Verónica Schild

Professor Emeritus

Schild_V

PhD, University of Toronto
E-mail: vschild@uwo.ca

Research Interests

Professor Schild specializes in Latin American and Comparative politics, and in contemporary critical theory, with an emphasis on feminist issues, neoliberal governmentality, and citizenship.

Current Research Projects

1. Securing Citizens and Entrenching Inequalities: The Janus-Faced Neoliberal State in Latin America

This article-in-progress  challenges the characterization of neoliberal states either as “masculinist” states or as “punitive” states.   It concludes that neoliberal policies are of two kinds, punitive and caring, and that the legacies of a transnationalized, liberal variant of feminism, loom large in the present efforts of social and political regulation of  subjects in Latin America.   This article, and the research it is based on, are the basis for a comparative book-length manuscript I am preparing.  It is supported by funds from DesiguALdades.net, Research Network on Interdependent Inequalities in Latin America Freie Universität, Berlin.

2. Gender, Sexuality and Struggles for Justice in Latin America:  Legal, Political and Social Dimension

As Co-Chair of the Gender and Feminist Studies Section of the Latin American Studies Association (2012-2013), I am co-organizing with the Sexualities Section the conference “Gender, Sexuality and Struggles for Justice in Latin America:  Legal, Political and Social Dimension.”  The conference is sponsored by the Washington College of Law Impact Litigation Project and American University Center for Latin American and Latino Studies.   Through an examination of legal struggles in gender and sexuality rights ,and what these mean for the concrete struggles of gendered, sexualized, and racialized social groups,  the possibilities and limitations of legal activism for the pursuit of social justice and equity issues will be discussed. The conference will take place on May 19 2013, in Washington, D.C. 

3. Latin American Critical Feminism and the ‘New Spirit’ of Capitalism: A Rejoinder to Nancy Fraser

This article-in-progress develops an argument for the need to rekindle a critical feminism in light of the troubling entanglements between the legacies of nearly forty years of feminist activism and neoliberal, global capitalism.  It challenges Nancy Fraser’s own conclusions on the subject of the “dangerous laisson” between feminism and neoliberalism for their eurocentrism.   And, it concludes with the more modest proposal, in line with post-colonial debates in philosophy, of a historically rooted and embodied conversation about culturally distinct and incommensurable phenomena.  This article is an outcome of research activities during my tenure as Director of the Centre for the Study of Theory and Criticism at Western (2006-2011)

4. Contradictions of Emancipation: The Women's Movement, Culture, and the State in Contemporary Chile

I am completing this book under contract with Duke University Press which challenges the dominant, self-congratulatory narrative of the evolution, fate and outcomes of nearly 40 years of feminist activism in Chile.   It describes the political and class-based cultural practices, conflicts and divisions that converged in a broad women’s movement during Pinochet’s dictatorship. It also analyses the fate and legacies of feminist discourses and activism in the subsequent period of centre-left political rule.  Its main conclusion is that the reconfiguration of the Chilean social state, or its “neoliberalisation”,  is  the result of the convergence of dominant, liberal feminist ideas and legacies of women’s movement activism.   The language of contention of feminism, in other words, has been transformed into a language of regulation and gender normalization.

5. German Research Projects

a) Since 2010 I have been a Fellow of the interdisciplinary research project International Research Network desiguALdades.net housed at the Freie Universität Berlin, and funded by the Freie Universität Berlin, Ibero Amerikanisches Institut – Preussischer Kulturbesitz, German Federal Ministry of Education and Research.

b) During a first leave from Western (Fall 2012) I was Visiting Research Fellow of the DesiguALdades.net, Research Network (October 1 to December 7, 2012) and then again from May 1 to July 1 2013. I was funded to develop the research project:   “Securing Citizens and Entrenching Inequalities: The Janus-Faced Neoliberal State in Latin America.” 

Selected Publications

Journal Articles

  • 2014: “El feminismo, las mujeres populares y la neoliberalización del estado social en América Latina.” Desigualdades en un Mundo Globalizado, ed. Narda Henriquez.  Lima: Pontificia Universidad Católica, forthcoming.
  • 2014: “Die Spezifik lateinamerikanischer Feminismen in Kontext neoliberaler Regulierung.  Beunruhigende Divergenzen – Produktive Ambivalenzen.” Das Argument 308, 3: 356-368.
  • 2007: “Empowering Consumer Citizens or Governing Poor Female Subjects? The Institutionalization of “Self-Development” in the Chilean Social Policy Field.” Journal of Consumer Culture 7, 2: 179-203.
  • 2003: “Die Freiheit der Frauen und gesellschaftlicher Fortschritt. Feministinen, der Staat und die Armen bei der Schaffung neoliberaler Gouvernementalitaet.” Peripherie: Zeitschrift fur Politik und Ökonomie in der Dritten Welt) 93, 23 December: 481-506.

