Although questions about the production of knowledge are finally beginning to be asked within social movements studies, these tend to rely on a very vague definition of 'knowledge', obscuring activists' engagement with informal and formal research, as well as social forms of knowledge. This thesis employs an analytic framework in which social movements are theorised as producing a distinctive cognitive praxis, in order to examine the ways in which movements emerge, develop, and operationalise their knowledge in pursuit of their goals. In order to do this, I will create a contextualised case study of the Feminist International Network of Resistance to Reproductive and Genetic Engineering (FINRRAGE), examining the ways it sought to develop a knowledge project around new reproductive technologies and present itself as a network of credible knowers. Beginning as a reaction to a 1984 conference panel on new reproductive technology entitled 'Death of the Female', in its strongest phase (1984-1997) FINRRAGE comprised over a thousand women in thirty-seven countries. Although identified as an instance of radical opposition, its strategy relied upon knowledge generation, rather than protest. Employing a textual analysis of archival documents, published writings and lifecourse interviews with an international selection of twenty-four women, the thesis explores the processes by which the network pursued a project of creating an evidence-based position of resistance to the development of reproductive and genetic technologies through empirical research, publication, and continuous negotiation between women from very different social contexts. As such, the study also provides an opportunity to (re)consider feminist engagement with a specific area of technology over an historical period. It is hoped that the result will be a contribution to the academic literature on the development of collective knowledge and expertise for both social movements theory and science and technology studies, as well as to feminist history and theory.

This thesis is an exploration of the production of feminist theory as a material, social, and institutional practice: it aims to understand feminist intellectual production as to some extent circumscribed by historical, biographical, political, and especially academic conditions. Specifically, it compares the intellectual trajectories and scholarly output, feminist and otherwise, of theologian Mary Daly (1928-2010) and philosopher Judith Butler (1956--). The analysis tries to keep three aspects of those lives in mind at once: firstly, the properly intellectual character of the intellectuals’ ideas; secondly, the specifically institutional (that is, university) conditions in which they have found themselves; and thirdly, the broader biographical conditions of their lives. By keeping all three in mind at once, we get to a potentially fuller and more nuanced picture of their intellectual trajectories than may be available through critical appraisal of their works alone. The thesis is an original contribution to knowledge both in as much as it brings together Daly and Butler, two apparently fundamentally opposed feminists, in order to see what thinking them together allows us to do, and in the applications and adaptations of Pierre Bourdieu’s social theory which help explain these feminists’ trajectories. Through a re-working of Bourdieu’s theoretical apparatus, the analysis works through the concept of fields of intellectual endeavour. Academic disciplines but also broader structures such as the field of intellectual production work with and against intellectual producers, creating both possibilities and constraints for intellectual work. Developing a broadly Bourdieusian theory of symbiotic relations between what Bourdieu terms habitus and field (that is, trying to identify the mutual constitution of these aspects of social life rather than the primacy of either), the thesis argues for the fundamental role of agential negotiation and strategy in the context of institutional and disciplinary constraint. And in the context of this adapted Bourdieusian theory, I argue finally for the disciplinary field of women’s studies as a potentially fruitful institutional and intellectual space for a feminist negotiation of the university.

