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Tove Soiland

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Tove Soiland (* 1962 near Zurich) is a Swiss feminist theorist and Marxist whose work focuses on feminist theory, political economy and psychoanalysis.

Career

Tove Soiland was born near Zurich in 1962. She studied history and philosophy at the University of Zurich and in 2008 obtained her doctorate with a thesis on the feminist theorist Luce Irigaray.1Soiland, Tove (2010): Luce Irigarays Denken der sexuellen Differenz. Eine dritte Position im Streit zwischen Lacan und den Historisten. Berlin: Verlag Turia + Kant, ISBN 978-3-851.32-582-9. For more than twenty years she worked as a lecturer and visiting professor at various universities in Switzerland, Germany and Austria, most recently as a research associate at the University of Innsbruck. Alongside her work as an independent scholar and researcher, which continues to this day and has produced numerous publications, she led feminist reading seminars for women on economics and theory at a trade union in Zurich for twelve years.2VPOD Zürich (Verband öffentlicher Dienste): Ankündigung des Leseseminars im Jahr 2020. Online at: https://zuerich.vpod.ch/kalender/2019/feministisches-leseseminar-fuer-frauen/ (accessed on 14 November 2023) Her list of lectures is long: since 2010, Tove Soiland has been invited several times a year to give lectures and workshops. She remains active as a feminist activist to this day.3Member of the collective Feministischer Lookdown and of the association Linksbündig, both of which take a critical view of state coronavirus policy; see https://www.feministischerlookdown.org/ and https://www.linksbuendig.ch/ 4Tove Soiland at the preparatory meeting for the women’s strike in March 2019 in Biel. Online at: https://youtu.be/x0uStPYQZiM?feature=shared (accessed on 10 November 2023) 5Personal participation on the streets and contributions to political debates in connection with the major women’s strikes in Switzerland in 1991 and 2019. For example: Dyttrich, Bettina (2011): Kämpfe um Zeit sind mindestens so wichtig wie Kämpfe um Lohn. Tove Soiland im Gespräch mit Bettina Dyttrich. In: WOZ, article of 18 April. Online at: https://www.woz.ch/1117/tove-soiland/kaempfe-um-zeit-sind-mindestens-so-wichtig-wie-kaempfe-um-lohn (accessed on 15 August 2023).

Main topics/core interests

Tove Soiland’s core interests concern the relationship between Marxism and psychoanalytic currents and the feminist approaches linked to them, the connection between political economy and feminist theory, in particular the thought of sexual difference, and the development of a contemporary critique of domination and capitalism from a left-feminist perspective.

The thought of sexual difference

With sexual difference and political economy, Tove Soiland puts into theoretical terms something that perpetuates itself despite the successes of equality policy and that shows itself in particular in the unresolved question of care and its effects in creating gender hierarchies.6Hartmann, Anna (2022): Tove Soiland. Sexuelle Differenz. Münster: UNRAST Verlag, ISBN 978-3-89771-345-1, pp. 7–14. Care refers to the sphere that is indispensable for individual growing up, for becoming a subject and for social coexistence, and which, historically, has been anchored primarily in the private sphere and associated with femininity. She pursues the question of how it comes about that the devaluation, invisibility and disregard of care, of caring for one another, of care work, continue to persist so stubbornly. What exactly does it mean to be dependent on others? And how do we deal with this, as a society and as individuals? Something continues here that cannot be changed by a better reconciliation of work and family or by a fairer distribution of care work. Using the feminist approach of sexual difference, Soiland interprets the problem as a socially unprocessed relationship to the mother, or to the person who stands in her place, and to her unconscious appropriation. In a psychoanalytic understanding – here Soiland draws on Luce Irigaray, who builds on the theories of Jacques Lacan – we live in a ‘post-Oedipal society’ and continue to fantasise about an inexhaustibly available maternal instance whose care is a precondition of our existence, but which nonetheless remains invisible and has no ‘symbolic representation’,7Dolderer, Maya (2022): Die mütterliche Gabe hat keine symbolische Existenz. In: Hartmann, Anna (ed.): Sexuelle Differenz. Feministisch-psychoanalytische Perspektiven auf die Gegenwart. Münster: UNRAST Verlag, ISBN 978-3-89771-345-1, pp. 173–184, p. 175. Interview with Tove Soiland conducted in 2016. i.e. no place in social consciousness. This imagining of an absence of preconditions, the negation of our initial – and also later – dependencies, continued with the economisation and ‘managerialisation’ of the care regime, in that this work, which cannot do without a counterpart, without a relationship, is rationalised as if it were a matter of producing commodities.8Cf. Gulino, Lorena/Hässig, Lydia (2020): Das Care-Manifest – für eine andere Wirtschaftspolitik! In: Widerspruch. Beiträge zu sozialistischer Politik, No. 74, pp. 167–173. 9Soiland, Tove (2017): Landnahme der individuellen und sozialen Reproduktion: Eine feministische Perspektive auf die Transformation des Sozialen. In: Theoriekritik.ch, article of 5 February. Online at: http://www.theoriekritik.ch/?p=3180 (accessed on 21 July 2023).

