Reconsidering nationalism and feminism: the Kurdish political movement in Turkey

Feminist scholars have documented with reference to multiple empirical contexts that feminist claims within nationalist movements are often side‐lined, constructed as ‘inauthentic’ and frequently discredited for imitating supposedly western notions of gender‐based equality. Despite these historical precedents, some feminist scholars have pointed to the positive aspects of nationalist movements, which frequently open up spaces for gender‐based claims. Our research is based on the recognition that we cannot discuss and evaluate the fraught relationship in the abstract but that we need to look at the specific historical and empirical contexts and articulations of nationalism and feminism. The specific case study we draw from is the relationship between the Kurdish women's movement and the wider Kurdish political movement in Turkey. We are exploring the ways that the Kurdish movement in Turkey has politicised Kurdish women's rights activists and examine how Kurdish women activists have reacted to patriarchal tendencies within the Kurdish movement.     

Politics and the Cultural Landscape: The Case of Aboriginal Land Rights

In this paper Aboriginal land rights are analysed from the perspective of a disadvantaged group seeking access to a scarce resource controlled by external agents. The Aboriginal participants in land rights politics are found to be actively seeking ways in which their interest in the land can most effectively be communicated to external groups which have constructed well-formed, but often distorted images of what constitutes a genuine Aboriginal interest in the land These externally constructed notions of Aboriginality and what constitutes a valid land claim are influencing the concepts used by Aboriginal groups in the public political arena to demonstrate their unique interest in the land In this paper three examples of this process are explored- the emphasis of a specific gender model, the emphasis on spatially discrete sacred sites and the emphasis on the bounded tribal territory.     

To Garden,to Market: Gendered meanings of work on an African urban periphery

This article traces the historical origins of a localized gender division of labor found in two villages on the edge of the city of Bobo-Dioulasso, Burkina Faso. Through social-historical analysis, this article demonstrates that gender divisions of labor are not simply constructed in particular places; they are constructs located near or far from other places, and thus influenced by multidimensional interactions between those places. Specifically, this article shows how the villages' location on the periphery of an important regional city has shaped their experience of European colonialism, religious change and market expansion in ways that have given particular meanings to certain kinds of work in commercial gardening. More generally, this article shows how a focus on the historical meanings of work can provide insights into local variations in gender divisions of labor.     

Editorial: Gender and sexual geographies of blackness: anti-black heterotopias (part 1)

This editorial theorizes the spatialization of black gender and sexual minorities. We examine the ways in which race, gender, and sexuality work to complicate the geographies of black gender and sexual marginality. Drawing on insights from Foucault's theory of heterotopia, we develop the concept of anti-black heterotopias to understand the spatial ordering of black gender and sexuality within the larger geographies of black people. We contend that if anti-black racism forces black people to live within contained landscapes that exist on the margins of whiteness, then black gender and sexual minorities, who are subject to violence and public ridicule, live in a placeless space, a location with no coordinates. In other words, the heterosexism/homophobia toward black gender and sexual minorities that is expressed in socio/spatial terms is complicit with the spatialization of anti-black racism. We also use anti-black heterotopias as a way to situate the eight articles in parts 1 and 2 of this themed section, as well as to highlight the theoretical linkages between them.     

Morality as Identity: the Missionary Moral Agenda in Buganda,1877–1945

This article advances three arguments. First, that prior to European intrusion in the mid-1800s, "Buganda" and "Mugandaness" were continually contested ideologies whose meanings were not given but discursively constructed and reconstructed in conditions of historical specificity. Second, that "Baganda" as an identity, was first constructed in the early travellers' journals. Later on missionaries and Buganda's leading chiefs appropriated the construct "Buganda" and actively participated in its elaboration and refinement as it was later to be used and popularized in the twentieth century. Third, that Buganda identity was constructed through the active silencing of the disruptive relations of ethnicity, of gender, and of class. In the celebration of an ethnic identity, inequalities and oppression were glossed over. Out of a confrontation with the "other," Buganda identity was carefully and powerfully articulated by the Christian middle-class men who, from 1900, dominated the newly created ruling council of Buganda, called the Lukiiko. These men claimed to speak for the Buganda "nation" and on behalf of others. Their search for a secure identity was built on their assertion of their superiority over the "decadent" sub-nationalities; over all non-royal females and over all others who were not Christians, male and middle class. In examining the historical dynamics of identity, it is important to look beyond the illusion of a Buganda "Christian nation" to investigate articulations and manipulations of class, gender, ethnicity, and nationality.     

