Μετακινούμενη από μια μεταμοντερνιστική θέση αδιαφορίας για σημαντικές πολιτικές και ιδεολογικές αντιπαραθέσεις, η Φιλιππινο-Αμερικανίδα συγγραφέας Jessica Hagedorn εκπροσωπεί μια δυσάρεστη κατάσταση που βιώνουν και άλλοι διανοούμενοι οι οποίοι ανήκουν στις φυλετικές μειονότητες των Ηνωμένων Πολιτειών που προέρχονται από χώρες του 'τρίτου κόσμου'. Δεδομένης της νεο-αποικιακής εξάρτησης των Φιλιππίνων, τη χώρα καταγωγής της, και των μεταστροφών της κατά τη διάρκειa του Ψυχρού Πολέμου, η φαντασία της Hagedorn δεν μπορούσε να υπερβεί τα όρια της φιλελεύθερης φαντασίας: η μυθιστοριογραφία της επικεντρώνεται σε ατομικές αναζητήσεις ταυτότητας. Αλλά με την πίεση του ρατσισμού, της βίας ενάντια σε έγχρωμους και της πατριαρχικής καταπίεσης, το ύφος της και η αφηγηματική της στρατηγική υφίστανται μια αποσύνθεση που σηματοδοτεί την μοναδικότητά τους. Αρχίζουν να καταγράφουν τα ιστορικά όρια της μεταμοντέρνας και μετα-αποικιακής ιδεολογίας που ηρωοποιεί τις ιδιόμορφες διαφορές πέρα και πάνω από κοινωνικές τάξεις, φυλές και φύλα . Το μυθιστόρημά της The Gangster of Love (Ο Συμμορίτης του Έρωτα) μπορεί να διαβαστεί ως μια εθνική αλληγορία τη ευαισθησίας των Φιλιππινέζων που επηρεάζεται από το χώρο της ιμπεριαλιστικής υποδούλωσης, της φυλετικής υποτέλειας και της σεξιστικής καταπίεσης. Το έργο της μπορεί να θεωρηθεί ότι αντιπροσωπεύει την κόψη της αντι-'μετα-αποικιακής' γραφής στους όψιμους καπιταλιστικούς σχηματισμούς όπως οι Ηνωμένες Πολιτείες.
The last three decades have witnessed the rise of a political gender gap in the United States wherein more women than men favor the Democratic party. We trace this development to the decline in marriage, which we posit has made men richer and women poorer. Data for the United States support this argument. First, there is a strong positive correlation between state divorce prevalence and the political gender gap - higher divorce prevalence reduces support for the Democrats among men but not women. Second, longitudinal data show that following marriage (divorce), women are less (more) likely to support the Democratic party.
Metadata only record ; The author argues that development programs concerned with gender have made gender synonymous with women, rather than focusing on men and women's separate associations, opportunities and constraints of their gender. Males have gender issues as well, and cannot always be seen as the problem. Focusing only on women does not enhance the goals of equity and empowerment that many gender in development programs seek. Furthermore, creating static categories of analysis of men and women does not accurately reflect the many roles and identities that contribute to forming a gender identity, nor does it account for cultural variations on the praised qualities associated with masculinity or femininity. Thus, the author concludes that theory and practice need to join together to create programs that reflect the complexity of gender, rather than positioning men in one corner and women in the other. In order for development programs to be successful, men and women must both be included and traditional feminist theories must be moved past to accurately understand gender as a whole.