Gender debate

Tove Soiland publishes on feminist theory and in 2003 initiated the so-called gender dispute (the ‘cultural turn’ in gender studies).10Soiland, Tove (2003): Das Spiel mit den Geschlechtern – eine Sackgasse? In: Wochenzeitung, No. 21 (no longer available online). As one of the critics11Besides Tove Soiland, Butler’s critics include: Élisabeth Badinter, Veronika Bennholdt-Thomsen, Nancy Fraser, Carola Meier-Seethaler, Alice Schwarzer. of gender deconstruction, which had been established at European universities at the beginning of the 1990s by American theorists, above all by Judith Butler, Soiland identifies a central deficit in this theory: the socio-economic inequalities between the sexes, she argues, are not touched by gender theory but are even rendered invisible. Women must therefore remain a social and political category, with their specific life contexts being continually addressed and analysed.12Hartmann, Anna (2022): Tove Soiland. Sexuelle Differenz. Münster: UNRAST Verlag, ISBN 978-3-89771-345-1, pp. 11–14. 13Tove Soiland (2022): Subversion, wo steckst du? Eine Spurensuche an den Universitäten. In: Hartmann, Anna (ed.) Sexuelle Differenz. Feministisch-psychoanalytische Perspektiven auf die Gegenwart. Münster: UNRAST Verlag, ISBN 978-3-89771-345-1, pp. 109–131, pp. 109–116 and pp. 128–130.

From Soiland’s perspective, the identity politics driven forward by gender theory no longer keeps the critique of patriarchy and capitalism in view and dovetails seamlessly with the incessant neoliberal imperative, addressed to the individual, to optimise oneself. In this way, according to Soiland, gender hierarchies are not dissolved; instead, responsibility for them is placed on the individual rather than their fundamental political, economic and social effects being exposed.14Seiler, Nina (2020): Wer ist sie? Tove Soiland. In: Feministische Wissenschaft. Feminfo, No. 56, p. 39. Online at: https://www.femwiss.ch/deutsch/feminfo/archiv/ (accessed on 16 August 2023)

Soiland’s critique of the discourse of domination and power

The focus of Soiland’s current theoretical work is the conduct of the world’s organs of power and state during crises and its social effects. Prompted by the experience of the health-policy measures during the Covid-19 pandemic, Soiland analyses the (para-)state and media discourses of domination about crises and criticises them from a Marxist and feminist perspective.15Soiland, Tove (2023): Der hypermoderne Hygienismus und die Linke. Tendenzen eines postideologischen Totalitarismus. In: Theoriekritik.ch, article of 13 February. Online at: http://www.theoriekritik.ch/?p=4464 (accessed on 15 August 2023)

