La fabrique d'une persona scientifique au féminin. L'international Federation of Univeristy Women (1920-1960)

Although transnational networks of intellectual women started to burgeon in the late 19thcentury in North America and the United Kingdom, the foundation of the International Federation of University Women (IFUW) in 1919 marked an important step towards the internationalisation and the structuration of the movement of university women. The IFUW endeavoured simultaneously to promote women, science, and internationalism. According to its Constitution, it strove "to promote understanding and friendship between the university women of the nations of the world, and thereby to further their interests and develop between their countries sympathy and mutual helpfulness". Like most international organisations during the interwar period, the IFUW's members defined their work and aims in line with internationalist ideals and general beliefs on the role of education in the peace process. Due to its multiple identities, the IFUW has never been considered to be a full-fledged scientific organization. However, for the first time in history, women scientists and academics from different nations were brought together. By pursuing strong science policies (such as the establishment of a research fellowship programme for women), the ambitions and actions of the FIFDU were similar to those of other scientific organisations, but with the specificity of being run and dedicated only by and for women. Focusing oninternational organization characterised by this dual aspect, feminine and scientific, this Ph.D. studies the conditions for the integration and recognition of women in science. It brings together gender history, history of transnational organisations and history of science. In recent developments in the history and philosophy of science, scholars started to pay greater attention to the analysis of a collective and cultural image of the scientist, using the analytical prism of persona. Located in-between the individual and institutional, persona function as ideals and models that one has to perform in order to be recognized as a scientist. The concept constitutes an interesting tool with which to research the link between performance, scientific authority and legitimate knowledge. In line with this growing body of literature, this monograph uses this concept to highlight the cultural and gendered dynamics that underpinned the criteria for academic excellence. It studies the link between the identity of scientists (specifically, but not limited to their sex), their credibility as scientists and the conditions for the recognition of their work. This thesis thus examines the role of the IFUW as a women's scientific organisation in the construction and dissemination of a scientific persona with which women could identify and be associated with. To what extent has the IFUW acted as a laboratory in which a female scientific persona was constructed? What was the nature of this new scientific persona and to what extent did it differ or borrow from the normative or hegemonic ideal represented by a supposedly general counterpart: the scientist (or academic), that was unmarked by its male gender? Using an institutional approach, centred around the IFUW, this thesis studies the process of building a scientific persona on a collective scale. The international and multidisciplinary nature of the organization invites us to reflect on the way a scientific persona was negotiated according to institutional, disciplinary, but also cultural and social contexts. An important part of the analysis is dedicated to the international fellowship programme for women which was intended to offset the low proportion of women as fellowship recipients in other programmes. This was a particularly important issue in terms of research opportunities, scientific recognition and prestige. While funding bodies became a cornerstone of the scientific world in the twentieth century, they seemed to have been instrumental in promoting a masculine scientific persona and thus strengthened gender imbalance in science. Not only did such programs provide scholars with the means to conduct their research in practice, but also actively participated in shaping new types of scientific identities and ideals through the selection of the 'best' fellows. What strategies did the university women pursue through their funding policies? What ideal of women scientist did they promote? As an exclusively women's organisation, the IFUW promoted a persona in which the gender dimension occupied a crucial place. To what extent the university women tried, through their meetings, debates, publications, and public representations, to develop and promote a new identity, and to reconcile what was initially presented and perceived as incompatible: women and science? Combining the institutional approach with a biographical one, this thesis highlights the interactive dynamics at stake in the formation process of scientific persona, in-between the personal, individual strategies, and the collective and public ones. It examines not only the way in which individuals who were leaders of the university women's movement or won a fellowship, mobilized and mixed (existing) scientific repertoires to be accepted by the scientific and academic communities but were also recognized by the general public. By doing so, the monograph aims to investigate the relationship between the construction of the persona 'university women' and the gendered and embodied performance of scientific credibility. The diversity of my approach is reflected by the different nature and the variety of the archival sources used. The