Thinking with Bevereley Skeggs - Stockholms universitet

Intro: Thinking with BeverleySkeggsIt’s not every day one has the opportunity to really ‘think with’ inreal life someone who is a great source of intellectual inspiration.It’s a rare gift and should be honoured as such. During the springof 2007 we were a number of people at the Centre for GenderStudies at Stockholm University who had this unique opportunitywhen Professor Beverley Skeggs was the Kerstin HesselgrenProfessor at the Centre.This collection of essays is the result of a workshop withProfessor Beverley Skeggs: The Beverley Skeggs Workshopas it was called by us. We wanted to take the opportunityto continue the inspiring process that Professor BeverleySkeggs started in the workshop, and which was related to hergenerous and open attitude as a researcher. And what betterway than to write about it? We also wanted to document thisenriching experience. And, of course, we also wanted to takethe opportunity to say thank you!What does ‘Thinking with Beverley Skeggs’ mean? BeverleySkeggs herself often used the expression ‘to think with’, andwhat is more important: practised ‘Thinking With’ as a method.We were encouraged to think with her, and engage in a criticaland open dialogue with each other and all the texts that we readand discussed. Ideally this should be part of our everyday praxisat the university, but as we all know this is not often the case.We therefore want to put forward ‘Thinking With’ as a modelfor seminars, workshops and literature reviews. To us, ‘ThinkingWith’ is a way of practising feminist methodology.The Beverley Skeggs Workshop came to be a really vibrantand important place for the participants. 25 people from differentdepartments at the faculties of social sciences and the humanitieswanted to participate in the workshop. Rather than exclude7