María-Ángeles Durán has claimed for ‘an innovative economy which can interpret the care and attention work as a productive activity, and a new sociology which can assist in establishing a fairer distribution of workload.’ The full university professor of sociology and lecturer of the Spanish Higher Council for Scientific Research (CSIC) was appointed last March 9th doctor ‘honoris causa’ by Universitat de València.
The event has taken place in the Facultat de Medicina i Odontologia’s Aula Magna. The Principal, Esteban Morcillo, has stressed the ‘outstanding’ role of María-Ángeles Durán in the fight for gender equality. Antonio Ariño, full professor of sociology and Vice-principal for Culture, Equality and Planning has delivered the laudatio.
Over her speech, the new honoris causa recalled her academic and personal relations with Universitat de València and with the city of Valencia. ‘When at the end of the 70’s I devised a survey to find out the university students’ attitudes, Universitat de València was selected as one of the universities where the empirical work would take place. Then, I had the support of the full professor José Jiménez Blanco.’ She has added: ‘From that moment, I am still in touch with this land and with this university: I have been a member in theses boards, I have delivered many lectures in conferences, I have organized summer courses and I have been a lecturer in the doctorate programme thanks to Fundación Cañada Blanch. I have always had a close relationship with the department of sociology and it was one of the first centres in assisting me when I put myself forward as a candidate for the presidency of Federación Española de Sociología.
María-Ángeles Durán's whole speech can be read clicking here.
The Universitat de València’s Principal, Esteban Morcillo, has stated that counting ‘invisible and intangible costs –as María Ángeles Durán says- is not only a technical innovation but an ideological advance because it dicloses social mechanisms of structural distribution of collective charges.’ He has also claimed that: ‘to the present moment this had brought scarce interest to sociology and economy sciences.’
In this context, the research by the new doctor honoris causa have been, according to the Principal, ‘pioneer’. He has referred to some of Durán’s studies on non-payed work, social situation of women, carers of dependent persons, chronic sick people, and disparity in time use.
The Principal's words can be read here.
During the laudatio, Antonio Ariño, a sociologist himself, has pointed out Durán’s works as ‘works that from the beginning had open new paths for social sciences. They seem to be fresh and to be created in a spontaneous way.’ He has also said that ‘she has always shown her interest for social structure, micro-economy, macro-economy, power relations and production processes of scientific knowledge. And all this, in a particularly difficult context.’
De puertas adentro, the book that established her as a scientific figure ‘is not about women and her home spaces, but is about structure and social reality, about the material conditions of existence.’
The whole laudatio can be read clicking here.
María-Ángeles Durán (Madrid, 1942) was the first woman in Spain to be a university full professor in sociology. She founded the Instituto Universitario de Estudios de la Mujer (UAM); she has been president of the Federación Española de Sociología and member of the executive committee of the International Sociological Association.
Durán has taught and has done research at the universities Autónoma and Complutense in Madrid, CEU, Zaragoza, Pontificia Universiade Católica de Río de Janeiro, University of Cambridge, University of Washington, University of Seattle and at the European Institute of Florence.
Among the many prizes and mentions she has received, it is important to mention Premio Nacional de Investigación in law sciences, social sciences and economic sciences Pascual Madoz, la Medalla de Oro al Trabajo, la Medalla de Oro de Extremadura, the prizes called Protagonistas (mass media), Mensajeros de la Paz and Cultura para la Salud (ADEPS).
Entre los numerosos galardones y premios obtenidos destacan el Premio Nacional de Investigación en Ciencias Jurídicas, Sociales y Económicas Pascual Madoz, la Medalla de Oro al Trabajo, la Medalla de Oro de Extremadura y los premios Protagonistas (Medios de Comunicación), Mensajeros de la Paz y Cultura para la Salud (ADEPS).
She is already a doctor honoris causa by Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. In her intellectual work, she has tried to discover new research fields, making visible the interdependence between public and private life, as well as the situation of social groups which had not attracted attention so far.
Last update: 12 de march de 2012 08:22.
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