scholarly journals Researching gender: the challenge of global diversity today

Afrika Focus ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 25-37
Author(s):  
Chia Longman
Keyword(s):  
Gender Studies ◽  
Cultural Anthropology ◽  
Cultural Relativism ◽  
Feminist Philosophy ◽  
Transgender Studies ◽  
Gender Research ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
Binary Model ◽  
Field Versus ◽  
And Gender

The text of this paper is based on a lecture given at the symposium of the Ghent African Platform “Researching Gender in/on Africa” at Ghent University in December 2009. It addresses some general challenges faced by 'gender studies' as an autonomous field versus ‘gender research’ as an integrated topic within mainstream disciplines in academia. Gender studies have sometimes superseded ‘women’s studies’ and expanded to cover the terrain of study of various forms of diversity including men’s and transgender studies. We will show that the ‘mainstreaming’ of gender in public policy at local, national and transnational levels is a development which may potentially lead to the loss of a – feminist – political edge. Secondly, while gender studies with their emphasis on socially constructed gender as opposed to biological essentialist understandings of ‘sex’ appear to face the challenge of a popular ‘new biological determinism’, it is shown that the binary model of sex/gender in fact has been criticised for some time now from within feminist theory and gender research. This is (selectively) illustrated with research from four disciplines, including the work of African gender studies scholars, i.e. feminist philosophy, social sciences (in particular socio-cultural anthropology), history and biology itself. This then shows how the accusation that gender studies would be ‘socially deterministic’ without attending to bodily matters or materiality is unfounded. Finally, it is argued that there is still a need for gender studies to become more culturally diverse, more global and transnational in its outlook, by becoming more deeply attuned to the way gender intersects with other forms of difference and taking into account postcolonial critiques of western feminist paternalism, without falling into the trap of cultural relativism.

scholarly journals Researching gender: the challenge of global diversity today

Afrika Focus ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Chia Longman
Keyword(s):  
Gender Studies ◽  
Cultural Anthropology ◽  
Cultural Relativism ◽  
Gender Mainstreaming ◽  
Feminist Philosophy ◽  
Gender Research ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
Binary Model ◽  
Field Versus ◽  
And Gender

The text of this paper is based on a lecture given at the symposium of the Ghent African Platform “Researching Gender in/on Africa” at Ghent University in December 2009. It addresses some general challenges faced by ‘gender studies’ as an autonomous field versus ‘gender research’ as an integrated topic within mainstream disciplines in academia. Gender studies have sometimes superseded ‘women’s studies’ and expanded to cover the terrain of study of various forms of diversity including men’s and transgender studies. We will show that the ‘mainstreaming’ of gender in public policy at local, national and transnational levels is a development which may potentially lead to the loss of a – feminist – political edge. Secondly, while gender studies with their emphasis on socially constructed gender as opposed to biological essentialist understandings of ‘sex’ appear to face the challenge of a popular ‘new biological determinism’, it is shown that the binary model of sex/gender in fact has been criticised for some time now from within feminist theory and gender research. This is (selectively) illustrated with research from four disciplines, including the work of African gender studies scholars, i.e. feminist philosophy, social sciences (in particular socio-cultural anthropology), history and biology itself. This then shows how the accusation that gender studies would be ‘socially deterministic’ without attending to bodily matters or materiality is unfounded. Finally, it is argued that there is still a need for gender studies to become more culturally diverse, more global and transnational in its outlook, by becoming more deeply attuned to the way gender intersects with other forms of difference and taking into account postcolonial critiques of western feminist paternalism, without falling into the trap of cultural relativism. Key words: gender studies, feminism, sex/gender debate, gender mainstreaming, postcolonial critique, cultural relativism, Afrocentrism 

Innovation, Innovativeness, and Gender

2015 ◽  
pp. 244-263
Author(s):  
Ewa Okoń-Horodyńska
Keyword(s):  
Everyday Life ◽  
Gender Studies ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Gender Research ◽  
Creative Solutions ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Economic Culture ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Genome Model ◽  
Traditional Approaches

