Women's Studies Commons^™

Development Paradoxes: Feminist Solidarity, Alternative Imaginaries And New Spaces, Elora Halim Chowdhury

Journal of International Women's Studies

In his seminal work Encountering Development: The Making and Unmaking of the Third World (1995), post-development scholar Arturo Escobar likens development to a chimera. My work builds on a sophisticated body of post-development and transnational feminist theory drawing on conceptions of the relationship of representations of development in the Third World to the interconnected webs of various transnational patriarchal and economic dominations that affect, and are affected by, the realities of marginalized communities in the Global South. In particular, I am concerned with how development discourses interlock with global systemic hierarchies of race, gender, class as well as structural oppressions, …

The Globalization Of The Rural Swazi Weaver: Lavumisa Women In The Commercial Handicraft Industry, 1981- 2013, Goodwill Nkosinathi Matsenjwa, Estella Musiiwa

Journal of International Women's Studies

From the Women and Development (WAD) theory perspective, this study explores the development of women’s handicraft industry in Lavumisa, a drought prone area in southeastern Swaziland. Women-dominated handicraft production in Lavumisa occurred within the context of land alienation and male labour migration under colonialism, and later, economic and HIV related problems in post-colonial Swaziland. State controlled marketing of handicraft started in 1962. The prevalence of faith-based non-governmental organizations and the United States Peace Corps during the 1980s witnessed the introduction of women’s group handicraft production as well as the expansion of the handicraft industry. Meanwhile, the economic recession of the …

Grassroots Women And Peer Learning: Home-Based Caregiver Networks And Health Mutual Funds, Pamela Ransom

Journal of International Women's Studies

Universal access and financial risk protection are identified as health targets in global negotiations for post 2015 development goals although these represent difficult challenges for countries burdened by overstretched budgets and growing populations with increasingly complex health care needs. In many parts of Africa health financing is characterized by weak, under-resourced systems, high out of pocket contributions and lack of donor will. The paper gains insight from small scale, creative financing strategies for health emerging among the very poor through innovations of grassroots women’s networks. We explore the influence of peer learning and information exchange in women’s home-based caregiver networks …

Multi-Architecture In Saudi Arabia: Representing The History Of Women, Salwa Nugali

Journal of International Women's Studies

The purpose of this research project is to put into context the role of women in Saudi Arabia through reading of symbols and signs of the physical shape of the first sky scrapers: AlMamlakah (Kingdom) and AlFaisalia. The paper analyses perceptions of modern Saudi Arabian architecture and the significance of our visual perception to gender codification is what this project attempts to analyze. The project uses three interlaced lines of investigation. The first is the relationship of architecture to the culture and the population. The research paper will study the architecture of the two skyscrapers. The second line of investigation …

Trauma, Shame And Performance: Towards A New Topography Of Affects In Black Queer Identities, Maite Escudero-Alías

Journal of International Women's Studies

Haitian American feminist and lesbian activist MilDred Gerestant has become one of the most acclaimed gender performers who best illustrates the malleability of gender, race and sexuality in the reconstruction of black queer identities. Drawing on interdisciplinary theoretical frameworks like trauma studies, queer theory and affect theory, my contribution analyses MilDred’s gender performances as creative attempts to surpass negative affects often attached to minority identities. By exploring the affect of shame as a productive enactment of transformation and hope, rather than as a source of numbness and suffering, this article aims to offer an alternative epistemological paradigm of feminist feeling …

Presenting The Absence: A Contrapuntal Reading Of The Māita In Nepali Tīj Songs, Balram Uprety

Journal of International Women's Studies

Much before the arrival of Western feminism in Nepal with its vocabulary of protest and polemics, the discourse of right and fight, Nepali women have had a long complex and ambivalent genealogy of protest in the genre of Tīj songs. However, such discourses have been rendered invisible by the dominant epistemology that derives its ideological sustenance from the Eurocentric and Enlightenment paradigm of knowledge production. The collusion of native patriarchy with the dominant epistemological system can be located in the absence of any systematic engagement with the Tīj songs in the indigenous academia. Through Nepali women’s complex and highly nuanced …

Analysis Of Women's Status In The Labor Markets Of Countries In The European Union, Jana Drutarovská, Jana Kováčová, Hana Pechová, Katarína Podmajerská

Journal of International Women's Studies

This article examines the status of women in labor market conditions within the European Union member countries. Since the women’s status in the labor market and their participation in the labor process belong to one of the most discussed topics, we decided to analyze selected indicators and to compare them using cluster analysis method. The main objective of this article is to present an analysis of the situation and position of women in the labor markets of 28 member states of the EU using selected Quality of Life Indicators. The method of cluster analysis is applied in order to group …

Formal Institutions And Women’S Electoral Representation In Four European Countries: Belgium, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, Sophia Lu