Refereed Book Chapters

  • 2013: “Feminists and the Neoliberal Revolution in Government: A Critical Essay on Politics and the State.” Politik in verflochtenen Räumen/Los espacios entrelazados de lo politico.  Edited by Markus Hochmüller et al. Berlin: Verlag Walter Frey, pp. 310-325.
  • 2013: “Care and Punishment in Latin America: The Gendered Neoliberalization of the Chilean State.” In Neoliberalism Interrupted: Social Change and Contested Governance in Contemporary Latin America.  Edited by Mark Goodale and Nancy Postero.  Stanford University Press, pp. 195-224.
  • 2009: “A Vision of ‘Public Space’ in Latin America – Beyond Eurocentristic Images.”  Marianne Braig and Anne Huffschmid, eds. Los poderes de lo público.  Debates, espacios y actores en América Latina. Frankfurt: Vervuert Verlag/Madrid: Iberoamericana, pp. 53-68.               
  • 2003: “Die Freiheit der Frauen und gesellschaftlicher Fortschritt.  Feministinen, der Staat und die Armen bei der Schaffung neoliberaler Gouvernementalität.”In Olaf Kaltmeir, Jens Kastner, Elisabeth Tuider, eds.  Neoliberalismus, Autonomie, Widerstand: Soziale Bewegungen in Lateinamerika.  Münster: Verlag Westfälisches Dampfboot, 2004, pp. 82-100.  (Shorter, updated version of piece published in ”   Peripherie: Zeitschrift fur Politik und Okonomie in der Dritten Welt) 93, 23 (December): 481-506).
  • 2002: “Engendering the New Social Citizenship in Chile: NGOs and Social Provisioning under Neo-liberalism.” In Shahra Razavi and Maxine Molyneux, eds.,  Gender Justice, Development and Rights.  Substantiating Rights in a Disabling Environment.  Oxford University Press, pp. 170-203.
  • 1994: “Recasting `Popular’ Movements: Gender and Political Learning in Neighbourhood Organizations in Chile.”  Richard Stahler-Sholk, Harry E. Vanden, and Glen Kuecker, eds.  Latin American Social Movements in the Twenty-First Century: Resistance, Power, and Democracy.  Rowman & Littlefield,  2008, pp. 217-232. (Shortened and updated version of article published in Latin American Perspectives 21,  59-80).

Book Chapters

  • 2007: “Rasplet cileanskog feminizma drugog vala I izazovi neoliberalnog moderniteta”/“The Unravelling of Second Wave Feminism in Chile and the Challenges of Neoliberal Modernity”  In Women and politics: Class differences in Feminism (Zene I politika: Klasne razlike u feminizmu).  Zagreb: Zenska Infoteka, pp. 11-32.
  • 2005: "Globalisierung und Frauen: Gewinnerinnen un Verliererinnen.”  In Sandra Lassak and Katja Strobel (Eds.) Von Priesterinnen, Riot Girls und Dienstmädchen.  Stimmen fur eine Globalisierung von unten.  Munster: ITP-Kompass Bd.4, pp. 28-37.

