Feminist Collaboration Relationships between Women across Political, Business and Intersubjective Worlds

submitted by

Margaret L. Page

For the degree of PhD

University of Bath

2001

Attention is drawn to the fact that copyright of this thesis rests with the author. This copy of the thesis has been supplied on condition that anyone who consults it is understood to recognise that copyright rests with its author and than no quotation from the thesis and no information derived from it may be published without the prior written consent of the author.

This thesis may be made available for consultation within the University Library and may be photocopied or sent to other libraries for the purposes of consultation.

Contents

Acknowledgements		1
Summary		2
Chapter 1	Introduction: What brought me to this inquiry?	3
Note	Inquiry as Life process: A note to my readers	8
Chapter 2	Feminist Action Inquiry: my methodological framework	9
Section 1	Inquiry as Life process: Grounding my inquiry	44
Chapter 3	My Inquiry Journey 1: Margins or mainstream?	46
Chapter 4	My Inquiry Journey 2: What kind of consultant am I?	55
Chapter 5	An inquiry Overview	68
Section 2	Preparing the Ground for Inquiry with Others	74
Chapter 6	Mapping the Territory of Workplace Dynamics Between Women	75
Red Thread 1	The Politics of my Inquiry	113
Chapter 7	In the Borderlands of Yearning and of Un / Belonging	117 140
Chapter 8	From Gender Difference to Gender Dialogue?
Section 3	Inquiry as Consultancy Practice	162
Chapter 9	Case Study 1 Negotiating Power and Voice: dilemmas for feminist inquiry	164
Red thread 2	When Feminist Collaboration Breaks Down	183
Chapter 10	Case Study 2 The Country of 'Effective Local Partnerships': Recognition Between Women	186
Red thread 3	Sustaining Feminist Collaboration	222
Chapter 11	Case Study 3 Doing Feminist Consultancy in Mainstream Organisations: an inquiry based change intervention	229
Red Thread 4	The Ethics of Breaking Silence	284
Chapter 12	On Thresholds and Borderlands	287
Chapter 13	Final reflections: the making of a feminist consultant	336
References		341
Appendix 1	Consultancy and Inquiry methods, chapters 4 and 11	355
Appendix 2	Questions for interview based discussions, chapter 6	358
Appendix 3	Analysis of individual interviews, chapter 6	361
Appendix 4	Analysis of Interview Findings 1, chapter 6	370

Back to Doctoral and Masters theses