IFUW's main archival fund is located in Atria, the Institute on gender equality and women's history (Amsterdam). The institutional publications, official photographs, and paintings, as well as the minutes of Councils, conferences and the IFUW Committees, formed the basis for the analysis. The archival collections of the American and British federation of university women provided important additional information, especially concerning the IFUW fellows. Memories, testimonies, correspondence and personal archives made it possible to step out of institutional history and to approach the individual experience. This work consists of eight chapters organized thematically and chronologically, which explore the making-of and vectors for the promotion of a new scientific persona - that of university women with a focus on women scientists - and seek to measure the evolution of this persona over the period. The first chapter focuses on the foundation years of the IFUW (the 1890s-1920s). These years were crucial in the development of a new scientific persona for university women. It pays particular attention to the definition of the term university women and its translation into different national contexts. It explores the conditions of membership in the constitution of the movement in relation to the already existing international movements, either academic, scientific or feminine. The organisation of international congresses enabled university women from different countries to meet each other. Such events were crucial in performing their identity and promoting their objectives and ambitions to the public arena, well beyond the circle of members. The second chapter investigates the first international congresses of the IFUW between 1920 and 1932. The documents they generated, such as the institutional publications (Bulletins) or photographs, provide rich material for the analysis of the mise-en-scèneof an institutional scientific persona. Based on a group portrait of the first female international presidents of the IFUW during the interwar period, the third chapter examines the role of these leaders in the development of a female scientific elite. Through the analysis of the leaders' respective trajectories but also of the conditions of their appointment as presidents, the chapter analyses how they participated in defining the scientific persona of the IFUW while taking advantage of the symbolic dimension that the function covers. The fourth chapter takes a closer look at the IFUW fellowship programme during the interwar period.By particularly focussing on the selection process, as evidenced by the minutes of committee meetings and the fellows' files, it explores the implicit norms and expectations to which candidates were subjected, in order to reconstruct the ideal type of a woman scientist. The fifth chapter focuses on the IFUW fellows, using a prosopographical approach. It analyses the impact of the fellowship on their scientific journey, and career, and on the construction of their credibility as scientists. The aim here is not to evaluate the scholarship programme in terms of success or failure,but to reconstruct the fellows' scientific careers by questioning the conditions (and limits) of success and to recognise women in the scientific and academic worlds. The attention devoted to fellowship reports calls into question the influence of the requirements and bureaucratic arsenal of research funding agencies in transforming the scientific habitus. Leaving the collective perspective aside, the sixth chapter attempts to reconstruct the trajectory of one of the IFUW fellows: Erzébet Kol, a specialist in snow and ice algae, who received an international fellowship in 1935 to conduct field research throughout North America. Starting from the analysis of Kol's scientific trajectory, this chapter questions the impact of gender on the recognition of scientists and studies the way in which the university women attempted to reconcile scientific identities that were sometimes culturally opposed. The escalation of anti-feminist reactions and nationalist tensions in Europe in the 1930s and the outbreak of the Second World War disrupted the IFUW agenda and threatened the careers of many women scientists, especially those who were declared non-Aryans. The seventh chapter analyses the university women's response against the repeated attacks on women scientists and intellectuals and gives particular attention to the role of the IFUW fellowship programme in securing grants to scientific refugees. The last chapter examines the IFUW commemorative and memorial practices in the 1950s and 1960s and studies the role that memory played in the celebration and transmission of a scientific persona. At the end of the first half-century of its existence, the IFUW renown had nothing in common with that of the major international feminist associations or with that of the other scientific institutions such as the Rockefeller Foundation. Compare to other funding bodies, the number of women who have benefited from the IFUW fellowship program remains modest. But through the establishment of the fellowship programme and international clubhouses, the promotion of international exchanges and travel, the university women have contributed to the creation of an international network and stage for women scientists. Moreover, in a more subtle, profound, and decisive way, the IFUW and its national branches have succeeded in promoting the figure of the 'university woman'. Such a contribution to the definition and success of a female scientist cannot be overlooked, even if it is only part of a broader effort.

Jaar van publicatie:2019

Toegankelijkheid:Open