Previous Contributors to The Great Debate
Davina Cooper
Davina Cooper is Professor of Law and Political Theory at
Kent Law School.
Her first academic position was at University of
Warwick Law School (from 1991-1998).
She also completed her PhD there (in 1992), begun at the LSE.
Davina then moved to Keele University (from 1998-2004), and for
3½ years was Research Dean for the Faculty of Social Sciences,
prior to coming to University of Kent to establish the AHRC Research
Centre for Law, Gender & Sexuality in 2004.
Her main areas of research sit at the interstices of socio-legal studies,
political theory, social diversity and the transformational potential of
state and non-state sites. Specifically, Davina has explored these themes
in articles, book chapters and books over twenty years, including in:
Challenging Diversity: Rethinking Equality and the Value of Difference
(2004);
Governing out of Order: Space, Law and the Politics of Belonging
(1998);
Power in Struggle: Feminism, Sexuality and the State
(1995); and
Sexing the City: Lesbian and Gay Politics within the Activist State
(1994). She is currently completing a book on rethinking concepts
through everyday utopias (to be published by Duke University Press 2012).
Research Areas: Gender and Sexuality, Law, Politics and
Culture, Legal Theories and Philosophy
Davina Cooper was on the panel of Equality versus Difference at
The Great Debate:
Whatever Happened to Equality? in November 2012.
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Books by Davina Cooper
Challenging Diversity: Rethinking Equality and the Value of Difference
by Davina Cooper
What challenges are presented by the claim that diversity should be
celebrated? How should equality politics respond to controversial
constituencies, such as smokers and sports hunters, when they
position themselves as disadvantaged? Challenging Diversity brings
a new and original approach to key issues facing social, political
and cultural theory. Critically engaging with feminist, radical
democratic and liberal scholarship, the book addresses four
major challenges confronting a radical equality politics.
Namely, what does equality mean for preferences and choices that
appear harmful; are equality's subjects individuals, groups or
something else; what power do dominant norms have to undermine
equality-oriented reforms; and can radical practices endure when
they collide with the mainstream? Taking examples from religion,
gender, sexuality, state policy-making and intentional communities,
Challenging Diversity maps new ways of understanding equality,
explores the politics of its pursuit, and asks what kinds of diversity
does a radical version of equality engender.
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Intersectionality and Beyond: Law, Power and the Politics of Location
(Social Justice) (2008)
by Emily Grabham, Davina Cooper, Jane Krishnadas, Didi Herman (Eds.)
This collection addresses the present and the future of the concept of
intersectionality within socio-legal studies. Intersectionality provides
a metaphorical schema for understanding the interaction of different
forms of disadvantage, including race, sexuality, and gender.
But it also goes further to provide a particular model of how these
aspects of social identity and location converge – whether at the level
of subjectivity, everyday life, in culture or in the institutional
practices of state and other bodies. Including contributions from a
range of international scholars, this book interrogates what has become
a key organizing concept across a range of disciplines, most particularly
law, political theory, and cultural studies.
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Recent Publications
Cooper, Davina (2011) Theorising Nudist Equality:
An Encounter between Political Fantasy and Public Appearance.
Antipode, 43 (2). pp. 326-357.
Cooper, Davina (2011) Reading the State as a Multi-Identity Formation:
The Touch and Feel of Equality Governance?.
Feminist Legal Studies.
Cooper, Davina (2010) The Pain and the Power of Sexual Interests:
A discussion of Janet Halley's Split Decisions.
International Journal of Law in Context, 6. pp. 94-99.
Cooper, Davina (2009) Caring for sex and the power of attentive
action: Governance, drama, and conflict in building a queer
feminist bathhouse. Signs, 35 (1). pp. 105-130.
Book Sections
Cooper, Davina (2008) Intersectional Travels through Everyday Utopias:
The Difference Sexual and Economic Dynamics make. In:
Grabham, Emily and Cooper, Davina and Herman, Didi et al.
Intersectionality and Beyond: Law, Power, and the Politics of Location.
Routledge-Cavendish, pp. 299-325.
Edited Books
Grabham, Emily and Cooper, Davina and Krishnadas, J. et al. (2009)
Intersectionality and Beyond: Law, Power, and the Politics of Location.
Routledge-Cavendish, United Kingdom, 400 pp. ISBN 9780415432436.
Cooper, Davina (2009)
Intimate Public Practices: A Methodological Challenge.
Feminist Theory
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