The chapter deals with the search for the sources of broadly understood creativity in solving various problems: social, political, practical (related to everyday life), family, economic, culture, religious, etc. wherever traditional approaches proved ineffective. These creative solutions - unconventional and having their practical application - became innovations. How multi-dimensional one's predispositions to solve problems are affects the person's capabilities to develop innovations. In view of the growing importance of gender studies, the already mentioned elements should be supplemented with one more - gender. Hence, the concept of Innovative Gender is introduced where men and women are granted equality of measures, opportunities, and situations encompassed by the innovation genome model. The starting point for Innovative Gender research is the establishment of four dedicated matrixes containing information (variables) that describes a given area, taking into account gender issuer, with collaboration playing a major role here.

A Dictionary of Cultural Anthropology

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luis A. Vivanco
Keyword(s):  
Gender Studies ◽  
Cultural Anthropology ◽  
Scientific Racism ◽  
External Sources ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Writing Culture ◽  
And Gender

Over 400 entriesThis new dictionary provides concise, authoritative definitions for a range of concepts relating to cultural anthropology, as well as important findings and intellectual figures in the field. Entries include adaptation, kinship, scientific racism, and writing culture, providing its readers with a wide-ranging overview of the subject.This accessibly written and engaging text presents anthropology as a dynamic and lively field of enquiry. Complemented by a global list of anthropological organizations, more than 15 figures and tables to illustrate the entries, and weblinks pointing to useful external sources, this is an essential text for undergraduates studying anthropology, and also serves those studying allied subjects such as politics, economics, geography, sociology, and gender studies.

scholarly journals On Dictionaries and Gender Representations

2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 149-153
Author(s):  
Ruxandra Vişan
Keyword(s):  
Gender Studies ◽  
Oxford English Dictionary ◽  
Short Article ◽  
Gender Representations ◽  
Binary Model ◽  
And Gender

Abstract Placed at the interface between metalexicography and gender studies, this short article discusses issues concerning gender representations in present-day dictionaries. Evoking recent controversies regarding the representation of gender-related terms such as “cisgender” or “woman” in The Oxford English Dictionary, the essay goes on to discuss the prescriptive/descriptive opposition concerning lexicographical representations, taking its cue from previous approaches, which suggest re-envisaging the prescriptive/descriptive dyad as a continuum (Straaijer, 2009; Wilton 2014), or replacing this traditional binary model with a nonbinary approach (Nossem, 2018; Turton, 2020).

scholarly journals “Male” and “Female”: Gender in the Focus of Domestic Historical Research (Course Materials “Fundamentals of Cultural Anthropology”)

2020 ◽  
Vol 19 (5) ◽  
pp. 22-33
Author(s):  
Maria V. Vasekha ◽  
Elena F. Fursova
Keyword(s):  
Gender Studies ◽  
Social History ◽  
Cultural Anthropology ◽  
Female Gender ◽  
Gender History ◽  
Course Materials ◽  
The Social ◽  
European Part Of Russia ◽  
History Of ◽  
And Gender

Purpose. The article presents a brief overview of the 30-year period of the development of Russian gender studies and reviews the state of gender studies in Siberia in the last decade. Results. The authors came to the conclusion that the gender approach in Russia was very successful in the field of historical disciplines, especially in historical feminology and women’s studies. The authors analyze the emergence of various areas within this issue, the key topics and approaches that have been developed in the Russian humanities. The main directions were reflected in the anniversary collection digest on gender history and anthropology “Gender in the focus of anthropology, family ethnography and the social history of everyday life” (2019). Conclusion. The authors describe the current position of Siberian gender studies and conclude that gender issues in Siberia are less active in comparison with the European part of Russia. In recent years, Siberian researchers have increasingly replaced the category of “gender” with neutral categories of “family research”, “female”, “male”, and so on. More often researchers choose “classical” historical problems raised in historical science before the “humanitarian renaissance”, which began in the 1990s in Russia. In modern gender studies in the Siberian region, the capabilities of critical feminist optics and gender methodology are rarely used, and queer-issues are not developed.

scholarly journals Gender and gender linguistics at the border of the millennium

2021 ◽  
pp. 109-147
Author(s):  
Alla V. Kirilina ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Gender Studies ◽  
History Of Development ◽  
Binary Model ◽  
History Of ◽  
And Gender

The issue deals with the transformations taking place at the turn of the XX–XXI centuries in the understanding of gender and gender studies; the presence of two trends is established – the globalist trend towards rejection of the binary model of gender and gender correlation, as well as the fundamentalist patriarchal model of gender and their interaction in our country. The history of development and the main features, results and problems of gender linguistics in Russia are also characterized.

