Institut du Genre thus intends to cover all the issues and problems related to gender studies, a vast field of research and reflection that concerns all social and symbolic practices and crosses all fields of thought and knowledge.