'That Beijing Thing': Challenging transnational feminisms in Kampala

How does the representation of gender in the transnational 'gender and development' discourse shape lived social relationships? This article draws on research carried out in Kampala, capital of Uganda, a site of extensive development initiatives over the last 15 years. Analysing the way gender is discussed within the local print media and in a series of interviews and focus groups, the article shows how Ugandans interpret the 'gender and development' discourse as a European feminist agenda. The article demonstrates that middle-class Ugandans localise these 'transnational feminisms' by rejecting overt labels such as 'activist' or 'feminist'. Insisting that a 'Ugandan' approach to gender issues should be based on the principle of consensus rather than conflict, women and men negotiate appropriate masculinities and femininities in response.     

From trusteeship to development: how class and gender complicated Kenya's housing policy, 1939–1963

Colonial rule required the control of territory, nowhere more than in cities. In the early twentieth century, colonial policy in Kenya and the rest of East and Southern Africa had only grudgingly accommodated Africans in urban areas. After 1939 policy changed, not only in response to poor local conditions and social unrest but also because London's new colonial development policy made a place for African workers in towns. From 1940, new housing and colonial policies acknowledged the importance of the discourses of class and gender. Administrators stabilised an African working class by building better municipal housing, and then sought to fashion a middle class by promoting home ownership. They began to promote housing for families, having recognised that African women could help to make their men at home in the city, and to educate children to become good citizens. The evolution of Kenya's housing policy illuminates the characteristic pressures, calculations, and responses of colonial rule that were being played out internationally in the late colonial period.     

Is Geography (Still) a Science?

Geographic science remains contested. The practice of geographic science has long been criticized on both methodological and institutional grounds, often justifiably. Even more serious is the continuing assault on the very idea of science as the objective discovery of and search for explanation in the university, including human behaviour in space and place. This essay argues that a scientific epistemology is incompatible with a relativistic one.     

Reviews

Herrscher, Gemeinwesen, Vermittler: Ostiran und Transoxanien in vormongolischer Zeit , Jürgen Paul, Beiruter Texte und Studien, Bd. 59, Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1996, viii + 322 pp., bibliography, indices; German, English, and Russian summaries.

Khatireha‐ye Amir ^cAlam Khan , Amir ^cAlam Khan, Tehran: Markaz‐e Motala^cat‐e Irani, 1373/1994, 55 pp., illustrations.

Cambridge History of Iran, Vol. 7: From Nadir Shah to the Islamic Republic , ed. by Peter Avery, Gavin Hambly, and Charles Melville, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991, xxiii+1072 pp.

Iranian Intellectuals and the West: The Tormented Triumph of Nativism , Mehrzad Boroujerdi, Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1996, 255 pp., index, bibliography.

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Law of Desire: Temporary Marriage in Shi^ci Iran , Shahla Haeri, Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1989, 272 pp., cloth and paper.

The Persian Revayat “Ithoter”: Zoroastrian Rituals in the Eighteenth Century , Mario Vitalone, Naples: Istituto Universitario Orientale, 1996, 301 pp.

Pand‐o Sokhan: Mélanges offerts à Charles‐Henri de Fouchécour , ed. by Christophe Balay, Claire Keppler, and ?iva Vesel, Bibliothèque Iranienne, 44, Tehran: Institut Français de Recherche en Iran, 1995, 348 pp., illustrated.

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The Image of Arabs in Modern Persian Literature , Joya Blondel Saad, Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1996, ix + 139 pp., index, paper, ISBN 0–7618–0330–0

Recasting Persian Poetry: Scenarios of Poetic Modernity in Iran , Ahmad Karimi‐Hakkak, Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1996, 326 pp., $45.00, cloth.

The Marsh [Gavkhūni] , Jafar Modarres‐Sadeqi, trans. Afkham Darbandi, intro. Dick Davis, Bibliotheca Iranica, Persian Fiction in Translation Series, no. 3, Costa Mesa: Mazda Publishers, 1996.

Bihzad, Master of Persian Painting , Ebadollah Bahari, foreword by Annemarie Schimmel, London and New York: I. B. Tauris, 1996, xiii + 272 pp., 70 color and 48 black and white illustrations, map, appendices, bibliography, index, ISBN 0–85043–966–4