IN OTHER WOR(L)DS: FRAGMENTED AND INTEGRATED OBSERVATIONS ON GENDERED LANGUAGES, GENDERED SPACES AND LOCAL TRANSFORMATION

The build up of individual and collective linguistic repertoires is inseparable from situated practices and power relations. Place-to-place variations in gendered consciousness, the consciousness of gender, and female subordination cannot be pried apart from place-to-place variations in the language out of which gender is constituted and to which gendered practices and unequal gender relations contribute. In the course of local transformation, whereby local traditions and practices are eased out or crushed by exogenous powers, women as well as men are apt to become involved in the contestation of meanings and other forms of linguistic struggle.