Boundary Work as Feminist Work

Abstract

The Nordic field of music education research encompasses scholars from Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, and Iceland who work in a variety of higher education institutions, among them university colleges, universities, and music academies, and who therefore encounter a number of institutional cultures with their own set of gendered expectations and regulations. The situation in the broader field of Norwegian music academia has been characterized as one of genderfication, indicating among other things that female music academics’ professional influence is quite limited. Similarly, interviews with female full professors of music education in the Nordic countries show how these professors struggle to be perceived as equals of their male counterparts with respect to expertise and excellence. Nevertheless, during the past two decades, the number of female participants in the Nordic field of music education research has increased exponentially, also at the full professor level. This has happened alongside the field radically broadening its scope with respect to what counts as legitimate research topics and arenas. Borrowing Lamont’s sociological concept of boundary work as well as Bourdieu’s ideas on the distinctions between doxa and the field of opinion, this chapter explores the expansion of the field as a renegotiation of symbolic boundaries through the formation of a universe of discourse which may have had feminist effects and potentials, allowing more female scholars to participate and make a mark professionally. Also included is a brief discussion of how deliberate boundary work may increase the participation of other minoritized groups.