This report addresses concerns about gender inequalities, democracy and deteriorating urban living conditions in Zambia. It presents a study of the reality facing youth born and raised in a peri-urban area, George compound in Lusaka. Changes in political and community organisation and deteriorating living conditions affect young women and men differently, and gender relations have to be re-negotiated. The report voices the youths' concerns about their family situation and gender identity. Male gender identities based on breadwinning and sexual activity become problematic in times of unemployment and HIV. Young women tie their identity to motherhood, but some of those who get an education aim for a working career and relative independence before marriage. Existing gender inequalities are challenged but often recycled in slightly different forms. ; CONTENTS -- Methodology and presentation of informants -- Living conditions—houses and environment -- Politics in transition -- Urban life and identities -- Households in transition -- Marriage and power -- Sexuality, knowledge, and gender identity -- In conclusion: Changing gender relations
Despite its notorious sexual politics, Djuna Barnes's Nightwood gained considerable literary respectability when T. S. Eliot endorsed the first American edition with his Introduction. The presiding dean of Modernist letters at Faber and Faber in London, Eliot could distinguish even obscure writers with a single stroke of his editorial pen. Though his decision to publish Djuna Barnes's wildly subversive Nightwood suggests that an antic disposition lurked beneath his studied propriety, he expurgated several of the manuscript's most transgressive episodes, thus diminishing the redemptive role of sexual inversion in the novel. Eliot admits in his Introduction that "it took me, with this book, some time to come to an appreciation of its meaning as a whole", but his editorial deletions indicate he overlooked the symbolic significance of inversion as the antithesis of Aryan essentialism in the manuscript. With uncanny prescience, Nightwood forecasts the nightmare of Nazi genocide and gendercide, creating a Parisian underground of expatriate inverts in exile from the deadly cultural "hygiene" of fascism. Analysis of the deleted manuscript passages restores the full force of Barnes's antifascist polemic in which inversion ultimately wins the day.
This Discussion Paper presents the plenary presentations by the three main speakers during the Nordic Africa Days, with an introduction offering an overview and comment on the various approaches on Gender and Power in African Contexts, Africanity as an Open Question and Rethinking Power in Africa. ; CONTENTS -- Beyond Africanity? An Introduction/Henning Melber -- Challenging Subjects: Gender and Power in African Contexts/Amina Mama -- Africanity as an Open Question/Souleymane Bachir Diagne -- Concluding Reflections on Beyond Identities: Rethinking Power in Africa/Francis B. Nyamnjoh
Feminist theory, in both its identity-based and its anti-essentialist versions, has denied the validity of transgendered people's experience. Rather, feminism needs to retheorize its understanding of identity in light of new insights offered by transgendered people's experience into the structural and systemic production of "liminal" or "boundary" conditions within political communities. ; La théorie féministe dans ses deux versions l'une basée sur l'identité et l'autre anti-essentialiste a rejeté la validité de l'expérience des transgendéristes. Le féminisme devrait plutôt remettre en théorie sa compréhension de l'identité en tenant compte de l'expérience des transgendéristes dans la production structurelle et systémique des conditions "limitrophes" ou "frontières" au sein des communautés politiques.
Ng Chin Pang. ; Thesis (M.Div.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2000. ; Includes bibliographical references (leaves 85-91). ; Abstracts in English and Chinese. ; Acknowledgments --- p.i ; Abstract --- p.iii ; Chapter Chapter1 --- Introduction --- p.1 ; Chapter Chapter2 --- Theories on Sex and the Emergence of Sexual Identity --- p.4 ; Chapter 2.1 --- "Origins and Development on the Concept of Sex in the ""Western"" World" ; Chapter 2.1.1 --- Augustine's Notion on Sexual Desire ; Chapter 2.1.2 --- Protestant Theology of Sex ; Chapter 2.1.3 --- "Emergence of ""Western"" Sexual Identity" ; Chapter 2.2 --- The Concept of Sexual Desire in China ; Chapter 2.2.1 --- The Discourse of Sexual Desire in Late Imperial China ; Chapter 2.2.2 --- Transformation of Sexual Identity in Modern China: Male Homosexuality as the Verdict ; Chapter Chapter3 --- Queer Theory- a Post-colonial Perspective --- p.38 ; Chapter 3.1 --- Postcolonial Theory as a source of Theology Discourse ; Chapter 3.1.1 --- From Colonialism to Post-colonialism ; Chapter 3.1.2 --- Building a Hybridized Sexual Ethics ; Chapter 3.2 --- Queer Theory as a Source of Theology Discourse ; Chapter 3.2.1 --- Queer Theory and Queer Politics ; Chapter 3.2.2 --- Queering the Socially Constructed Sexual Identities ; Chapter Chapter4 --- A Post-colonial Sexual Theology --- p.59 ; Chapter 4.1 --- The Modes of Discourse ; Chapter 4.1.1 --- Transgressive Metaphors ; Chapter 4.1.2 --- Hybrid Sexual Theologies ; Chapter 4.2 --- A New Framework about Sexual Desire ; Chapter 4.2.1 --- Building our Relations in Erotic Desire ; Chapter 4.2.2 --- Beyond Sexuality and Spirituality Dichotomy ; Chapter 4.3 --- Conclusion: Building an Inclusive Community ; Bibliography --- p.85
Using the hijab as a case-study, this article focuses on the political entailments for Arab women of the merging of gender, religion, and national identity in a post-colonial context. It critically engages two conflicting feminist approaches to the hijab, while relying on excerpts of interviews with veiled women. ; En se servant du hijab commme etude de cas, cet article se concentre sur les repercussions politiques pour les femmes arabes causees par le fusionnement des hommes et des femmes, de la religion, et de l'identite nationale dans un contexte pot-colonial. II engage de facon critique deux appproches feministes contradictoires au sujet du hijab, tout en s'appuyant sur les extraits d'entrevues avec des femmes qui portent le voile.
