Abstracts Communications and the Arts

Science communication in the late 20th century Greece: public intersections of gender and knowledge circulation in the feminist birth control movements

by Evangelia Chordaki

The current dissertation focuses on the practices of science communication and the intertwinement of gender and knowledge circulation in the Greek feminist birth control movement during the second half of the 20th century. It aims to show how women’s engagement with knowledge (through their participation in the feminist birth control movement) changed their experiences and realities – the performativities of womanhood – during the era of the Democratic transition. The study addresses the following research questions: How were gender relations articulated through women’s involvement in science communication? How did women reconstruct their identities, gender roles, and social relations? How did the communication of science within the feminist birth control movement redefine the public landscape and women’s participation in it? The central thesis of the dissertation is that by approaching the feminist birth control movement as a herstory of science communication – a herstory of the construction of a rival form of knowledge and expertise that co-existed in the public landscape with other forms of knowledge, a historical moment where science communication is transformed into an act of resistance that aims to women’s survival is revealed. This transformation is performed through the practices of science communication that emerged within the feminist birth control movement; The development of a specific type of expertise that is based on experience; the the reconfiguration of women’s emancipation through the correlation between body politics and politics of knowledge; The redefinition of the relationship between science and society and its identification to the reconfiguration of women’s experiences. Through the presentation and analysis of primary archival material (press, medical textbooks, religious and parachurch press, laws and discussions in the parliament, feminist press, publications, and material related to the feminist movement), the dissertation contributes in a theoretical and methodological level to the ongoing discussion for the need to shape a feminist agenda in Science Communication. At the same time, it contributes to the historiography by suggesting the transformation of women’s relation to knowledge as a lens through which we can examine practices of resistance and the role of women’s relation to knowledge for the re-realization of their experiences. Η παρούσα διατριβή εστιάζει στις πρακτικές επικοινωνίας της επιστήμης και τις διασταυρώσεις του φύλου και της κυκλοφορίας της γνώσης στον φεμινιστικό κίνημα για την έκτρωση και την αντισύλληψη που έλαβε χώρα στην Ελλάδα το δεύτερο μισό του 20ου αι. Σκοπός της διατριβής είναι να αναδείξει τον επαναπροσδιορισμό των γυναικείων εμπειριών και πραγματικοτήτων μέσα από την συνάντηση των γυναικών με την γνώση, εστιάζοντας στα ακόλουθα ερευνητικά ερωτήματα: Α. Πώς η συμμετοχή των γυναικών στην επικοινωνία της επιστήμης αναδιαρθρώνει τις έμφυλες σχέσεις· Β. Πως οι γυναίκες δομούν εκ νέου τις ταυτότητες, τους έμφυλους ρόλους και τις κοινωνικές σχέσεις μέσα από τις…