Topic: feminist anthropology class essay
Order Description
Choose 2 social actors from the readings. These social actors might be people represented in the ethnography (e.g Zaynab, Diane, Juliette, a young Chinese woman at A&W) OR the ethnographer herself (e.g Abu-lughud, Frank, Wekker, Rofel)
How do these social actors provide different models of agency and possibilities for social change?
**essay should incorporate at least one key concept from the following:
agency
globalization
sex/gender system
liberal (secular) feminism
cultural biography
mati work
positionality
diaspora
identity
race
class
desire
freedom
discourse
standpoint
postmodernism
intersectionality
reflexivity
power
ethnography
homogeneity
personhood
subaltern
fieldwork
sexuality
family/kinship
binary
labor
universalism
**should also incorporate two of the following readings:
Lisa Rofel, “Qualities of Desire: Imagining Gay Identities” and “From Sacrifice to Desire: Cosmopolitanism with Chinese Characteristics,” in Desiring China: Experiments in Neoliberalism, Sexuality, and Public Culture
Saba Mahmood: Feminist Theory, Embodiment, and the Docile Agent: Some Reflections on the Egyptian Islamic Revival
?book: do muslim women need saving? by Abu-Lughud
book: venus on wheels by Frank
book: the politics of passion by Wekker
Be as concrete as possible in examples, specify source and page number
**might be useful:
COURSE OBJECTIVES
1. To examine the historical junctures that have influenced the development of feminist
anthropology.
2. To examine how cultural understandings and representations of gender, women, sexuality are produced and destabilized in ethnographic studies.
3. To gain an understanding of ethnographic method in the analysis of gender, culture, and power.
4. To explore the goals of feminist anthropology in relation to questions of social justice, ethical representation, and theories of interpretation.
5. To reflect on our own positions within the politics of knowledge production.
6. To sharpen critical reading, thinking, writing, and discussion skills.
7. To engage in a deep and sustained interdisciplinary conversation about gender, women, and sexuality in a cross-cultural context.