Patriarkatets akademiska frihet: Om akademisk frihet och jämställdhet i en diskursiv kontext

Sammanfattning: In 2017, the course literature pertaining to a course on political science at Lund University was changed due to the university’s gender equality policy. This happened in opposition to the lecturer’s will which caused a debate. The paper uses this case to explore the relation between academic freedom and gender equality in a discursive context. The aim is to identify how the debaters understand academic freedom and what consequences this has for its relation to gender equality and the patriarchal power structure within the academy. To fulfil the aim, I modify Carol Lee Bacchi’s method What’s the Problem Represented to be?. The method is complemented with a theoretical framework that proposes and concretizes what academic freedom could be understood as and how each of these versions of freedom correspond to gender equality. The analysis reveals that the debate is dominated by a version of freedom that does not benefit gender equality. However, other versions of freedom appear, which should benefit women. Nonetheless, when the equality friendly versions of freedom appear, they mostly do so in shapes that disbenefit women. The characteristics of the debate have discursive, material as well as subjecitficaton effects that contribute to maintenance and reproduction of patriarchy.