Prof. Dr. Karen Celis

Karen Celis is research professor at the Department of Political Science and co-director Research of RHEA. She conducts theoretical and empirical research (qualitative, comparative) on political representation of groups (women, ethnic minorities, class, age groups, LGBT), equality policies and state feminism. In her more recent work she investigates the political representation of groups from an explicit intersectional perspective. Intersectionality theory calls for an understanding groups as formed by the intersection of discriminatory mechanisms such as gender, race/ethnicity, class, age, sexual understanding etc. This evidently challenges the concept and praxis of political group representation, as well as the ways to assess the quality thereof. Against this background, Celis investigates the implications of understanding women¹s interests as plural, the political inclusion of ethnic minority men and women, and the normative standards for assessing the quality of substantive representation.