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Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities
Undoing The ‘Madwoman’: A Minor History Of Uselessness, Dementia And Indenture In Colonial Fiji, Margaret Mishra
Undoing The ‘Madwoman’: A Minor History Of Uselessness, Dementia And Indenture In Colonial Fiji, Margaret Mishra
Journal of International Women's Studies
This article sets out to undo colonial constructions of the ‘madwoman’ in Fiji during the indenture period. It will critique how lunacy, or more specifically the condition of dementia, was sometimes presented as the colonial response to ‘uselessness’ in the sugarcane plantations. When archival fragments relating to an indentured woman named Dhurma, are retrieved and situated within a historical context they demonstrate how unproductivity was perceived as a signifier of an ‘unsound mind’ because it conflicted with the utilitarian logic of universal and individual economic advancement espoused by the British colonial administration. The article will also present brief accounts of …
Australian Women’S Anti-Nuclear Leadership: The Framing Of Peace And Social Change, Yulia Maleta
Australian Women’S Anti-Nuclear Leadership: The Framing Of Peace And Social Change, Yulia Maleta
Journal of International Women's Studies
This article addresses a gap on hegemonic masculinity/emphasized femininity and essentialism/constructivism within the Environmental New Social Movement (eNSM). Utilizing my interviews with Australian women members of environmentalist New Social Movement Organisations (eNSMOs), including eNGOs, academic institutions and the Greens party, I adopt a constructivist approach towards emphasized femininity, arguing that women-led strategies, strengthened through agentic competence contributes to global peace, whilst challenging the patriarchal control of environmental governance (Cockburn 1988, 2012). My feminist sociopolitical model is framed by resistance to ruling class masculinity, emphasizing participants’ gender performativity, advocating anti-nuclear agendas (Warren 1999, Gaard 2001, Butler 2013). Constructivism is relayed by …
Defying The Odds, Not The Abuse: South African Women’S Agency And Rotating Saving Schemes, 1994-2017, Mark Nyandoro
Defying The Odds, Not The Abuse: South African Women’S Agency And Rotating Saving Schemes, 1994-2017, Mark Nyandoro
Journal of International Women's Studies
Employing a feminist lens that places emphasis on women’s agency South African feminists have challenged the dominant narrative of hapless women who need external saviours to climb out of poverty. In particular, black South African feminists have drawn attention to the appropriation and deployment of both indigenous and other concepts and practices by women to fight poverty. This article employs these perspectives to interpret the importance of rotating saving schemes in South Africa. It explores the debate about women’s economic, community-participation and entrepreneurship strategies with reference to the Stokvel and other rotating saving-schemes (e.g. mashonisa) to improve the status of …
13 Lunas 13/13 Moons 13: A Video-Project About Sexuality And Menstruation, Tina Escaja
13 Lunas 13/13 Moons 13: A Video-Project About Sexuality And Menstruation, Tina Escaja
Journal of International Women's Studies
The subject of menstruation is filled with powerful socio-cultural implications involving language, religion and gender relations. Yet, the topic is often relegated to silence, considered taboo, and strongly associated with impurity and shame. This schism between the natural reality of menstruation and its socio-cultural damnation highlights the marginal and oppressed condition of women who are considered inferior and impure in many cultures and religions for the mere fact of menstruating, despite ancient practices that validated and celebrated women’s menarche. The multimedia project 13 lunas 13/13 moons 13 allows for the interactive exploration of these themes while reflecting upon the patriarchal …
The Role Of The Family In Crime Causation: A Comparative Study Of ‘Family Of Orientation’ And ‘Family Of Procreation’ (A Study Of Women Prisoners In The Central Jails Of Rajasthan), Asha Bhandari
Journal of International Women's Studies
Family life and marriage are often considered to be an important lever for criminal desistance, especially among men. The mechanisms that lead to desistance from crime may be general in nature, but men and women do not necessarily respond in a similar way relative to marital status. This paper extends the hypothesis of familial relationships and desistance in crime and provides a perspective to foster understanding of the influence that ‘family of orientation’ and ‘family of procreation’ makes in crime committed by women. For this purpose various factors, including family size, family environment, relationship with family members, gender role …
The Pedagogy Of Difference: Co-Producing Feminist Consciousness Across Borders, Patricia Mohammed
The Pedagogy Of Difference: Co-Producing Feminist Consciousness Across Borders, Patricia Mohammed
Journal of International Women's Studies
How has a movement built on the consciousness of sisterhood become so fragmented between the end of the 20th and into the second decade of the 21st century? As different political tendencies, widely varying economic conditions and cultural dissimilarities emerged in global struggles to achieve diverse visions of women’s and gender equality, the current feminist movement appears to be characterized by chasms between the east, west, north and south rather than viewed as a movement whose basic tenets are parallel across racial, geographic and social barriers. By looking at lived examples of confrontations, and through a deliberate process of self-reflexive …