In July 1991 I was able to return to my Fulbright position in Peshawar after a six-month evacuation necessitated by the Gulf War. My euphoria was blemished by my discomfort at being an American and thus inevitably connected with American foreign policy. Knowing how distressed my friends in Peshawar had felt about the possibility of an American war against their fellow Muslims in Iraq, I apprehensively wondered how I would be received. It was the month of Muharram, Americans reminded me during my Islamabad stopover. During this Arabic lunar month, Shi'a Muslims commemorate the A.D. 680 martyrdom of Imam Husein, grandson of the Prophet Muhammad.1 I should stay in the capital for the next several days, these Americans suggested; business would be closed down in Peshawar, and violence might erupt. As I had concentrated on Muharram rituals and politics in earlier research in Iran, however, I was delighted with this inadvertent timing and at once made plans for a flight to Peshawar.
All over the world, there has been a massive resurgence in the politics of identity, including especially those forms of identity which, for a long time, were considered as negative and inimical to national unity. Today, ethnicity and religion have become major rallying points for political agitation, resulting in violent intra- and inter-state conflicts and posing direct challenges to national and regional stability as well as the post-1945 nation-state project across the world. This volume is dedicated to a discussion of various dimensions of the resurgence of identity politics in contemporary Nigeria. It is the product of a field-based research effort undertaken by a national working group which was keen to explore the origins, dimensions, and consequences of the increased spate of intra- and inter-communal conflicts within Nigeria in the context of a deep-seated national economic crisis, attempts at structural adjustment implementation, and a prolonged programme of transition from military to elected civilian rule. Such platforms of political mobilisation as ethnicity and religion, and the ways in which they combine with each other and with other variables like regional identities, are discussed along side the increase in the political significance of various aspects of youth and gender identities. In this sense, the contributions in this volume represent the first comprehensive effort to understand the dissolution and recom-position of popular political identities in contemporary Nigeria. ; Contents: 1. General Introduction. Identity Transformation and the Politics of Identity Under Crisis and Adjustment / Attahiru Jega -- 2. The State and Identity transformation Under Structural Adjustment in Nigeria / Attahiru Jega -- 3. The Transformation of Ethno-Regional Identities in Nigeria / Jibrin Ibrahim - 4. Religious Identity in the Context of Structural Adjustment in Nigeria / Ibrahim Mua'zzam and Jibrin Ibrahim -- 5. Transformation of Minority Identities in Post-Colonial Nigeria / Abdul Raufu Mustapha -- 6. National Council of Women´s Societies and the State, 1985-1993: The Use of Discourses of Womenhood by the NCWS / Charmaine Pereira -- 7. Adjustent and the Transformation of Labour Identity: What´s New and Does It Matter? / Jimi O. Adesina -- 8. The Youth, Economic Crisis and Identity Transformation: The Case of the Yandaba in Kano / Yunusa Zakari Ya'u -- 9. Youth Culture and Area Boys in Lagos / Abubakar Momoh -- 10. Structural Adjustment, Students' Movement and Popular Struggles in Nigeria, 1986-1996 / Said Adejumobi
