Understanding Gender in the African Context

Understanding Gender in the African Context
Author: Jeffrey Kurebwa
Publisher:
Total Pages:
Release: 2020
Genre: Gender identity
ISBN: 9781799828167

"This book explores the complexities of the ideologies and social patterns that contribute to the field of gender studies"--

Gender, Science and Technology: Perspectives from Africa

Gender, Science and Technology: Perspectives from Africa
Author: Wawasi Kitetu
Publisher: African Books Collective
Total Pages: 185
Release: 2008-03-15
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 2869784007

This sixth volume of the CODESRIA Gender Series is a collection of discourses, perspectives, practices and policies on the role of the female gender in science and technology, particularly in the African context. Although widely advocated as the indisputable foundation for political and economic power in the modern world, science and technology remains marked by various layers and dimensions of gender inequality that work to the disadvantage of girls and women. Despite the fact that a lot of awareness has been created, and gender issues are now more readily acknowledged by various development initiatives in Africa, participation in science and technology still remains a hurdle as far as girls and women are concerned. A common theme that runs through the book is how feminine identities, ideologies of domesticity and gender stereotypes, and the inadequacy or lack of clear policies facilitate the invisibility of women in science and technology. This notwithstanding, women have never ceased devising clever and ingenious ways that would enable them to master nature, from the margins. The book provides a window onto the current state of female participation in science and technology in Africa, along with an analysis of the historical backgrounds, current educational and professional contexts, and prospects for the future. While it is evident that more research needs to be done, with more groups in different regions, this volume brings together a rich and inspiring collection of qualitative insights on gender, science and technology in Africa. The CODESRIA Gender Series acknowledges the need to challenge the masculinities underpinning the structures of repression that target women. The series aims to keep alive and nourish African social science research with insightful research and debates that challenge conventional wisdom, structures and ideologies that are narrowly informed by caricatures of gender realities. It strives to showcase the best in African gender research and provide a platform for emerging new talents to flower.

Africa After Gender?

Africa After Gender?
Author: Catherine M. Cole
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Total Pages: 690
Release: 2007-02-07
Genre: History
ISBN: 0253218772

Gender is one of the most productive, dynamic, and vibrant areas of Africanist research today. This volume looks at Africa now that gender has come into play to consider how the continent, its people, and the term itself have changed.

The Invention of Women

The Invention of Women
Author: Oyèrónkẹ́ Oyěwùmí
Publisher: U of Minnesota Press
Total Pages: 257
Release: 1997-10
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1452903255

The "woman question", this book asserts, is a Western one, and not a proper lens for viewing African society. A work that rethinks gender as a Western contruction, The Invention of Women offers a new way of understanding both Yoruban and Western cultures. Oyewumi traces the misapplication of Western, body-oriented concepts of gender through the history of gender discourses in Yoruba studies. Her analysis shows the paradoxical nature of two fundamental assumptions of feminist theory: that gender is socially constructed in old Yoruba society, and that social organization was determined by relative age.

Women Researching in Africa

Women Researching in Africa
Author: Ruth Jackson
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 326
Release: 2018-07-31
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 3319945025

This edited collection explores the lives, consequences and motivations of female researchers in Africa, giving unprecedented insights into how their gender—and sometimes their ethnicity and age—impacted on their research experiences, and how doing research in Africa affected them as women. Each contributor considers her place or position in the research process and provides a vivid portrait of that experience. Drawing on research findings from Nigeria, Ethiopia, Cameroon, Ghana, Guinea, Malawi, Uganda and other African countries, the book looks at gender and identity as a female researcher in Africa; relationships with 'others'; and unique methodological challenges for female researchers in Africa. With refreshing candour, each chapter challenges other researchers in Africa (both women and men), to integrate critical reflections of gender and diverse gendered field experiences into their work. Women Researching in Africa will be of interest to students and scholars across a range of disciplines including development studies, anthropology, geography, gender studies and international studies.

Research on Gender and Sexualities in Africa

Research on Gender and Sexualities in Africa
Author: Tamale, Sylvia
Publisher: CODESRIA
Total Pages: 230
Release: 2017-07-20
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 286978712X

This collection comprises a diverse and stimulating collection of essays on questions of gender and sexualities, crafted by both established and younger researchers. The collection includes fascinating insights into topics as varied as the popularity of thong underwear in urban Kenya, the complexity of Tanzanian youth’s negotiation of HIV-cultures, the dialogues between religion and controversial questions in sexualities activism, and the meaning of living as a Zimbabwean girl, who became HIV-positive because her mother had no access to antiretroviral drugs during pregnancy. Some pieces deepen contemporary debates, others initiate new questions. The collection seeks to sustain and invigorate research, policy-making and continentaly-focused thought on difficult, yet compelling, realities.