Engendering New Labour's Workfarist Regime: Exploring the intersection of welfare state restructuring and labour market policies in the UK

This article deconstructs New Labour's emerging workfarist regime to reveal the complex and contradictory gender relations embodied in and through its work–welfare policy. Starting from the decline of manufacturing employment within the UK, it traces the deregulation of the labour market and the range of structural and social changes initiated by this process. Noting, in particular, how the ‘feminisation of the economy’ is connected to the changing characteristics of employment and women's socio-economic positions, the article identifies the manner in which the growing labour market participation of women is serving to (further) entrench gender inequality. Against this background, it proceeds to raise issues regarding the increased expectation to enter the labour market observed within programmes such as the New Deal for the Unemployed, which stipulates that the receipt of state benefits ought now to require a labour input. The crux of analysis is on the policy and political discourses that award priority to paid work in the formal labour market, whilst simultaneously neglecting the gendered divisions of labour around unwaged care work and domestic tasks. In suggesting that gender remains a key form of political-economic organisation in the contemporary period of after-Fordism, this article argues that (further) attention must be given to the ways in which its socially constructed properties are manifest within work–welfare policy and the ramifications of this embedding for social and economic equality.     

Gendered mobilities in the making: moving from a pedestrian to vehicular mobility landscape in Shimshal,Pakistan

Although feminist geographers understand gender and mobility as mutually constitutive social processes, few studies explain how gender relations are constituted in particular mobility contexts, and how and why they shape mobility patterns in specific socio-spatial circumstances. We address these questions in an analysis of gendered mobilities in Shimshal, Pakistan, which until recently have taken shape in the context of a pedestrian mobility regime. The gender and mobility relationship has transformed as vehicular mobilities have replaced pedestrian mobilities with the construction of the Shimshal road. To demonstrate empirically the co-constitution of gender and mobility, we analyze aspects of socio-spatial context that have shaped gendered pedestrian mobilities, followed by those associated with the new vehicular mobility regime that are modifying gender relations in Shimshal. Shifting gender relations reshape corporeal mobility patterns. Road infrastructure has enhanced men’s and youth’s outbound travel as wage earners and students, respectively. These mobilities have reshaped women’s capacity to move, constraining their mobility beyond the village. As prosperity becomes contingent on outbound movement, men’s and youths’ social horizons and mobilities are expanding, while women’s compromised access to mobility as a social resource produces new mobility hierarchies and gendered exclusions.     

(En)Gendering the Maoist Insurgency in India: Between Rhetoric and Reality

ABSTRACT

This paper attempts a gendered analysis of the ongoing Maoist insurgency in India, particularly focused on women’s position within the movement, the continuum of gender based violence that they experience and the potential for transformative politics. The contemporary Maoist movement in India has been informed by a stated commitment to ‘progressive’ gender politics and social transformations; in that it marks a departure from the Naxalite movement of the 60s and 70s. Yet women remain concentrated in the group’s lower ranks and are absent from leadership positions. In addition, sexual and gender based violence and discrimination within the movement further undermine the commitment of the revolution to create opportunities for transformative politics including gender justice and equality. We consider it important that women’s lived experiences of the conflict - as combatants, supporters as well as civilians affected by it - are brought to the foreground. Drawing from postcolonial feminist approaches, we reflect on the challenges and possibilities for feminist politics and ethics within the Indian Maoist movement. We conclude that the rhetoric and reality of gender equality within the Maoist movement provides a unique opportunity to further investigate and analyze the ways in which feminist activism and the women’s movement in India have alienated the concerns of marginalized women from dalit and adivasi communities.     

Unnatural discourse. ‘Race’ and gender in geography

Geographers’ long‐term involvement in the construction ‘race’ and gender has occurred through literally and metaphorically mapping out the world in ways that highlight, perpetuate and naturalize difference. This paper provides a critical analysis of the naturalization of these categories by revealing parallels in their social construction and in the ways in which they have been independently conceptualized. The focus is on the extent to which ‘race’ and gender as social constructs have been, and are, predicated upon biological categories. We argue for a conceptualization which, while eschewing notions of essentialism and determinism, integrates the biological and social, recognizing that distinctions between the biological and cultural are invariably socially constructed. We also highlight the extent to which social constructions are political constructions, sexism and racism being modes of thought which construct the body for ideological ends. We begin to chart the political strategies whereby dominant notions of the biological and cultural can be unnaturalized, thus challenging the ways in which ‘race’ and gender are used to create social identities and to maintain relations of domination. In an attempt to develop an alternative to strategic essentialism, we focus on the practice of unnatural discourse, of imposing disorder on dominant discourses through, for example, practices associated with the unnatural, the unnaturalization of everyday language, the unnaturalization of landscapes upon which gendered and racialized relations are played out, the questioning of our disciplinary codes and the unnaturalization of vision by developing new ways of seeing the racialized and gendered embodiment of subjects.     

