Solitudes of the workplace : women in universities / edited by Elvi Whittaker.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Part one: solitudes and formal knowledge. Introduction: narratives of solitude / Elvi Whittaker -- Building and redefining women's studies in Canada / Annalee Lepp -- Canadian feminist anthropology: imagining the terrain / Winnie Lem -- Constructing knowledge for equity in the university: what do the categories tell us? / Joan M. Anderson in dialogue with Noga Gayle. Part two Identities and the everyday. Tenure (un)secure/d: as words go into labour / Patricia Palulis -- Seeking scientific voice: strategies for emerging scientists / Cecilia Moloney -- Solidarity in the solitudes of student life: contemporary women students discuss life and work in the academy / Katie Aubrecht and Isabel Mackenzie Lay -- Changing by degrees: the narratives of mature women students / Lelia Kennedy -- The non-nons: secretarial and clerical staff / Isabella Losinger -- It's not just the glass ceiling, it's the caste ceiling / Kersti King -- Contractual university teaching: the question of gender / Linda Cohen -- The missing link: research nurses and their contribution to the production of research knowledge / Patricia Kaufert -- Collective insecurity: an exploration of the experiences of women faculty in Atlantic Canada / Zelda Abramson, Phyllis L.F. Rippeyoung, and E. Lisa Price -- Afterthoughts.

Solitudes of the Workplace focuses on experiences of marginalization, uncertainty, and segregation created by the hierarchical structures of categories in universities and by gendered identities. Studying a wider range of women's roles in universities than prior research, the experiences of support staff, senior administrators, researchers, non-academic administrators, and contract teachers are added to those of faculty and students. These essays show how attempts to introduce new knowledge are manoeuvred and the resistance this process can encounter, as well as the ways in which institutional policies can blur and change identities. Addressing longstanding issues such as the entanglement of gender and the assessment of merit, attention is also given to how new identities are claimed and successfully projected. Essays presenting workers' points of view reveal the confusion that occurs when official policy and everyday knowledge conflict, when processes like tenure and other status changes create troublesome realities, and when it becomes routine to experience status denigration. Within the social order of the university and its existing boundaries, gender issues of past decades sometimes surface, but all too often remain an unspoken presence. Solitudes of the Workplace is a revealing look at the isolating experiences and inequities inherent in these institutional environments.

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