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Articles 1 - 10 of 10
Full-Text Articles in Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
Cultural Autonomy As Impregnable Armour: Locating Black Feminist Autoethnography In Gloria Naylor's Mama Day, Adishree Vats, Anurag Kumar
Cultural Autonomy As Impregnable Armour: Locating Black Feminist Autoethnography In Gloria Naylor's Mama Day, Adishree Vats, Anurag Kumar
Journal of International Women's Studies
The present paper argues that Gloria Naylor's Mama Day (1988) embodies Black Feminist Autoethnography that critiques and commemorates her spectacular art of constructing cultural-autonomy within the marginal sphere of Willow Springs, permitting the inhabitants, especially the women of the island, to shield their individual identities, as well as combat the hegemonic pseudo power-structure. By eliminating the conventions of white contemporary bureaus, and alternatively putting up rational sets of credence, ethics, and practices, the novel embellishes the rhetorical manufacturing of cultural-autonomy, ultimately encapsulating the ethical-cum-mythical undertakings of the Black America. This effectuation of their own ethical reservoirs by these resistive cultures …
“Not Women’S Work”: Gendered Labor, Political Subjectivity And Motherhood, Mary E. Wilhoit
“Not Women’S Work”: Gendered Labor, Political Subjectivity And Motherhood, Mary E. Wilhoit
Journal of International Women's Studies
This article challenges broadly applied beliefs about the gendered nature of informality and the marginalization of single mothers to argue that many such women in Ayacucho, Peru routinely sought out formal-sector jobs and used these to exert authority over certain local processes of development. I argue that this situation, influenced in part by the male-dominated nature of the lucrative but completely informal coca economy, may also reflect Andean ideologies of maternal authority and the freedom afforded to single, rather than married, women. This article draws on over sixteen months of fieldwork in rural Ayacucho, during which time I observed women’s …
Matrifocality And Collective Solidarity In Practicing Agency: Marriage Negotiation Among The Bimanese Muslim Women In Eastern Indonesia, Atun Wardatun
Matrifocality And Collective Solidarity In Practicing Agency: Marriage Negotiation Among The Bimanese Muslim Women In Eastern Indonesia, Atun Wardatun
Journal of International Women's Studies
This article demonstrates how matrifocality (centrality of women) as a cultural value of the kinship system forms collective solidarity as a main way of enacting agency (capacity to act) among the Bimanese Muslims in eastern Indonesia. It aims to argue that the context and method of performing agency are interdependent such that the first is a cause while the latter is a consequence. Scholars tend to focus on the link between source and goal of agency as the motivation of doing agency determining the goal people conceive. Although some scholars have turned their attention to the interconnection of context and …
"Speaking Back" To The Self: A Call For "Voice Notes" As Reflexive Practice For Feminist Ethnographers, Fawzia Haeri Mazanderani
"Speaking Back" To The Self: A Call For "Voice Notes" As Reflexive Practice For Feminist Ethnographers, Fawzia Haeri Mazanderani
Journal of International Women's Studies
While what comprises “feminist research methods” is subject to debate, research with a feminist orientation is often characterised by heightened reflexivity and a recognition of the subjective nature of knowledge claims (Ryan-Flood and Gill, 2010). By drawing upon ethnographic research conducted among young people in post-apartheid South Africa, this paper interrogates the potential value of audio recordings or “voice notes” during fieldwork, in conjunction with the more traditional form of the fieldwork diary. I argue that, by providing an additional means through which to articulate the inevitable messiness of fieldwork, the recording of “voice notes” enables the researcher to “speak …
Unveiling The Mysteries Of Aceh, Indonesia: Local And Global Intersections Of Women's Agency, Siti Kusujiarti, Elizabeth W. Miano, Annie L. Pryor, Breanna R. Ryan
Unveiling The Mysteries Of Aceh, Indonesia: Local And Global Intersections Of Women's Agency, Siti Kusujiarti, Elizabeth W. Miano, Annie L. Pryor, Breanna R. Ryan
Journal of International Women's Studies
Forces of globalization, local culture, and Islam continuously inform one another and dynamically manifest in cultures across the world. Scholars often assume that these influences may have distinct and independent effects. However, we argue that these global forces occur simultaneously and they may contradict or complement each other along a spectrum within Aceh, Indonesia. The manifestations and responses vary depending on the nature of the interactions of global and local factors. This spectrum represents various ways in which women negotiate identity and agency, specifically within the context of the implementation of Shari’ah Law. This research investigates the specific ways in …
Sex And Selfhood: What Feminist Philosophy Can Learn From Recent Ethnography In Ho Chi Minh City, Mathew A. Foust
Sex And Selfhood: What Feminist Philosophy Can Learn From Recent Ethnography In Ho Chi Minh City, Mathew A. Foust
Journal of International Women's Studies
This article explores the connection of class dynamics to the moral agency of sex workers and their clients. It revisits the analyses of several contemporary feminist theorists, placing these analyses in dialogue with a recent ethnographic study of the sex work industry in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. In light of this comparative analysis, it is argued that accurate understanding and assessment of the moral agency of sex workers and their clients requires attunement to the complex and evolving class dynamics within which each is situated. Thus, while traditional frameworks for approaching this subject are useful, they are ultimately inadequate.