Sexual identities are dangerous, Michel Foucault tells us. Categories of desire harden into stereotypes by which the forces of normalization hold us and judge us. In Bodies and Pleasures, Ladelle McWhorter reads Foucault from an original and personal angle, motivated by the differences this experience has made in her life. At the same time, her analysis advances discussion of key issues in Foucault scholarship: the genealogical critique, the status of the subject and humanism, essentialism versus social construction, and the relationships between identity, community, and political action. Weaving her own experience of coming to grips with her lesbian sexual identity into her readings of Foucault's most recent writings on sexuality and power, McWhorter argues compellingly that Foucault's texts should be read less for the arguments they advance and more for their transformative effect. By exploring bodies and pleasures—gardening, line dancing, or doing philosophy, for example—McWhorter shows that it isn't necessary to conform with socially recognized sexual identities. Bodies and Pleasures takes the reader beyond unexplored norms and imposed identities as it points the way toward a personal politics, ethics, and style that challenges our sexual selves. ; https://scholarship.richmond.edu/bookshelf/1090/thumbnail.jpg
Since the 1930s female cashew workers have constituted a majority of the registered workers in the South Indian State of Kerala and today number some 200,000. This group challenged the stereotypical view of Third World women because they were organized into unions, worked in the formal sector, and were literate. The background for this thesis has been the ?Kerala Model?, i.e., the political context of a state known for its radicalism, redistribution of resources, and high social indicators for citizens (men as well as women). How did the encounter of women of different castes at the cashew factory take place? How was the factory work structured with regard to gender and caste? How did membership in unions shape women's view of their own lives? How have marriage and motherhood influenced their identities? Why did females suffer more pronounced capitalist exploitation than males? At a theoretical level this interdisciplinary study engages in a dialogue with Marxist, Subaltern, postmodern, and feminist scholars. In the analysis, change and continuity have been considered not only with regard to material ?realities?, but also in terms of discourses and ideologies. Among the main themes traced over the period 1930-2000 are the organization of work in the factories, wages, trade unions, and marriage; and how elements in these spheres have interacted in the formation of identities based on class, caste, and gender. The limitations imposed upon female laborers by poverty and extremely unequal power relations between capital and labor alone cannot adequately account for the discriminatory treatment of female workers over males. Neither can women's lack of class-consciousness serve as a justification. The story of the Kerala cashew workers chronicles not only shameless, brutal capitalist exploitation, but also demonstrates that we have to go beyond economic structures to explain oppression and lack of empowerment: cultural and ideological factors must be incorporated in the analysis. Low-caste female workers have gone through a process of effeminization which has acted to curb their class-identity and limit their scope of action. The historical development traced shows a widening gap between femininity and masculinity, with a more dichotomized gender ideology visible among low-caste cashew workers. While it does not mean to imply a deterioration of living conditions for women, it should not be taken as idealizing a better and more gender-equal past; rather, it seeks to highlight the complexity of historical analysis. The thesis has striven to show that, once one takes a gender perspective, a polarization such as ?traditional? or ?modern? is seen as flawed. Capitalist forces were active in spreading a patriarchal, high-caste gender ideology among lower castes, who were seen to ?modernize? their gender relations by introducing male breadwinners and dependent housewives as the ideal. Union leaders themselves ?modernized? gender relations by supporting an internationally-acknowledged wage system which was institutionalized by the minimum wages committees in 1953 and 1959. This study shows that the radicalism of males turned to be built upon women's maintaining of the families-a reality which strongly contradicts hegemonic gender discourses and confuses gender identities.