Starting from a psychoanalytic way of thinking, she warns, in view of possible further states of emergency, of states becoming authoritarian in Western societies. According to her, we find ourselves in a post-ideological constellation which, according to Jacques Lacan, is the one most adequate to the capitalist mode of production, and, following Massimo Recalcati, we are heading towards a ‘hypermodern hygienism’ which pins the field of activity of biopolitics to the domain of health by imposing health on us as a new moral duty.16Soiland, Tove (2022): Ein postideologischer Totalitarismus? In: Neues Deutschland, article of 18 February. Online at: https://www.nd-aktuell.de/artikel/1162247.die-linke-und-corona-ein-postideologischer-totalitarismus.html (accessed on 21 July 2023) With this examination, Soiland provides impulses for current debates in the field of health, which increasingly revolve around the question of the right lifestyle, and in the field of education and science, where evaluations, efficiency and competence orientation seem to be replacing the teaching of content and the struggle for unambiguous knowledge. And, in view of the dependency that we experience particularly in moments of illness and neediness, she reminds us of the question of how we want to live.17Cf. on this: Böllinger, Lena (2022): Was verschwindet, ist die Frage: Wie wollen wir leben? In: nd Neues Deutschland, article of 22 October. Online at: https://www.nd-aktuell.de/artikel/1167899.gesellschaft-was-verschwindet-ist-die-frage-wie-wollen-wir-leben.html (accessed on 15 August 2023)

Political practice and education for women

‘Politische Ökonomie! Ein feministisches Leseseminar für Frauen’ (Political economy! A feminist reading seminar for women),18VPOD Zürich (2019): Politische Ökonomie! Ein feministisches Leseseminar für Frauen, in: Website of VPOD Zürich. Online at: https://zuerich.vpod.ch/kalender/2019/feministisches-leseseminar-fuer-frauen/ accessed on 21 July 2023) was the title of a call for the seminars held during the 2019/2020 winter semester, which were aimed at women interested in political questions. Here the interweaving of Tove Soiland’s theoretical work with political practice becomes apparent. The seminars always centred on feminist topics such as the care economy, which was of particular interest to the participants, who work predominantly in this sector – in nursing, education, social work, childcare and more. In her seminars, Soiland imparts theoretical knowledge, complex traditions of thought and her critique of dominant positions. The feminist critique of the economy developed together was made visible and recorded in various formats, for example in an article as a contribution to the ‘Neue Landnahme’ (new land grab) debate,19Cf. Soiland, Tove (2017): Landnahme der individuellen und sozialen Reproduktion: Eine feministische Perspektive auf die Transformation des Sozialen. In: Theoriekritik.ch, article of 5 February. Online at: http://www.theoriekritik.ch/?p=3180 (accessed on 21 July 2023). 20Soiland, Tove (2018): Innere Kolonien: Care als Feld einer „Neuen Landnahme”. In: LuXemburg. Gesellschaftsanalyse und linke Praxis, No. 3/2018. Online at: https://zeitschrift-luxemburg.de/artikel/innere-kolonien-care/ (accessed on 16 August 2023) 21Feministische Autorinnengruppe Soiland, Tove/Müller, Ina/Bischel, Iris et al. (2013): Das Theorem der Neuen Landnahme: eine feministische Rückeroberung. In: Baumann, Hans et al. (eds.): Care statt Crash. Sorgeökonomie und die Überwindung des Kapitalismus. Zürich: Verlag edition 8, ISBN 978-3-85990-220-6, pp. 99–118. while on another occasion the seminar opened its doors for an evening to all women and men in care professions in order to point out the pitfalls of professionalisation and economisation in this field.22VPOD Schweiz (2018): „Wir produzieren weder Teflonpfannen noch Humankapital! Stoppt den Wasserkopf ‚Management‘: Wir wissen selber, was gute Care-Arbeit ist!“ Public event of the VPOD reading seminar, in: VPOD Schweiz (ed.), Beilage zu VPOD-Magazin. Event notice of 14 June. Online at: https://zuerich.vpod.ch/site/assets/files/0/12/736/web_vpod-info_04_18_zh.pdf (accessed on 6 September 2023).