Journal of International Women's Studies

This research attempted to produce evidence that formal institutions, such as electoral and internal party quotas, can advance women’s active roles in the public sphere using the cases of four European countries: Belgium, Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands. The quantitative dataset was provided by the University of Chicago and the Inter-University Consortium of Political and Social Research based on a two-year study (2008-2010) of political parties. Belgium engages in constitutionally mandated electoral quotas. Germany, Italy and the Netherlands, on the other hand, have internal party quotas, which are voluntarily adopted by political parties. In analyzing each country’s chi-square and Pearson’s …

The Role Of African Traditional Religion And 'Juju' In Human Trafficking: Implications For Anti-Trafficking, May Ikeora

Journal of International Women's Studies

This article examines the role that African Traditional Religion (ATR) plays in giving ammunition to human trafficking, a role that serves as an emerging perspective in the understanding and critical engagement with this subject area. Elements within African traditional religion, popularly and often wrongfully termed ‘Juju’, proffer a method of control often used by certain traffickers to keep their victims in perpetual bondage. The data used in this article was derived from extensive fieldwork in Nigeria and the United Kingdom (UK) where forty-six (46) anti-trafficking stakeholders including victims were interviewed. The data indicates that this control mechanism was present in …

The Subject Librarian Newsletter, Women's & Gender Studies, Spring 2016, Carrie Moran

Libraries' Newsletters

No abstract provided.

South African Marriage In Policy And Practice: A Dynamic Story, Michael W. Yarbrough

Publications and Research

Law forms one of the major structural contexts within which family lives play out, yet the precise dynamics connecting these two foundational institutions are still poorly understood. This article attempts to help bridge this gap by applying sociolegal concepts to empirical findings about state law's role in family, and especially in marriage, drawn from across several decades and disciplines of South Africanist scholarly research. I sketch the broad outlines of a nuanced theoretical approach for analysing the law-family relationship, which insists that the relationship entails a contingent and dynamic interplay between relatively powerful regulating institutions and relatively powerless regulated populations. …

Feminist Futures And Campus Changes: Dismantling Ursinus College's Greek Life, Jordan Ostrum

Richard T. Schellhase Essay Prize in Ethics

No abstract provided.

Brooklyn-Queens Chapter Of Now, Brooklyn College

Finding Aids

The collection consists of materials dating from 1972 to 2013, with the bulk of the items dating from 1995-2003. It contains the papers of the Brooklyn (later Brooklyn-Queens) chapter of the National Organization for Women, some papers of NOW-New York State, the Equal Rights Amendment Coalition and collected documents. The collection contains primarily meeting minutes, newsletters, correspondence, as well as periodicals, newspaper clippings and collected posters and brochures.

Shirley Chisholm Collection, Brooklyn College

Finding Aids

Within this collection, researchers will find roughly 300 photographs, typed and handwritten correspondence between Chisholm's constituents and members of her campaign team (including James Pitts), magazines and newspapers, various forms of media including CD’s, video cassette tapes, DV-Cam’s, and a DVD, as well as ephemera from Chisholm's historic Presidential campaign. The bulk dates of this collection are from 1968-1982, and the inclusive dates are from 1944-2012.

The Records & Papers Of The New York State Women’S Political Caucus, Brooklyn College

Finding Aids

The New York State Women’s Political Caucus is a thriving branch of the national organization. Adele Cohen, the creator of this collection, was highly involved with the organization on the state and national level and served as the president of the New York State caucus from 1992-1994. She began her association with NWPC in the 1980s and remained actively involved after her presidency.

The documents in this collection range in date from the late 1980s to the early 2000s and include information on the governance and activities of the organization as well as correspondence, newsletters, and endorsements.

7: Public Archaeology At Fort St. Joseph, Fort St. Joseph Archaeological Project

Fort St. Joseph Archaeological Project

The Fort St. Joseph Archaeological Project practices community service learning.

Hex Workers: African American Women, Hoodoo, And Power In The Nineteenth- And Early Twentieth-Century U.S., Ann Kordas

The Journal of Traditions & Beliefs

No abstract provided.

A Thai Woman, Her Practice Of Traditional Thai Astrology, And Related Gender Issues, Matthew Kosuta

The Journal of Traditions & Beliefs

No abstract provided.

Gender And The Politics Of Exclusion In Pre-Colonial Ibadan: The Case Of Iyalode Efunsetan Aniwura, Olawale F. Idowu, Sunday A. Ogunode

The Journal of Traditions & Beliefs

No abstract provided.

The Killing Of An ‘Angry Black Woman’: Sandra Bland And The Politics Of Respectability, Victoria D. Gillon

Eddie Mabry Diversity Award

On July 13th, 2015, 28-year-old Sandra Bland was pulled over by a police officer in Waller County, TX, for failure to signal a lane change. Around six minutes later, Bland was being slammed and handcuffed to the ground. What happened in these six minutes that caused a minor traffic violation to escalate to what would later be three days in jail, concluding with Bland’s death? Hundreds of years of significations towards black women led to Sandra Bland’s arrest. However, at a time when Bland was perceived to be at her most vulnerable, she resisted. By intentionally not putting out a …