Browsing by Author "Reeves, Audrey"

Now showing 1 - 5 of 5
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    Feminist Interventions in Curatorial Practice at Appalachian University Art Institutions
    Penven, Savannah Kate (Virginia Tech, 2024-05-23)
    This thesis addresses a gap in scholarship by centering curators at often-overlooked university art institutions in the Appalachian region in order to analyze the practical applications of feminist curatorial methodologies in comparison to established feminist curatorial scholarship Three case studies focus on the Reece Museum at Eastern Tennessee State University, the Art in the Libraries initiative at West Virginia University, and the Eleanor D. Wilson Museum at Hollins University. This study uses qualitative and anecdotal data collection methods, such as surveys and one-on-one interviews to demonstrate how feminist methodologies are employed as a theoretically informed curatorial practice, following the framework originally developed in feminist curatorial scholarship. An analysis of feminist curatorial scholarship reveals three core principles of feminist curating: institutional critique, collaboration and engagement, and inventive exhibition strategies. Data analysis found that staff at these three university institutions utilize various intersectional methodologies under the umbrella of feminist interventions when creating exhibitions in their respective institutions. The concept of "feminist curating," as understood and expressed by the staff, has evolved from traditional gender-centered approaches to address a broader scope of socio-economic inequalities as well as power dynamics within museums It is intended to serve as an entry point for further critique of self-described curatorial feminist methods and their practical implementations, in order to analyze what these strategies and practices look like, and how they are intended to affect the university community.
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    Inhabitance
    Jones, Tacie Nicole (Virginia Tech, 2022-02-01)
    While the concepts and imagery presented here are not autobiographical, there is no way to fully detach lived experience from the process of making and theorizing this work. And although its impetus is a lifelong journey of healing, the focus here is transforming the inhabitance of trauma into an awareness of embodied presence. From a space of reflexivity, Inhabitance asks you to come back to your body through heart-minded creative action. This practice-based interdisciplinary methodology integrates the emancipatory powers of women and gender studies, consciousness studies and art. Through this hybrid approach, Inhabitance creates space for reconciling an imposed fracture between the sensory and cognitive aspects of our lives to rewrite the restrictive narrative that trauma can hold over both.
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    Making War for Women? An Analysis of UN Resolution 1325 and the Gendering of International Intervention
    Harris, Sabrina Kylie (Virginia Tech, 2021-06-22)
    This thesis explores how UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on women, peace, and security and its ensuing National Action Plans for gender equality inform justifications of international intervention. I ask the following questions: how does Resolution 1325 and its ensuing National Action Plans for gender equality construct subjectivities of gender? How have states appropriated these gendered subjectivities in the legitimation of conflict? I review feminist, postcolonial, and poststructuralist literatures to argue that Resolution 1325 is aligned with broader United Nations governmental strategies for framing and justifying international intervention. Resolution 1325 produces dualistic subjectivities of gender, where women are constructed either as victims or as empowered, albeit within the limits deemed acceptable in masculinized contexts. I analyze the case of German National Action Plans for gender equality and the official policy texts related to its intervention in Afghanistan. I demonstrate that the foreign policy of a seemingly progressive state embraces Resolution 1325's dualistic subjectifications of women in conflict to construct logics that legitimize the Afghan intervention. My study findings show that Germany discursively constructs women and gender equality in accordance with the UN's guidelines and its good governance framework, which do not challenge existing structures of masculinity. In addition, they function as a means through which Germany legitimizes neoliberal and neocolonial policies as acceptable, ultimately failing to challenge the international war system.
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    Migrant and refugee activists as security agents: Openings in the Women, Peace and Security Agenda
    Reeves, Audrey; Holvikivi, Aiko (2023)
    This article examines how refugee and other migrant women resettled in Europe influence security governance and knowledge in European governments and at the United Nations. We document migrant women’s activism and collaboration with policymakers in relation to the Women, Peace and Security agenda, a global assemblage of policy, legislation, and advocacy grown out of women’s activism at the United Nations Security Council. We argue that this framework offers both opportunities and constraints for migration activism. Refugee and migrant women successfully use the agenda to unsettle stereotypes of passivity and voicelessness, while navigating expectations of peacefulness, consensual dialogue, and heteronormative femininity.
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    Victories and failures of gender expertise in global governance: The case of post-conflict state-building
    Reeves, Audrey (Virginia Tech. University Libraries, 2020-10-15)
    The Women and Gender in International Development Discussion Series is organized by the Center for International Research, Education, and Development (CIRED) and is an InclusiveVT initiative of Outreach and International Affairs (OIA). The series offers an opportunity for scholars and development practitioners to share their research and knowledge surrounding gender and international development with the Virginia Tech community and beyond.