‘We’re not very good at soccer’: gender,space and competence in a Victorian primary school

ABSTRACT

This paper draws on findings from a pilot project conducted at an inner city primary school in Melbourne, Australia. Inviting grade six girls and boys (aged eleven and twelve) to focus on spaces of their schoolground, we learned about the ways in which gender, age, ethnicity, language ability and sporting competence influenced active play and belonging. Informed by the understanding that schoolgrounds, gender and active play are socially constructed, and children are active agents in these constructions, the paper examines how girls and boys consider and negotiate spatial politics. The methods of participant-led photography, focus groups and thematic analysis, reveal how children understand gendered spatialities. A strong story emerged of girls’ experience of exclusion from active play spaces in particular, providing a perspective on the spatial and social performance of gender. The findings highlight the value of integrating a spatial analysis of schoolgrounds – and the gendered dynamics therein – for health, education and equity programmes.     

Domestic Distinctions: Constructing difference among paid domestic workers in Toronto

Live-in paid domestic work represents a peculiar form of paid employment and employer-employee relations. Contradictions and ambiguities arise from the domestic worker's 'workplace' being her employer's 'home'; while intimacy, affective labour and a high degree of personalism veil the asymmetrical class relation between employer and employee. In Toronto, employers are often white women, while domestic workers are often (im)migrant women, especially 'third world' women of colour. Given this, we draw on in-depth interviews with paid domestic workers working in Toronto to examine ways in which the employer-employee relations are constructed through interlocking, relational systems of difference, especially gender, 'race'/ethnicity, nationality, immigration/citizenship status and language. We focus on three major aspects of the employer-employee work relation from the viewpoint of the domestic workers-living-in, being 'like one of the family', and feelings of respect, dignity and self-worth. We find that many of the women shared a number of common concerns and experiences. However, the specific articulation of systems of difference led to a range of experiences of the extent of asymmetry in employer-employee power relations.     

Like father,like son: negotiation of masculinity in the ethnographic context in Hong Kong

Feminist geographers have indicated that ethnographic research is an inter-subjective process constructed in relation to the intersection between the gender and other social dimensions of both the researcher and the informants relevant to the field. In particular, the matching and adaptation of masculinities in the research context is a complex methodological issue that receives relatively little attention. Using my fieldwork experience, this article builds on the contribution of feminist geographers to discuss how my masculine self-presentation was negotiated with the research topic, the caring masculinity endorsed among my middle-aged male informants, the sociocultural milieu and my positionalities and bodily representations in producing collaborative ethnographic data. My young age and doctoral student status, combined with my ‘soft and meek’ self-presentation, produced wen masculinity within the Chinese cultural context, which facilitated the paradoxical reception of me as both a son and a consultant in the men's groups. This masculine embodiment not only facilitated our rapport but also signified my cultural competence to participate in decision-making and activist activities in the discussion groups, which brought me to some unexpected research lands. The effect of my masculine embodiment on the ethnographic research process indicates that fieldwork is not only situated in a place but is also itself a space constructed through cultural understanding of social interactions and embodied gender representations.     

Pray the gay away: identity conflict between Christianity and sexuality in Hong Kong sexual minorities

Recognition and respect for sexual minorities in Hong Kong is still a contested area. Public sexual identity politics in Hong Kong has been framed by traditional Chinese gender ideology and imported Christian beliefs which are profoundly negative. Focusing on the interpersonal relationships in three spheres of life, the research adopted the sociological perspective of personal life and the feminist geographers’ idea of spatialization of identity management to analyze how the sexual self of sexual minorities has been marginalized and excluded in intimate social spaces of family, church communities and schools in Hong Kong with specific spatial practices and different forms of power/knowledge. By examining overlooked intimate injustice in personal life, this study illustrates that identity conflicts between Christianity and non-heterosexuality in everyday life is constructed through misrepresentation, misrecognition, harassment and exclusion in intimate relationships. Different types of knowledge are being used to reiterate pre-existing norms and institutionalized patterns of cultural value that constitute the sexual minorities as comparatively unworthy of respect. These micro-political processes involve both conformity and resistance to gender and sexual stereotypes. Participants managed to develop spatial coping strategies such as concealment, compartmentalization, confrontation and alternative sources of support to manage their lives with dignity and self-esteem.     

Belief in a Just World and Attitudes Toward Affirmative Action

The effect of identity, as socially constructed by race and gender, on social policies has been widely examined in policy analysis. Policy analysis would be improved by a wider discussion that includes the influence of social‐psychological constructs on social provision. We fill this gap by drawing on the theory of the “belief in a just world” and link this theory to attitudes toward the support of controversial government programs. We argue that this theory is a critical antecedent to the previous research on social construction. We hypothesize that citizens who perceive that the world is just and that opportunities are equal between groups are much less likely to favor government interventions altering market outcomes. We find that after controlling for race, sex, and political ideology, respondents who believe that luck is the primary determinant of success (low belief in a just world) are more supportive of preferential hiring programs for African Americans and women.     

