Studying equality

John Baker

pp. 51-64

in: Iain MacKenzie, Shane O'Neill (eds), Reconstituting social criticism, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 1999

Abstract

How should we now construct the intellectual project of the left? In this essay, I argue for one answer to this question, by setting out the case for the field of equality studies as it has developed in the Equality Studies Centre at University College Dublin.¹ In the first section, I argue that equality is an appropriate focus for leftist enquiry. In the second section, I characterize equality studies in terms of its central questions and emancipatory research paradigm. The third section compares equality studies with some other progressive and interdisciplinary projects. I finish by returning to the relationship between equality studies and egalitarian politics. My overall aim is to encourage progressives to look at their own work from an equality studies perspective and thereby to encourage them to develop their own forms of interdisciplinary co-operation along similar lines.