GI402 Half Unit
Gender, Knowledge and Research Practice
This information is for the 2025/26 session.
Course Convenor
Dr Hakki Sandal-wilson
Availability
This course is compulsory on the MPhil/PhD in Gender, MSc in Gender and MSc in Gender (Research). This course is available on the MSc in Culture and Society, MSc in Gender (Rights and Human Rights), MSc in Gender (Sexuality), MSc in Gender, Development and Globalisation, MSc in Gender, Media and Culture, MSc in Gender, Peace and Security, MSc in Gender, Policy and Inequalities and MSc in Social Research Methods. This course is available with permission as an outside option to students on other programmes where regulations permit. This course uses controlled access as part of the course selection process.
Students should apply by 10am UK time on Friday 26 September 2025. Offers will be made after 10am on this date and will continue until all places are filled.
Priority is given to those for whom the course is semi-core (if applicable), then home department students and then to those who have the course listed in their programme regulations who apply in the first 24-hours (by 10:00am, Friday 26 September 2025), space permitting. Please note the timing of your request within the first 24-hours will not impact chances of being accepted onto the course. Requests received after this timeframe, or outside option requests, will be allocated randomly if space remains.
Please do not email the Course Convenor with personal expressions of interest as these are not required and do not influence who is offered a place. Contact gender@lse.ac.uk with any queries.
Course content
This course introduces students to critical epistemological and methodological scholarship relevant for embarking on gender research at graduate and postgraduate level and beyond. The course provides a critique of ‘mainstream knowledge’ through an exploration of Black, queer, postcolonial and other intersectional feminist theories. In addition, the course offers an engagement with some of the practical, ethical and methodological challenges of conducting gender research and producing feminist knowledge through drawing on a variety of ‘disciplinary’ experiences and reflections. Finally, the course engages with decolonising and decentring intiatives, and questions the place of Gender Studies as an interdisciplinary field. The course asks: What are the implications of producing research within, beyond and without the epistemic centres of global north feminism?
Teaching
15 hours of seminars and 15 hours of lectures in the Winter Term.
This course has a reading week in Week 6 of Winter Term.
Formative assessment
Proposal Essay (1500 words) in the WT.
Indicative reading
Patricia Hill Collins (2000) Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness and the Politics of Empowerment. New York: Routledge.
Sara Ahmed (2016) Living a Feminist Life. Duke University Press.
Uma Narayan and Sandra Harding, eds (2000) Decentering the Center: Philosophy for a Multicultural, Postcolonial and Feminist World. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Assessment
Project (100%, 3000 words)
The project includes one part research proposal and one part reflective essay.
Key facts
Department: Gender Studies
Course Study Period: Winter Term
Unit value: Half unit
FHEQ Level: Level 7
CEFR Level: Null
Total students 2024/25: 50
Average class size 2024/25: 50
Controlled access 2024/25: YesCourse selection videos
Some departments have produced short videos to introduce their courses. Please refer to the course selection videos index page for further information.
Personal development skills
- Leadership
- Self-management
- Team working
- Problem solving
- Application of information skills
- Communication
- Specialist skills