Recent Conference Presentations

  • 2014: “Women’s Rights as Human Rights:  A Tool for Invisibilizing Other Knowledge?”  Human Rights in Academia/Zur Bedeutung von Menschenrechten für die Wissenshaft”  At the Lecture series organized by Amnesty International, Otto-Suhr Institut für Politikwissenschaft, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, April 29.
  • 2014: “Thinking Transnationally through a “Situated” Approach:  Latin American Feminisms and Anti-Capitalist Commitment.” Colloquium of the Project, "The Americas as Space of Entanglement(s)", Center for InterAmerican Studies, Fakultät für Linguistik und Literaturwissenschaft, Universität Bielefeld, Bielefeld, April 22.
  • 2014: Discussant for the Panel “The State in the Making of Inequalities in Latin America”,  of the 3rd International Conference of the International Research Network desiguALdades.net, “Inequalities in Latin America:  Frictions Between Global Configurations and National Negotiations”, sponsored by Freie Universität Berlin, Ibero Amerikanisches Institut – Preussischer Kulturbesitz, German Federal Ministry of Education and Research, Berlin April 11.
  • 2014: Schild, V. “Utopia Without Politics? Rethinking “Human Rights” as a Discourse of Emancipation” the International Workshop, DesiguALdades.net. Sponsored by Freie Universität Berlin, Ibero Amerikanisches Institut – Preussischer Kulturbesitz, German Federal Ministry of Education and Research Berlin, April.
  • 2014:  Co-organized (with Marianne Braig, Markus-Michael Müller and Bettina Schorr):  the International Workshop, DesiguALdades.net, “Rethinking the State: Law and politics in the Making of Inequalities in Latin America.” Sponsored by Freie Universität Berlin, Ibero Amerikanisches Institut – Preussischer Kulturbesitz, German Federal Ministry of Education and Research Berlin, April 4-5.
  • 2013: “The Siren Call of Neoliberalism in Chile: Female Agency as Empowerment for Precarious Contexts.”  XXXI International Congress of the Latin American Studies Association, Washington, D.C., May 29 – June 1, 2.
  • 2013: Participation in Workshop, “Explorando estrategias de investigación y activism en torno a la autonomía reproductiva y la ciudadanía sexual.”  XXXI International Congress of the Latin American Studies Association, Washington, D.C., May 29 – June 1.
  • 2012:  “Rekindling the Imaginary: A Latin American Anti-Capitalist Feminism for the 20th Century.”  XXX International Congress of the Latin American Studies Association, San Francisco, Ca., May 23-26.
  • 2011: “Las mujeres pobres y la familia en la configuración de un estado neoliberal de ‘cuidado’: Reflexiones críticas sobre una década de relaciones feministas con el estado.”  Encuentro Mesoamericano de Estudios de Género y Feminismos: Avances y retos de una década, 2001-2011, Guatemala City, Guatemala, May 4-6.
  • 2010: “Feminists, Families and the Self-Enterprising Poor.  An Emerging Latin American ‘Caring’ State?”  XXIX International Congress of the Latin American Studies Association, Toronto, October 9-11.
  • 2010:  “Beyond the Limits of Liberal Gender Rights Talk in Times of Crisis.” SGIR 7th Pan-European International Relations Conference, Stockholm, September 9-11.
  • 2009: “Feminists and the Neo-liberal Revolution in Government: A Critical Essay on Politics and the State.”  XXVIII International Congress of the Latin American Studies Association, Rio de Janeiro, June.
  • 2009:  “Commentary for the round table ‘Feminisms in the Américas: Alternative Genealogies of Rights and Resistance.’  XXVIII International Congress of the Latin American Studies Association, Rio de Janeiro, June.
  • 2000: “Recasting the Relation Between Rights Based Feminsim, Neo-liberalism and Moral Regulation.”  53° Congreso Internacional de Americanistas, Mexico City, July 20-21.