The Land Of Lalla-Ded: Politicization Of Kashmir And Construction Of The Kashmiri Woman, Nyla Ali Khan
The Land Of Lalla-Ded: Politicization Of Kashmir And Construction Of The Kashmiri Woman, Nyla Ali Khan
Journal of International Women's Studies
Over the years, tremendous political and social turmoil has been generated in the state of Jammu and Kashmir by the forces of religious fundamentalism and by an exclusionary nationalism that seeks to erode the cultural syncretism that is part of the ethos of Kashmir. Kashmiri women are now suffering from some of the more predictable afflictions of women caught in conflict situations: psychological trauma, destitution, and acute poverty that put them at increased risk of trafficking. The ethnographic field research, which I undertook, was a method of seeking reconnection sans condescension by simultaneously belonging to and resisting the discursive community …
Rural Livelihoods, Hiv/Aids And Women’S Activism: The Struggle For Gender Equality In Primary Education In Uganda, Doris M. Kakuru
Rural Livelihoods, Hiv/Aids And Women’S Activism: The Struggle For Gender Equality In Primary Education In Uganda, Doris M. Kakuru
Journal of International Women's Studies
In Uganda, various stake holders including the government, NGOs, and women activists have undeniably played important roles in the combat for gender equality in primary education. However, there is evidence that success has not yet been realized. This article is based on research conducted to discover why gender inequalities in Uganda’s Universal Primary Education persist despite deliberate measures to eradicate them. Two questions are addressed, namely: does HIV/AIDS contribute to the persistence of gender inequality in rural areas? What is the importance of linking theory and practice in women’s activism in such a context? The findings reveal that HIV/AIDS affects …
A Feminist Struggle? South African Hiv Activism As Feminist Politics, Katarina Jungar, Elina Oinas
A Feminist Struggle? South African Hiv Activism As Feminist Politics, Katarina Jungar, Elina Oinas
Journal of International Women's Studies
This paper is a feminist reading of HIV activism in South Africa, of a social movement that does not describe itself as a women’s movement: it advocates both women’s and men’s, trans, hetero- and homosexual peoples’ rights for adequate health care and antiretroviral medication. Like many others, Chandra Talpade Mohanty suggests that today’s powerful feminism is found in anti-globalization movements that do not necessarily call themselves feminist. These critiques maintain that the theory, critique and activism of grass-root women across the globe, for example around anti-globalization, should also inform academic feminist discussions. This article studies discourses on HIV in Africa …
A Woman’S Nature: Addressing Violence Against Women Through Femininity In Poland, Abby Drwecki
A Woman’S Nature: Addressing Violence Against Women Through Femininity In Poland, Abby Drwecki
Journal of International Women's Studies
This article is an investigation of women’s self-defense courses in post-communist Poland. I focus on WenDo, a women’s self-defense seminar which is based on feminist principles and which seeks to empower women through changes in body culture: i.e. their physical capabilities, posture, demeanor and vocalizations when in a position of interpersonal threat or danger. Through an ethnographic study of this self-defense method, I show how WenDo’s pedagogy is designed to lead to these changes. In addition, I question whether WenDo can be conceptualized as a form of women’s empowerment which is disconnected from an organized feminist movement and is based …