Course overview
This course takes an intersectional and decolonial approach to gender, race, and other intersectional categories, exploring how European colonial ideas and practices created many of our current assumptions about race and gender, and how this thinking continues to influence power structures today. Using Lugones concepts of the coloniality of gender and heterosexualism (among others), we will trace the origins of gender, race and racism in colonial discourses, and look at how they have contributed to contemporary heteronormative gender roles for both colonising and colonised societies. Hearing from Black, Indigenous, Third World Feminist, ecofeminist and Islamic feminist scholars, we will take a critical look at how colonial thinking creates overlapping binaries between modern and traditional, rational and natural, liberated and oppressed, and how these dualisms work to justify or obscure ongoing inequality and exploitation. We will look into a range of contemporary global issues and contexts where these dynamics still commonly play out, including in nationalism, economic development, feminist campaigns, Indigenous issues, environmental debates, and global gay rights campaigns. In recognising colonial ways of thinking, we will also attend to alternatives, looking for more ethical ways to practice cross-cultural solidarity, and encountering anti-colonial visions for a more just and relational world.
Course learning outcomes
- Demonstrate understanding of the transnational and cross-cultural variability of gender relations
- Discuss the impact of historical constructions of race and gender on specified contemporary global and local gender issues
- Demonstrate knowledge of competing perspectives on contemporary cross-cultural issues in gender and sexuality
- Critically evaluate contemporary approaches to gender 'scandals' according to suggested criteria of social justice, ethics, and respect for diversity
- Utilise understanding of diversity to communicate more ethically and effectively in cross-cultural and gender-diverse contexts
- Demonstrate interpersonal and teamwork skills in group activities
- Apply given bibliographic research methods to locate and evaluate relevant sources of information on a set topic related to gender and race
- Conduct in-depth research into a set topic relating to gender and race in a particular context
- Use appropriate language and concepts for discussing gender and feminist thought in global contexts
- Construct a clear, coherent and independent argument, which responds to a set question and is supported by appropriate scholarly evidence, within identified timeframes