Research Outputs (Gender Studies)
https://hdl.handle.net/10500/4980
2024-03-19T02:20:07ZOthering Mushrooms: Migratism and its racist entanglements in the Brexit campaign
https://hdl.handle.net/10500/26938
Othering Mushrooms: Migratism and its racist entanglements in the Brexit campaign
Vráblíková, Lenka
Mushrooms have long occupied a highly ambivalent position in the cultural imagination,
inciting disgust and fear, as well as wonder and fascination. Neither plants, nor animals, they grow up unexpectedly but also in regular lines or circles. Some of them are medicinal and edible, whereas others are toxic or even poisonous. Sometimes they are both. Employing the ambivalence of mushrooms as analytic lens, this article interrogates the processes of othering through which certain human bodies are more susceptible to be othered than other human bodies. Mobilising Sara Ahmed’s analytic framework on othering as an embodied process, this transnational ecofeminist intervention provides an insight into how forests, mushrooms and their foragers have been deployed in the Brexit campaign’s migratism and explores its racist entanglements. The article argues that research into social and environmental histories of how meaning is constructed and embodied in human and non-human bodies and the places they inhabit is vital for contesting the re-emergence of the right-wing populism that, in Europe, is
exemplified by events such as the Brexit.
2021-02-01T00:00:00ZFeminist scholarship and the 'performative university'; a book review of Power, Knowledge and Feminist Scholarship, An Ethnography of Academia by Maria Do Mar Pereira
https://hdl.handle.net/10500/24594
Feminist scholarship and the 'performative university'; a book review of Power, Knowledge and Feminist Scholarship, An Ethnography of Academia by Maria Do Mar Pereira
Vráblíková, Lenka
How do scholars in countries such as Portugal, the US, the UK, or Scandinavia
situate feminist scholarship in the current academia? How is the claim to
scientificity in women’s, gender, and feminist studies (WGFS) produced and
negotiated? And what happens to these emerging fields, and the individuals
inhabiting them, under the accelerated corporatisation of higher education? This
book provides insightful and novel answers to these questions and anticipates future
directions of research on the institutionalisation of feminist scholarship.
The book is based on ethnographic research of academia mainly in Portugal.
During the years of 2008–2009 and 2015–2016, Pereira interviewed 36 WGFS and
non-WGFS academics and conducted participatory observations at national and
international conferences, WGFS associations’ meetings, lectures, and PhD vivas
also in Sweden, the UK, and the US. In her feminist discursive analysis, she focuses
on the question of ‘how academics demarcate the boundaries of “proper”
knowledge, and how WGFS scholarship gets positioned in relation to those
boundaries’ (p. 2).
2018-01-01T00:00:00ZThe Gender Implications of the Immigration Regulations of South Africa on “career wives” : An African Feminist Perspective
https://hdl.handle.net/10500/20075
The Gender Implications of the Immigration Regulations of South Africa on “career wives” : An African Feminist Perspective
Chisale, Sinenhlanhla Sithulisiwe
The search by South Africa for scarce skills that contribute to the economic development of the country attracted many people around the world, particularly Africa to migrate to this country for economic purposes. Among those who respond to the call for scarce skills are married men who migrate with their wives who do not qualify to apply for a scarce skills visa. This non empirical qualitative study analyses how the South African immigration regulations affects wives of migrants particularly career-wives who choose to join their husbands during migration. The broader principles of African feminism are used to analyse the gender implications of the South African immigration to career-wives who accompany their husbands on migration. Findings of this study indicate that the South African immigration policy is gender biased and overlooks the legacies of colonialism that encouraged boys to study Science and Mathematics and girls to study Arts subjects. In addition the study reveals that the South African immigration policy does not align itself with the international, regional and national instruments that promote and protect gender equality despite being signatory.
2015-06-24T00:00:00ZSuccessful ageing amongst elderly women living independently in central areas of Pretoria, South Africa
https://hdl.handle.net/10500/20002
Successful ageing amongst elderly women living independently in central areas of Pretoria, South Africa
Rabe, Marlize
Using a qualitative research approach, in-depth interviews were employed to explore the life circumstances of twelve elderly women living alone in the central areas of Pretoria, South Africa. The Pretoria central areas have been characterised by substantial demographic shifts during the past two decades, largely due to major political and concomitant socio-economic changes in South Africa. The life worlds of the research participants were analysed in order to understand how they have adapted to these changes whilst growing older. Successful ageing and the life course perspective were key theoretical constructs used in analysing the life experiences and strategies of the participants in dealing with the challenges of old age within this specific context. It was found that participants who had overcome difficult challenges in previous life stages by relying on their own resources are the most likely to adjust comfortably to the challenges of old age as well as the complexities encountered in the diverse central areas of Pretoria.
2015-12-15T00:00:00Z