Gender studies as a multi-centred field? Centres and peripheries in academic gender research

2016 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 323-343 ◽  
Author(s):  
Veronika Wöhrer
Keyword(s):  
Gender Studies ◽  
Knowledge Production ◽  
North American ◽  
Geographic Location ◽  
Women's And Gender Studies ◽  
Gender Research ◽  
European Institution ◽  
Concepts Of Knowledge ◽  
Western European ◽  
And Gender

In this article I analyse prominent textbooks, encyclopedias and journals in the field of women’s and gender studies and ask where the authors and concepts presented in these texts and sites of publication come from in terms of geographic location. This is inspired by the question: to what extent can gender studies be described as a ‘multi-centered’ field (Connell, 2011) and can gender studies take into account feminist concepts of knowledge production which favour the involvement of the greatest possible diversity of authors (Longino, 1990; Harding, 1991)? The analyses presented here show that being located at a North American or Western European institution still seems to be a crucial factor in authors being published and referred to – both in Western academic centres and in other regions. It seems that there is still a long way to go before various local gender studies communities can communicate on a more egalitarian footing.

phrases the adjective is generally given in its inflected form (e.g. ursprüngliches Sein instead of ursprüngliche Sein, das). As far as possible in German, gender markers are also attributed to Greek, Latin and Asian terms. Note that these do not always agree with the grammatical gender of the nouns in the languages of origin but refer to the gender attributed to the entries in German, which are generally rendered in italics (e.g. die lex naturalis) to indicate that German principles of capitalization are not complied with. In accordance with the publisher's guidelines and the fact that grammatical and nat-ural gender do not always correspond (cf. die Person referring to woman and man alike), the suffix -in is not added to the entries where the object of reference might also be female (as in Logiker). As the use of the suffix -in is not consistent, the en-tries would have tended to confuse the non-native. We considered it more important to include the specific terminology of feminist philosophy and gender studies. - Order of translations: If more than one translation is provided these occur in a weighted order, the most accurate or most frequently used form being listed first. Entries including a slash indicate ordered sets of alternatives, e.g. Grenzbegriff m • limit(ing)/boundary/marginal concept/notion would have to be read as limit(ing) or boundary or marginal concept; limit(ing) or boundary or marginal notion. The hy-phenated alternatives should be read as follows: normal/bell-shaped distribution is to

2013 ◽  
pp. 11-11
Keyword(s):  
Gender Studies ◽  
Grammatical Gender ◽  
Feminist Philosophy ◽  
Ordered Sets ◽  
Inflected Form ◽  
And Gender

scholarly journals A Cross-Examination of Female Masculinities and Male Femininities in Mema by Daniel Mengara

2015 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 384
Author(s):  
Ayodele A. Allagbé ◽  
Akinola M. Allagbé
Keyword(s):  
Queer Theory ◽  
Gender Studies ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Critical Reading ◽  
African Culture ◽  
Gendered Identities ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
Language And Gender ◽  
The Feminine ◽  
And Gender

<p><em>This paper attempts a critical reading of Mema (2003) written by Daniel Mengara. The study draws on insights from language and gender studies, feminism and queer theory to critically cross-examine how female masculinities and male femininities are represented in the novel. It holds the view that gendered identities are socially constructed via speech. This means that language encodes means which overtly mark masculinity or/and femininity. However, it should be noted that neither masculinity nor femininity is an exclusive characteristic of the male or the female sex/gender. In this sense, the role(s) an individual takes on in a given context confers either the masculine or the feminine profile upon him/her. This study concludes that gendered identities as portrayed in Mema are intricate, and that in most cases the portraiture of both sexes counters the expectations of African culture</em><em>.</em></p>

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