This gave rise to a common foundation that enabled Soiland and the participants to understand why their care work is as precarious as it proves to be in their daily (paid) work.

As a step from theoretical critique to practice, the women, together with Soiland, transformed the content of the Care-Manifest23Fraum* (2019): Care-Manifest, in: Website of the Frauen*Zentrum Zürich. Online at: https://www.fraum.ch/frauenstreik/ (accessed on 6 September 2023). they had previously written together into a performance, which they staged as a political intervention on the day of the women’s strike in 2019 at various institutions – hospitals, places of further education and management in the education and health sectors, and in public squares in Zurich.

Award

2016: Somazzi-Preis for outstanding achievements in the advancement of women24Somazzi-Stiftung (n.d.): Die Preisträgerinnen und Preisträger. In: Website of the foundation. Online at: https://www.somazzi-stiftung.ch/preistr%C3%A4gerinnen-und-preistr%C3%A4ger (accessed on 9 November 2023).

Publications

Publications and edited volumes

  • Soiland, Tove (2010): Luce Irigarays Denken der sexuellen Differenz. Eine dritte Position im Streit zwischen Lacan und den Historisten. Wien/Berlin: Turia+Kant, ISBN 978-3-85132-916-2.
  • Soiland, Tove (2022): Sexuelle Differenz. Feministisch-psychoanalytische Perspektiven auf die Gegenwart. Edited by Anna Hartmann. Münster: Unrast, ISBN 978-3-89771-345-1.
  • Soiland, Tove/Frühauf, Marie/Hartmann, Anna (eds.) (2022): Postödipale Gesellschaft, (1), Wien/Berlin: Turia + Kant, ISBN 978-3-98514-033-6.
  • Soiland, Tove/Frühauf, Marie/Hartmann, Anna (eds.) (2022): Sexuelle Differenz in der postödipalen Gesellschaft (2). Wien/Berlin: Turia + Kant, ISBN 978-3-98514-034-3.

Articles in journals (selection)