Gender, Culture and Development in Africa

Gender, Culture and Development in Africa
Author: Mobolanle Ebunoluwa Sotunsa
Publisher:
Total Pages: 651
Release: 2017
Genre: Gender identity in education
ISBN: 9781943533275

"Gender, Culture and Development in Africa interrogates ways in which gender, culture, and development in the African context reinforce, shape, and reshape one another. In four parts, comprising fifty chapters, the book provides stimulating debates and constructive engagements about the enactment of gender and power relations within the African context and its implications for development outcomes. The engaging and carefully organised chapters furnish the readers with a sumptuous "buffet" of narratives, pedagogical dialogues and critical discourses on African women and men in their varied cultural, political, economic and social contexts. The multidisciplinary approach traversing literary studies, education, political science, religious studies, linguistics, history, economics, and law, amongst others, makes the book relevant to scholars of gender and African studies across these disciplines. Mobolanle Ebunoluwa Sotunsa is a Professor of Gender Studies and African Oral Literatures in the Department of Languages and Literary Studies, Babcock University, Nigeria. Olajumoke Yacob-Haliso is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Babcock University, Nigeria"--Amazon.com

Writing African Women

Writing African Women
Author: Stephanie Newell
Publisher: Zed Books Ltd.
Total Pages: 286
Release: 2017-06-15
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1786990075

How does our understanding of Africa shift when we begin from the perspective of women? What can the African perspective offer theories of culture and of gender difference? This work, as unique and insightful today as when it was first published, brings together a wide variety of African academics and other researchers to explore the links between literature, popular culture and theories of gender. Beginning with a ground-breaking overview of African gender theory, the book goes on to analyse women's writing, uncovering the ways different writers have approached issues of female creativity and colonial history, as well as the ways in which they have subverted popular stereotypes around African women. The contributors also explore the related gender dynamics of mask performance and oral story-telling. This major analysis of gender in popular and postcolonial cultural production remains essential reading for students and academics in women's studies, cultural studies and literature.

A Reflexive Inquiry into Gender Research

A Reflexive Inquiry into Gender Research
Author: Samantha Van Schalkwyk
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Total Pages: 250
Release: 2016-01-14
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1443887579

Questions that concern gender and violence against women have been placed firmly on the agenda of interdisciplinary research within the humanities in recent years. Gender-based violence against women has increased exponentially in South Africa and in other countries on the African continent, particularly those with a history of political conflict. Researchers who explore such gender issues have paid limited attention to the intersection between the social contexts of the researched, the positionality of the researcher and the research product. This book brings together an interdisciplinary group of scholars and scholar-activists to explore new terrains of knowledge production, interrogating the connection between the intellectual project of this kind of research and the process of its production. Some chapters draw on theoretical insights and provide new ways of thinking about the kinds of questions that should be asked when conducting research in the field of gender. Other authors grapple with an acknowledgement of their multiple social positions in the world, the ways in which they experience these ever-shifting boundaries, and how this influences their theoretical and practical work. Some contributions go further, discussing the ways in which the researcher and the researched influence each other, and the link between feminist research and social change. These chapters contribute to an understanding of how social movement activism can be developed. Overall, this book represents an important combination of scholarly insights, and provides multiple reflections about practical aspects of conducting gender research in the African context. The work of the contributors to the volume is situated within a post-structural feminist agenda, and, collectively, the chapters link scholarship and activism in a way that pursues a social change agenda in research on gender and gender-based violence.

Gender, Sexuality and Migration in South Africa

Gender, Sexuality and Migration in South Africa
Author: Ingrid Palmary
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 145
Release: 2017-01-25
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 3319407333

This book analyzes the intersections of gender, sexuality and migration in the South African context. It takes the form of a series of empirically-informed reflections on the ways that these issues have come together, and analyses the place that South Africa holds in increasingly global, and globally constrained, discourses around migration. This means that it is not just about gendered movement, or abuses faced by sexual minorities; it is about the ways in which gendered notions, which may or may not map onto different bodies, function in conversations on migration. The author challenges assumptions about what and who migrants are and the nature of their genders and sexualities, which have circumscribed the fierce debates about migration that are currently raging in the country. This does not mean, however, that it this is simply a book about South Africa. Rather, the author argues that global and local imperatives are constantly being negotiated as South Africa goes through a period of socio-political transition. This thought-provoking work will appeal to students and scholars of migration studies, gender studies and race studies, as well as disciplines such as sociology, psychology and political studies.