The Critical Methods Collective
Critical Methods Conferences
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University of Natal, Durban Below are the programme and call for papers for the 7th annual qualitative/critical methods conference - "hidden genders". See the conferences page for details about conferences before and after this one. POGRAMME Women and Gender in SA: round table discussion Gender Studies at UND since 1991: a reflection and assessment Postmodern genders
South African women
Gay and transsexual identities
Constructions of femininity and the body
Masculinities
The body
Religion
CALL FOR PAPERS Delicately balanced between past and future, between Africa and the West, between the homophobic rantings of uber-patriarch Bob Mugabe and the post-feminist professional ditz of Ally McBeal, something seems to have gone awry. While the new constitution proclaims gender equality, unrepentant religious fundamentalists defend the subordination of women and denounce the lives of gays. A history of political struggle is invoked to alternately defend the rights of sexual minorities or to assert the authority of an authentic African culture of heterosexual male power. White men feel emasculated by affirmative action, rape has become a media event, ETV is looking for a new super-bitch, and every day another 1000 South African women are infected with HIV. While gender equity has emerged as a powerful political force, it often takes the idea of gender for granted, presupposing that there are two clearly identifiable genders, each with its own distinctive features, roles, social positions and problems. But if gender is socially constructed, then changing times can produce can also produce changing genders. Instead of assuming men and women, it is possible to ask what genders are coming into existence, how they are internalised as identities, how they work as social categories. We can thus ask: what are the hidden and emerging genders of contemporary South Africa, what are the forces constructing them, the victories they embody, and crises the produce? What is QM? The Qualitative Methods conference series was started as a dissident movement within psychology concerned about some of the limitations of the discipline. Qualitative Methods was asserted against the dominance of scientific methods in Psychology which were creating less interesting lines of investigation that the critical theoretical work emerging in the broader humanities. The conference deliberately seeks to undermine the division between Psychology and other social studies, between the academy and other forms of inquiry such as the performing arts, and to oppose the tendency of psychology to understand the individual by investigating their internal processes rather than their place in the social world. The conferences are thus defined by their themes rather than a discipline, and aims to be incluse rather than exclusive, providing intellectual space for critical work which might not otherwise be at home within traditional academic boundaries. We thus call for contributions of all kinds related to the conference theme. Proposals to be submitted by June 16, to: genders at nu.ac.za Gender Studies, University of Natal, Durban, 4001, South Africa phone +(27) (31) 260-2915 (mornings) fax +(27) (31) 260-1519 CONFERENCE WEB SITE: Hidden Genders Collective Sylvester Rankhotha UND Gender Studies Derek Hook Wits Psychology |