Essays in edited volumes

  • Soiland, Tove (2004): „Gender“. In: Bröckling, Ulrich/Krasmann, Susanne/Lemke, Thomas (eds.): Glossar der Gegenwart. Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp, ISBN 978-3-518-12381-2, pp. 97–104
  • Soiland, Tove (2005): Gender: vom Rollenverhalten zur ökonomischen Kategorie. In: Tschopp, Edith/Wagner, Eveline (eds.): Verletzungen. Ein Lehrmittel zum Nachschlagen über Menschenrechte, Diskriminierung und Rassismus. Zürich: Somedia, ISBN 3-7253-0825-X, pp. 145–152.
  • Soiland, Tove (2008): Gender: Kritik oder Bestandteil des neoliberalen Geschlechterregimes? In: Krondorfer, Birge/Wischer, Miriam/Strutzmann, Andrea (eds.): Frauen und Politik. Nachrichten aus Demokratien. Wien: Promedia, ISBN 978-3-85371-280-1, pp. 174–183.
  • Soiland, Tove (2009): Gender als Selbstmanagement. Zur Reprivatisierung des Geschlechts in der gegenwärtigen Gleichstellungspolitik. In: Andresen, Sünne / Koreuber, Mechthild / Lüdke, Dorothea (eds.): Gender und Diversity: Albtraum oder Traumpaar? Interdisziplinärer Dialog zur Modernisierung von Geschlechter- und Gleichstellungspolitik. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, ISBN 978-3-531-15135-9, pp. 35–52.
  • Soiland, Tove (2010): Gender: Von der Passförmigkeit eines Konzepts mit den Erfordernissen spätkapitalistischer Produktion. In: Borrego, Britta/Nagelschmidt, Ilse/Wojke, Kristin (eds.): Interdisziplinäres Kolloquium zur Geschlechterforschung. Berlin: Peter Lang Internationaler Verlag der Wissenschaften, ISBN 978-3-631-60126-6, pp. 11–28.
  • Soiland, Tove (2010): Gender Politics: Behaviour therapy for the two sexes or a structural critique of economic relations? In: Riegraf, Brigit/Aulenbacher, Brigitte/Kirsch-Auwärter, Edit/Müller, Ursula (eds.): GenderChange in Academia. Re-Mapping the Fields of Work, Knowledge, and Politics from a Gender Perspective. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, ISBN 978-3-531-92501-1, pp. 329-338.
  • Soiland, Tove (2011): Zum problematischen Cultural Turn in der Geschlechterforschung. In: Casale, Rita/Forster, Edgar (eds.): Jahrbuch Frauen- und Geschlechterforschung in der Erziehungswissenschaft: Ungleiche Geschlechtergleichheit. Geschlechterpolitik und Theorien des Humankapitals. Opladen & Farmington Hills: Verlag Barbara Budrich, ISBN 978-3-86649-686-6, pp. 17–34.
  • Soiland, Tove (2012): Nehmen Sie Ihr Gender selbst in die Hand, Madame! Von den Antinomien des Konzepts „gender“ und seiner Passfähigkeit zu neoliberalen Menschenregierungskünsten. In: Wirsing, Claudia (ed.): Auf Nietzsches Balkon II. Philosophische Beiträge aus der Villa Silberblick. (13), arts and science: ISBN 978-3-95773-016-9, pp. 184–212.
  • Soiland, Tove (2012): Die Perspektive der sexuellen Differenz: Eine andere Verknüpfung von Marxismus und Feminismus. In: Freie Assoziation. Zeitschrift für das Unbewusste in Organisation und Kultur, (3+4), Gießen: Psychosozial-Verlag, ISBN 1434-7849, pp. 131–136.
  • Soiland, Tove (2012): Postfeminismus – sind das die andern? Ein Aufruf zu mehr akademischer Redlichkeit. In: Krondorfer, Birge/Grammel, Hilde (eds.): Frauen-Fragen. 100 Jahre Bewegung, Reflexion, Vision. Wien: Promedia, ISBN 978-3-85371-351-8, pp. 290–294.
  • Soiland, Tove (2013): Stichwort „Lacanismus“. In: Historisch-kritisches Wörterbuch des Marxismus. (8/I), Berlin: Argument-Verlag, ISBN 978-3-88619-440-7, pp. 559–585.
  • Soiland, Tove (2013): Subversion, wo steckst Du? Eine Spurensuche an den Universitäten. In: Graf, Julia/Ideler, Kristin, Klinger, Sabine (eds.): Geschlecht zwischen Struktur und Subjekt. Theorie, Praxis, Perspektiven. Opladen: Verlag Barbara Budrich, ISBN 978-3-86649-464-0, pp. 93–114.
