The 2012 edition of the Swiss International Summer School in Gender Studies will focus on the gendered dimension of power relations, under two related sub-themes:

• Theories of power from a feminist perspective
• Gender in the context of multiple power relations

The Summer School will focus on debates within the broad field of gender studies, analysing the articulation of gender with other types of power relations, raising crucial questions concerning the nature of domination, resistance and agency in contemporary societies. Under the influence of the women’s movement, questions relating to the articulation of gender with other forms of domination and exploitation have been addressed through a variety of conceptual frameworks (Marxist feminism, postcolonial studies, etc.). However, whilst some “intersections” of power relations have been fairly widely explored and theorised in recent years (notably the somewhat incantatory “class, race, sex” triptych), others have been rather neglected, more so in some national contexts than in others.

The Summer School will encourage a reflexive analysis of the influence of local, national, intellectual and historical contexts on the focus of particular intersections of power, to the detriment of others.

By approaching the theme of power from inter- and trans-disciplinary perspectives, the 2012 edition of the Summer School will offer comprehensive insights into current debates and will give participants the opportunity to explore issues with a long tradition within academic feminist thinking. The overall theme of the Summer School will enable participants to envisage power relations in their structural, institutional, individual and collective dimensions, in a wide range of social, historical, cultural and political settings. Participants will be invited to reflect on the conceptions of power that underpin their own research activities and to identify the implicit or explicit hypotheses that characterise contemporary feminist research on the intersections of power.