Local gender contract and adaptive capacity in smallholder irrigation farming: a case study from the Kenyan drylands

This article presents the local gender contract of a smallholder irrigation farming community in Sibou, Kenya. Women's role in subsistence farming in Africa has mostly been analyzed through the lens of gender division of labor. In addition to this, we used the concept of ‘local gender contract’ to analyze cultural and material preconditions shaping gender-specific tasks in agricultural production, and consequently, men's and women's different strategies for adapting to climate variability. We show that the introduction of cash crops, as a trigger for negotiating women's and men's roles in the agricultural production, results in a process of gender contract renegotiation, and that families engaged in cash cropping are in the process of shifting from a ‘local resource contract’ to a ‘household income contract.’ Based on our analysis, we argue that a transformation of the local gender contract will have a direct impact on the community's adaptive capacity climate variability. It is, therefore, important to take the negotiation of local gender contracts into account in assessments of farming communities' adaptive capacity.     

Frank Cass THE JOURNAL OF DEVELOPMENT STUDIES

Much environment and development discourse assumes that women are the ‘natural’ constituency for conservation interventions. This article attempts to illuminate this assumption with the lens of a gendered critique of environmentalisms (technocentric, ecocentric and non-western). How do the intellectual roots of Western environmentalisms influence the positions, or non-positions, of contemporary environmentalism with regard to gender? What does research on environmental perceptions in non-Western societies imply about gender differentiation in environmental relations? The article concludes that there are no grounds for assuming an affinity between women's gender interests and those of environments and that such a view is symptomatic of the gender blind, ethnocentric and populist character of western environmentalisms. By contrast the application of gender analysis to environmental relations involves seeing women in relation to men, the disaggregation of the category of ‘women’, and an understanding of gender roles as socially and historically constructed, materially grounded and continually reformulated. The issue of how far women's gender interests and environmental interests go hand in hand leads us to pose a broader question of the degree to which environmental conservation is premissed upon social inequality.     

Dancers in the Dark: Scientific Careers According to a Gender-Blind Model of Promotion

Abstract

The disparity between men and women in science is a hot topic in gender studies and a relevant target of scientific policies. The leaky pipeline metaphor illustrates the decreasing number of women along senior positions in academia; however many questions remain unanswered. What factors progressively diminish the number of women in scientific careers and why do they appear to be less successful than their male colleagues? In order to discover new insight, this work compares men’s and women’s career paths by taking into account academic and family milestones achieved throughout the life course. An innovative and interdisciplinary methodology (from bibliometrics, statistics, and sociology) has been constructed to examine men’s and women’s trajectories. Findings display gender differences in scientists’ trajectories. The evolution of scientists’ careers reveals linear careers for males, whilst women develop non-linear careers. Motherhood emerges as a problem for developing linear careers. And collegiate decisions of gatekeepers seem to systematically disfavour women scientists’ careers.     

Disturbing the data: looking into gender and family size matters with US Evangelical homeschoolers

This qualitative study draws on the theory of feminist physicist Karen Barad to examine how gender matters in Evangelical homeschooling families of various sizes, with an emphasis on large families. The two-phase data collection includes interviews with 18 participants and observations of several participants over one year. We use a Baradian analytic process called diffractive analysis to read the messy borders between the discursive and material for mothers, fathers, daughters, sons, and elements of homeschooling environments. We find that materiality intra-acted with gender in complex and sometimes surprising ways but that gendered possibilities in homeschooling are steeped in the terrains of politics, history, culture, economics, and environment. In addition, we see possibilities for using this method of analysis as a way to more carefully and complexly read data in the micro.     

Women,gender and feminism in the Australian Journal of Political Science: A review

This review article, written for the fiftieth anniversary of the Australian Journal of Political Science (formerly Politics), analyses articles focusing on women, gender and feminism that were published in the journal. The analysis demonstrates that the study of gender is relevant to a broad range of fields, and methodological approaches used, in political science. It also demonstrates that political science knowledge is itself historically and socially constructed, reflecting both traditional social power relations and the influence of the social movements that challenge them. Consequently, key articles have drawn attention to the ways in which the frameworks of mainstream forms of political science were gender-biased and have sometimes continued to be so, particularly in terms of narrow constructions of the ‘political’. Such narrow constructions may still be contributing to some ongoing gaps in the literature, despite the important contributions made by work published in the journal.