  • Feministische Autorinnengruppe: Soiland, Tove/Müller, Ina/Bischel, Iris et al. (2013): Das Theorem der Neuen Landnahme: Eine feministische Rückeroberung. In: Baumann, Hans et al. (eds.): Denknetz Jahrbuch: Care statt Crash. Sorgeökonomie und die Überwindung des Kapitalismus. Zürich: Verlag edition 8, ISBN 978-3-85990-220-6, pp. 99–118. Online at: https://www.denknetz.ch/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Jahrbuch_2013.pdf (accessed on 10 November 2023)
  • Soiland, Tove (2014): Jenseits von Sex und Gender: Die sexuelle Differenz – Zeitdiagnostische Interventionen von Seiten der Psychoanalyse. In: Fleig, Anne (ed.): Die Zukunft von Gender. Begriff und Zeitdiagnose. Frankfurt/M.: Campus Verlag, ISBN 9783593500843, pp. 97–125.
  • Soiland, Tove (2014): Die Ungreifbarkeit postfordistischer Geschlechterhierarchie. In: Walgenbach, Katharina/Stach, Anna (eds.): Geschlecht in gesellschaftlichen Transformationsprozessen. Opladen/Berlin/Toronto: Verlag Barbara Budrich, ISBN 978-3-8474-0275-6, pp. 115–130.
  • Soiland, Tove (2016): A feminist approach to primitive accumulation. In: Dellheim, Judith/Wolf, Otto Frieder (eds.): Rosa Luxemburg – a Permanent Challenge for Political Economy. On the History and the Present of Luxemburg’s ‘Accumulation of Capital’. London: Palgrave, ISBN 978-1-349-95616-6, pp. 185–218.
  • Soiland, Tove (2016): Die mütterliche Gabe hat keine symbolische Existenz. Interview conducted by Maya Dolderer. In: Dolderer, Maya/Home, Hannah/Jerzak, Claudia/Tietge, Ann-Madeleine (eds.): O Mother, Where Art Thou? Münster: Westfälisches Dampfboot, ISBN 978-3-89691-844-4, pp. 203–213.
  • Soiland, Tove (2018): Die postödipale Gesellschaft. Eine lacan-marxistische Gegenwartsanalyse. In: Haubner, Tine/Reitz, Tilman (eds.): Marxismus und Soziologie. Weinheim/Basel: Beltz Juventa, ISBN 978-3-7799-3054-9, pp. 200–219.
  • Soiland, Tove (2018): Der Umsturz des Ödipalen. Ein feministisches Dilemma. In: Busch, Charlotte/Dobben, Britta/Rudel, Max/Uhlig, Tom (eds.): Der Riss durchs Geschlecht. Feministische Beiträge zur Psychoanalyse. Gießen: Psychosozial Verlag, 978-3-8379-2711-5, pp. 95–115.
  • Soiland, Tove (2019): Ökonomisierung – Privatisierung: Die verdeckte Unterseite neoliberaler Restrukturierungen und ihre Implikationen für die Geschlechterforschung. In: Kortendiek, Beate/Riegraf, Brigit/Sabisch, Katja (eds.): Handbuch Interdisziplinäre Geschlechterforschung, (1), Wiesbaden: ISBN Springer VS, 2512-0883, pp. 95-104.
  • Soiland, Tove (2020): New modes of enclosures: A Feminist Perspective on the Transformation of the Social. In: Kessl, Fabian/Lorenz, Walter/Preston-Shoot, Michael/Otto, Hans-Uwe (eds.): European Social Work – A Compendium. Opladen/Berlin/Toronto: Verlag Barbara Budrich, ISBN 978-3-8474-0817-8, pp. 289–318.
  • Soiland, Tove (2022): Genießen als Faktor des Politischen – psychoanalytische Zugänge zur Gegenwart. In: Soiland, Tove/Frühauf, Marie/Hartmann, Anna (eds.): Postödipale Gesellschaft (1), Wien/Berlin: Turia + Kant, ISBN 978-3-98514-033-6, pp. 9–50.
  • Soiland, Tove (2023): Das unsichtbare Residuum patriarchaler Macht in der postödipalen Gesellschaft: Das Phantasma des mütterlichen Körpers. In: Sorgo, Gabriele (ed.): Starke Theorien und das schwache Geschlecht. Herstellung weiblicher Unsichtbarkeit. Weinheim Basel: Beltz Juventa, ISBN 978-3-7799-6418-6, pp. 147–168.

Interviews

External links

Machine translation: This article was translated automatically from the German original.

Foto: privat
Empfohlene Zitierweise
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