"This is not a contribution to nation-building. I hope it helps disrupt nation-building". These words by film-maker Zackie Ahmat gave a kick-start to the discussions at the international conference on "National Identity and Democracy" held at the University of the Western Cape 14-18 March 1997, and they also introduce the theme for the book with some of the best contributions to the conference. Ahmat's understanding of "nation-building" was the kind of cultural homogenisation ordered from above which has been the rule in many parts of the world, not least in Africa. Nation-building has here often been been a hypocritical cloak for the hegemony of an elite, sometimes mobilising support from just one cultural group. By the title of the conference the organisers wanted to invite a discussion both on the insight that building a nation and building democracy are not necessarily twins, and on the risks of the misuse of power in the name of the nation. South Africa represents a possible and hopeful departure from the homogenisation model, with its explicit pluralism expressed in the adoption of 11 official languages. Six of the papers deal with the South African experiment, with an examination of the policy of non-racialism and the specific challenges posed by migrant workers, group identities and the themes of gender and nation. Other chapters are case studies from national identity formation on the contested cultural terrain in Zimbabwe, Kenya, Angola, Nigeria, and Tanzania. The book also contains an annotated bibliography. ; CONTENTS: Preface -- Introduction -- PART I. INVENTING THE NATION'S PAST -- History, the Arts and the Problem of National Identity: Reflections on Kenya in the 1970s and 1980s / Kimani Gecau, Harare -- How the National Became Popular in Tanzania / Siri Lange, Bergen -- The National landscape: a Cultural European Invention / Svend Erik Larsen, Odense -- The Question fo identity during the Nigerian Civil War (1967-1970) in the Fiction of Flora Nwapa and Ken Saro-Wiwa / Raisa Simola, Joensuu -- Part II. IDENTITIES AND TRANSFORMATION -- The Language of Africa-Centered Knowledge in South Africa: Universalism, Relativism and Dependency / Ousseina Alidou & Alamin Mazrui, Columbus Ohio -- War and the Negotiation of Gendered Identities in Angola / Horace Campbell, Syracuse -- Conceptualising Coloured Identitites in the Western Cape Province of South Africa / Zimitri Erasmus & Edgar Pieterse, Cape Town -- Intimate Transformations: Romance, Gender and Nation / Maria Olaussen, Åbo -- From Masters to Minoirites: The Swedish-speaking Finns and the Afrikaans-speaking Whites / Mai Palmberg, Uppsala -- Part III. THE SOUTH AFRICAN EXPERIMENT -- Nation-building Discourse in a Democracy / Bredan P. Boyce, Durban -- The Notion of 'Nation' and the Practice of 'Nation-building' in Post-Apartheid South Africa / Gerhard Maré, Durban -- Do Diverse Social Identitites Inhibit Nationhood and Democrasy?: Initial Considerations from South Africa / Robert Mattes, Cape Town -- Strangers at the Cattle Post: State Nationalism and Migrant Identity in Post-Apartheid South Africa / Michael Neocosmos, Gaborone -- Advancing Non-racialism in Post-Apartheid South Africa / Rupert Taylor, Johannesburg and Don Foster, Cape Town -- Select annotated bibliography / Petra Smitmanis, Stockholm -- About the authors.
A thesis submitted for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy of the University of Luton ; This thesis is the study of the relationship between individuals and communities in the context of racialised minorities in the United Kingdom. The research examines the ways in which individuals belonging to the Kashmiri community articulate and manifest 'Kashmyriat' in conditions of diaspora. Specifically, the research is an investigation of the core features of Kashmiri identity. These were selected as being identifications based on culture, religion and the territorial identification with the land of Kashmir, the nature of culture conflict between individuals and community and differences between generations of Kashmiris and the role of gender identity in 'Kashmyriat'. The central premise is that identity is constantly updated, multiple and redefined in relation to contextual changes through a process of enculturation. Results of the research suggest that culture, religion and territorial identification with the land of Kashmir are central core features of Kashmiri identity in Luton. The younger generation appear to be maintaining a distinct and separate identity based partly on shared culture, religion and terrirotial identification with the land of Kashmir with the older generation whilst they are redefining their identity in response to the contexts in which they have been born and brought up. Gender identities appear to be less significant as part of overall identity development. Theoretically the thesis is an exploration of identity and its relationship to cultural identity among migrants. In this thesis I rely on qualitative ethnographic work as well as the quantitative research methodology of Identity Structure Analysis (ISA) to try and draw a textured analysis of Kashmiri identity transformation in the wake of immigration to Luton. Using the notion of enculturation the thesis sets out to deepen and make this concept more academically rigorous. Enculturation is deployed as a means to understanding the process of identity transformation. Results of the research suggest that culture, religion and affiliation with the land of Kashmir. Whilst they share the first two with other South Asian ethnicised communities in the United Kingdom it appears that the territorial affiliation with the land of Kashmir which can be translated as political identity is currently their self-defined identity. This is marking the Kashmiris as a national community whose individuals and collectivities centre their identity on 'Kashmyriat'.
