A reflexive inquiry into gender research
Subtitle: towards a new paradigm of knowledge production & exploring new frontiers of gender research in Southern Africa
By: edited by Samantha van Schalkwyk and Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Published: 2015
Place of publication: Newcastle upon Tyne
Language: eng
Number of pages: 212
ISBN-13: 9781443885140
Copyright date: 2015
Subjects: Sex role; Women; Legal status, laws; Violence against; Abused women; Gender identity; Feminist theory
Description: 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.
Notes: Includes bibliographic references.
Table of contents: title: Rape and the limits of the law : revisiting the criticism against the South African sexual violence legislation / Azille Coetzee; title: Beyond heteronormativity : doing gender and sexuality in university contexts / Fay Hodza; title: Woman abuse in South Africa : reflecting on the complexity of women's decisions to leave abusive men / Samantha van Schalkwyk, Floretta Boonzaier, and Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela; title: Documenting trauma, hope, and human security : scholar activist research with Grandmothers against Poverty and AIDS /Jennifer Fish and Savannah L. Russo; title: "Writing my history is keeping me alive" : politics and practices of collaborative history writing / Koni Benson and Faeza Meyer; title: Ought anti-racist males be (pro)feminist too? : engaging black men in work against gender and sexual-based violence / Mbuyiselo Botha and Kopano Ratele; title: Researching the private sphere : methodological and ethical problems in the study of personal relationships in Xhosa families / Elena Moore; title: Autobiography and the research context: a reflection on unbecoming the "native" anthropologist / Elaine Salo; title: Interrogating our research processes : reflexive positioning in an IPA study of women family cancer caregivers / Jennifer Githai.