Whereas the dramatic struggle for the suffrage has received extensive academic attention the feminist campaigns that came immediately after 1918 have been largely ignored. This thesis argues that there was vigorous grassroots feminist activity in the inter-war years which can be seen in the activities of the Society for the Promotion of Birth Control Clinics (SPBCC) who in the post-suffrage era explored their new opportunities. Themes running through this thesis include feminism, grassroots activity, locality and modernism. This research utilises the theoretical framework of comparative social movement theory as well as historical research. A Collective Biography of SPBCC committee members has been constructed to give a profile of activists. This thesis argues that the debate within the post-suffrage society the National Union of Societies for Equal Citizenship gave backing to the new feminist master frame which emphasised women's role as mothers. This strengthened the SPBCC which campaigned to give working class mothers the knowledge to limit their families, something available privately to middle class mothers. This research explores how the SPBCC tried to pursue its case by creating alliances with the National Council of Women and the Women's Citizenship Association,This study shows how local SPBCC groups attempted to prove the need for birth control clinics by mobilising and founding clinics. Middle class women played an important part in this direct action, but working class women, either individually or from the Women's Cooperative Guilds also participated. Class differences were important, but this research shows that volunteers, who were all mothers themselves, stressed the common bond of motherhood. The SPBCC both locally and nationally strove to counter the condemnation of the medical profession and the Churches. The interplay of religious and political forces is seen in case studies in Stockport, Glasgow, Manchester and Salford, Liverpool. The thesis compares the birth control strategies of the confrontational birth control pioneer Marie Stopes with the more analytical approach of Eleanor Rathbone of NUSEC. This research reveals that some SPBCC members felt they had to make uncomfortable choices between class and gender allegiances or feminism and eugenics. This thesis demonstrates how the SPBCC tested the new political structures by attempting to place birth control on the agenda of national political parties, particularly the Labour Party. However, there was more success in building birth control policy advocacy coalitions at the local level. In 1931 the Labour Government issued Memorandum 153/MCW which allowed municipal clinics to provide birth control advice but this thesis questions to what extent this was a victory. Arguably the SPBCC did not achieve its main objective but it did empower its feminist members in a wide range of political activities.

Gendered bodies and new technologies has one founding premise, namely that embodiment constitutes a non-negotiable prerequisite for human life. Although this may seem like an obvious statement, it is a statement that needs to be affirmed in the virtual age wherein we live. New technologies in most of its forms tend to discredit the embodied aspects of human life and instead concentrate on the disembodied aspects thereof. Among new technologies the following are specifically noted: microelectronics, telecommunication networks, nano-technology, virtual reality, computer-mediated communications and other forms of computer technologies. In short, “new technologies” refer to all things digital. I explore the issue of embodiment from a gendered perspective, seeing that the female body is the embodiment most likely to be discarded, not only in metaphysical systems, but also in developments within new technologies. The main focus of my gendered analysis is on the visual image and more specifically as it manifests in cinema, advertisements, the Internet, interactive artwork and television. The critical perspective that foregrounds my approach is that of the fairly new field of cyberfeminism. The main concern of cyberfeminism being a critical engagement of women’s position in terms of new technologies. In this regard, cyberfeminism does not perpetuate an anti-technology stance, but rather embraces technology by emphasising the embodied nature of our existence. I have identified four body types to explore the interactions between bodies and new technologies. They are: the techno-transcendent body; the techno-enhanced body; the marked body and the cyborg body. The four body types differ in the way in which gendered embodiment is negotiated in its interaction with new technologies and these are highlighted and discussed in the four chapters dealing with these four body types. / English / D.Litt.et Phil.

Gendered bodies and new technologies has one founding premise, namely that embodiment constitutes a non-negotiable prerequisite for human life. Although this may seem like an obvious statement, it is a statement that needs to be affirmed in the virtual age wherein we live. New technologies in most of its forms tend to discredit the embodied aspects of human life and instead concentrate on the disembodied aspects thereof. Among new technologies the following are specifically noted: microelectronics, telecommunication networks, nano-technology, virtual reality, computer-mediated communications and other forms of computer technologies. In short, “new technologies” refer to all things digital. I explore the issue of embodiment from a gendered perspective, seeing that the female body is the embodiment most likely to be discarded, not only in metaphysical systems, but also in developments within new technologies. The main focus of my gendered analysis is on the visual image and more specifically as it manifests in cinema, advertisements, the Internet, interactive artwork and television. The critical perspective that foregrounds my approach is that of the fairly new field of cyberfeminism. The main concern of cyberfeminism being a critical engagement of women’s position in terms of new technologies. In this regard, cyberfeminism does not perpetuate an anti-technology stance, but rather embraces technology by emphasising the embodied nature of our existence. I have identified four body types to explore the interactions between bodies and new technologies. They are: the techno-transcendent body; the techno-enhanced body; the marked body and the cyborg body. The four body types differ in the way in which gendered embodiment is negotiated in its interaction with new technologies and these are highlighted and discussed in the four chapters dealing with these four body types. / English / D.Litt.et Phil.