A feminist approach to university- industry relations: Integrating theories of gender, knowledge, and capital

Ever more frequently and globally, universities partner with for-profit firms. This paper explains why information about university-industry ties is relevant to global justice issues and should be garnering critical scrutiny from various feminist perspectives. Knowledge about university-industry ties aids in understanding of: (1) nonhierarchical structures; (2) academic capitalism and intellectual property laws; (3) how exclusion of women from technoscience networks shapes technology, commodifies women's bodies, and has implications for justice in developing nations. University-industry relationships are major mechanisms in the production and development of knowledge and its intersections with systems of social hierarchy, and the complex globalization of structures, laws, technologies, and bodies.