Researching gender

The challenge of global diversity today

Bibliographic Data

ID14816341
AuthorsChia Longman (0000-0002-3919-0353, Ghent University, corresponding author)
Year2010
Volume23
Issue2
Pages25-37
Publication date2010-02-25
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueAVRUG-bulletin/Afrika Focus (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0772-0793 • E-ISSN: 0772-084X
PublisherWalter de Gruyter GmbH (PUBLISHER • DE)
DOI10.1163/2031356x-02302005
OpenAlexW4254720579
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited13

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 Gender studies have sometimes superseded ‘women’s studies’ and expanded to cover the terrain of study of various forms of diversity including men’s and transgender studies.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

Binary opposition · Epistemology · Essentialism · Feminism · Gender diversity · Gender equality · Gender history · Gender mainstreaming · Mainstream · Political science · Politics · Social constructionism · Social science · Sociology · Transgender · African Sexualities and LGBTQ+ Issues · Anthropology · Gender Roles and Identity Studies · Gender Studies · South African History and Culture

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