Invited Presentations & Lectures

  • 2014: “Rethinking Gender and Emancipation Beyond Neoliberal Regulation.” Political Inquiry Colloquium, Department of Political Science, Western University, London, Ont. February 28.
  • 2014: “Beyond Sexism and Ethnocentrism:  Feminist Struggles for Social Justice in Latin America.”  The 1st Annual Gender & Global Change Conference, Where are the Wo[men]? Women in House and Political Science Association, Western University, London, Ont., March 1.   
  • 2013: Also in 2013, I was Co-Chair of the Gender and Feminist Studies Section of the Latin American Studies Association, May 2012 to May 2013.  It was a busy, intense and exciting task that involved collaboration with my Buenos Aires-based Co-Chair, and my San Francisco-based Treasurer (thank god for skype!).
  • 2013: And, as Co-Chair, I was Co-organizer of the immensely successful Conference, “Gender, Sexuality and Struggles for Justice in Latin America: Legal, Political and Social Dimensions.”  A pre-conference jointly convened by the Sexualities and Gender and Feminist Studies Sections of the Latin American Studies Association. Sponsored by Washington College of Law Impact Litigation Project, and American University Center for Latin American and Latino Studies.  American University Washington College of Law, Washington, D.C., May 29. 
  • 2013: “Whose Feminism is it After All?  Challenging Nancy Fraser from the Other America.”  Invited by the John F.K. Institute für Nordamerika Studien of the Freie Universität Berlin December 3.
  • 2013:  “Why Feminist Standpoint Theory is Epistemologically and Politically Relevant Today” to the lecture series, Ringvorlesung: Im Zeitalter von Trans/Post/Inter...Warum Gender Studies Heute?”  Gender Studies Area, Lateinamerika Institut, Freie Universität Berlin.  Thursday November 28.
  • 2013: A month-long Colloquium offered in connection with the Dahlem International Networkprofessorship in Gender Studies, at the Lateinamerika Institut, Freie Universität Berlin (Winter Semester 2013-2014: November 2013).
  • 2013: A “Block Seminar” (November 21, 27, 29, December 2, and 4 2013) for PhD and MA students specializing in Latin American studies on Latin American Feminisms and the Reconfiguration of the State:  Neoliberal Modernity as Gendered Regulation.  Offered in connection with the Dahlem International Network Professorship for Gender Studies at the Lateinamerika Institut,  Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin (November-December 2013).   
  • 2013: Presented the Inaugural Lecture of the Dahlem International Network Professorship for Gender Studies 2013/2014:  “Rethinking Gender and Emancipation Beyond Neoliberal Regulation” (Introduced by the President of the Freie Universität Berlin, Univ.-Prof.Dr. Peter-André Alt) Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, November 6.
  • 2013: “Why Feminist Standpoint Theory is Epistemologically and Politically Relevant Today.” Ringvorlesung: Im Zeitalter von Trans/Post/Inter...Warum Gender Studies Heute?”  Gender Studies Area, Lateinamerika Institut, Freie Universität Berlin.  Thursday November 28.
  • 2013: “Whose Feminism is it After All?  Challenging Nancy Fraser from the Other America.”  Colloquium at the John F. K. Kennedy Institut of the Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, December 3.
  • 2013: Inaugural Lecture. “Rethinking Gender and Emancipation Beyond Neoliberal Regulation.”  Dahlem International Network Professorship for Gender Studies 2013/2014, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, November 6.   
  • 2012:  “Securing Citizens and Entrenching Inequalities: The Janus-Faced Neoliberal State in Latin America.” Weekly Colloquium at DesiguALdades.net,Research Network on Interdependent Inequalities in Latin America Freie Universität, Berlin, November 19.
  • 2012:  “Las dos caras del estado neoliberal Latinoamericano: Una aproximación desde el feminismo crítico.”  Seminario de Género y Etnicidad y Seminario de Antropología Jurídica, Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social, CIESAS, Mexico City, Mexico, September 24.
  • 2012: “El Feminismo crítico en el contexto neoliberal.”  Inaugural Lecture.  Maestría en Investigación Social y Desarrollo.  Universidad de Concepción, Concepción, Chile, April 3.
  • 2012:  “Las mujeres populares y el feminismo en la construcción de un nuevo estado cuidador.” Seminario Internacional Sobre Desigualdades y Políticas, Escuela de Posgrado, Maestría en Sociología, Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, Lima, Perú, March 22-23.
  • 2011:  “Las mujeres pobres y el feminismo en la construcción de un nuevo estado de ‘cuidado’ en América Latina.” Posgrado en Estudios de la Mujer, Universidad de Costa Rica, San José, Costa Rica, May 2.
  • 2011:  “Feminists, Families and the Poor: The Reconfigured ‘Caring’ State in Latin America.”  Sociology Colloquium, Department of Sociology. The University of Western Ontario, February 4.
  • 2010: “In the Name of Rights: Gender, the State, and Neo-Liberal Reconfigurations of Citizenship.”  Social Inequalities and Global Interdependencies: Latin American Configurations.  Inaugural Conference of the Research Network on Interdependent Inequalities in Latin America, Berlin, December 2-4.
  • 2010:  “El Programa Chile Solidario:  Una Mirada desde el Governmentality Studies.”  Presentation to the Workshop sobre Politicas Sociales comparadas (Argentina y Chile).  Centro de Estudios Sobre Democratización y Derechos Humanos, Universidad Nacional de San Martin, Buenos Aires, Argentina, April 29 and May 3.

Awards and Distinctions

  • April 2014: Visiting Research FellowDesiguALdades.net, Research Network on Interdependent Inequalities in Latin America.  Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin.
  • October - December 2013: I was the Dahlem International Network Professor for Gender Studies
  • Winter Semester 2013-2014: Invited to inaugurate the first ever International Professorship in Gender Studies at the Freie Universität Berlin, the Dahlem International Network Professor for Gender Studies, Freie Universität Berlin,  Berlin. 
  • October – November 2012: May-June 2013, Visiting Fellow.  Research Network on Interdependent Inequalities in Latin America, DesiguALdades.net.  Freie Universität, Berlin, Germany.
  • March – April 2012: Visiting Professor, Program Estudios Graduados en Procesos Sociales y Desarrollo.  Universidad de Concepción, Concepción, Chile.
  • 2011:  Alumna of the Year, Department of Philosophy.  George Mason University.
  • December 1-5, 2010:  Fellow, Research Network on Interdependent Inequalities in Latin America, DesiguALdades.net, Research Dimension II: Socio-Political Inequalities,  Freie Universität, Berlin, Germany.
  • 2009 – Present:  Member, Advisory Council, Advanced Institute for Globalization and Culture (aig+c), Lakehead University, Thunder Bay, Ontario, 2009 to the present.
  • October 2007- March 2008: Visiting Fellow, Institute for Political Science, Faculty of Social Sciences, Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
  • 2006 – Present:  Member, Academic Council, Centro de Estudios sobre Democratización y Derechos Humanos (Centre for Studies of Democracy and Human Rights), Graduate School, Universidad Nacional de San Martín.  Buenos Aires, Argentina.
  • 1999 – Present:  Associate Fellow, CERLAC (Centre for Research on Latin America and the Caribbean), York University. 
  • 1991- 1993: Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Post-Doctoral Fellowship.