Sexuality

Citation:

Drummond, Lisa. 2006. “Gender in Post-Doi Moi Vietnam: Women, Desire, and Change.” Gender, Place & Culture 13 (3): 247–50.

Author: Lisa Drummond

Abstract:

On the eve of doi moi's twentieth anniversary, this group of papers examines the impact of ‘economic renovation’ on the lives of Vietnam's women. Economically, the transformation is unarguable. Socially, the impacts have been as deep, but more uneven and possibly less predictable. These four papers examine different aspects of contemporary Vietnamese women's experience through the lens of desire: mothers confronting the age-old desire for sons under the government's small-family policy, young women's desire to explore sexuality in the strict moral environment of the countryside, piece-workers' desire for better conditions and better lives but unable to mobilize their proletarian class position in a socialist regime, and the desire of authors to evoke women's war-time roles to create a shared national remembrance of suffering, sacrifice, and loss. In their diverse ways, these papers offer unusual insights and rare glimpses into the lives of women in post-doi moi Vietnam.

Topics: Civil Society, Class, Economies, Gender, Women, Political Economies, Post-Conflict, Sexuality Regions: Asia, Southeast Asia Countries: Vietnam

Year: 2006

Citation:

Oswin, Natalie. 2007. “The End of Queer (as We Knew It): Globalization and the Making of a Gay-Friendly South Africa.” Gender, Place & Culture 14 (1): 93–110. doi:10.1080/09663690601122358.

Author: Natalie Oswin

Abstract:

In J. K. Gibson-Graham's The End of Capitalism (as we knew it), the authors (Julie Graham and Katherine Gibson) provocatively deploy queer theory to further their project of telling non-capitalist stories of globalization. In short, they reject the narrative that globalization is always and only penetrative in the hope that global capital will ‘lose its erection’ and ‘other openings’ in the body of capitalism can be considered. I adopt their strategy of looking at stories of globalization. But, while they are concerned with the homophobia of economic theorizing, I consider the gay-friendly discourse of post-apartheid South Africa. Recent expressions of official tolerance by various nation-states around the globe have been dismissed as the mere appropriation of difference by hegemonic forces. Against such interpretations, I look at the ways in which the inclusion of ‘sexual orientation’ in post-apartheid South Africa's constitutional Equality Clause can instead be read as a queer globalization. Based on this reading, I problematize the presumption that queer globalizations take place beyond the realm of the hegemonic and point to the need for queer theorists to think through the political ramifications of homosexuality's repositioning as saviour rather than scapegoat of certain nation-states.

Keywords: globalization, queer theory, South Africa, post-apartheid, homosexuality

Topics: Civil Society, Democracy / Democratization, Gender, Women, Gendered Discourses, Globalization, Governance, Constitutions, LGBTQ, Post-Conflict, Sexuality Regions: Africa, Southern Africa Countries: South Africa

Year: 2007

Citation:

Fluri, Jennifer. 2011. “Armored Peacocks and Proxy Bodies: Gender Geopolitics in Aid/Development Spaces of Afghanistan.” Gender, Place & Culture 18 (4): 519–36. 

Author: Jennifer Fluri

Abstract:

This article examines embodied geopolitics in Afghanistan by way of gender roles and relations among and between international workers and Afghan recipients of international information, aid, development and (in)security. My analysis is theoretically situated within critical feminist geographies and includes empirical data collected from qualitative surveys, interviews, focus groups and observations of Afghans and international workers in Kabul, Afghanistan (2006–2008). There is a significant and growing number of scholarly feminist critiques of and debates over the US-led international coalition's gendered approach to ‘saving’ Afghanistan from the Taliban. This article seeks to add to these studies by discussing these geopolitical encounters at the scale of bodily interactions. Specifically, it discusses how gendered freedom and savior fantasies illustrate spatial practices of othering through exclusion and intimacy, before turning to how these are enacted through representation, behavior, mobility and sexuality.

Keywords: feminist geopolitics, Afghanistan, gender politics, aid/development, sex work, conflict

Topics: Armed Conflict, Combatants, Development, Feminisms, Gender, Women, Gender Roles, Gender Analysis, Gendered Power Relations, Humanitarian Assistance, International Organizations, NGOs, Security, Human Security, Sexuality Regions: Asia, South Asia Countries: Afghanistan

Year: 2011

Citation:

Rokvić, Vanja, and Svetlana Stanarević. 2016. “Toward Gender and LGBT Equality in the Serbian Armed Forces.” Women’s Studies International Forum 55 (March): 26–34.

Authors: Vanja Rokvić , Svetlana Stanarević

Annotation:

This article focuses on gender equality in the Serbian Armed Forces (SAF), discussing both gender equality and sexual orientation equality (LGBT equality). Based on the examination of researches and other data, this article concludes that despite the positive shifts granting women the right to military education and professional military service, women continue to be a minority in the SAF. The article further concludes that while there is no official discriminatory policy as regards the admission of members of the LGBT population to the armed forces in Serbia, the few researches into this issue have revealed deeply ingrained views according to which the presence of homosexuals in the armed forces compromises cohesion and leads to unit conflict and division. Finally, the article concludes that a social context ruled by stereotypes and negative attitudes is not conducive to creating conditions for equal opportunity for all, regardless of sex, sexual orientation or gender identity, and that it will take a time before complete equality and diversity are attained in the SAF -Elsevier

Topics: Gender, Women, Men, Gender Roles, LGBTQ, Livelihoods, Sexual Livelihoods, Military Forces & Armed Groups, Militaries, Sexuality Regions: Europe, Balkans, Eastern Europe Countries: Serbia

Year: 2016

Citation:

Akawa, Martha, and Bience Gawanas. 2014. The Gender Politics of the Namibian Liberation Struggle. Basel Namibia Studies Series 13. Basel, Switzerland: Basler Afrika Bibliographien.

Authors: Martha Akawa, Bience Gawanas

Annotation:

Contents

Preface by Advocate Bience Gawanas

Acknowledgments

Introduction

1. "There can be no national liberation without the full participation of women": The role and position of women in the liberation struggle

2. Idealized struggle? Public and Visual Representations of Women

3. Women and the SWAPO Refugee Camps

4. Sexual Politics in the Camps

5. Education and Training

6. "All has not been won. Not everything has been lost": Women in post-independent Namibia

Epilogue

Abbreviations

List of Illustrations and Maps

Bibliography

Index

Topics: Armed Conflict, Displacement & Migration, Refugees, Gender, Femininity/ies, Political Participation, Sexual Violence, Rape, Sexual Exploitation and Abuse, Sexuality, Violence Regions: Africa, Southern Africa Countries: Namibia

Year: 2014

Citation:

Author: Kopano Ratele

Abstract:

Based on two relatively well-reported cases of homophobia in Malawi and South Africa, this article aims to show some of the ways in which hegemonic African men and masculinities are unsettled by, but also find ideological use for, the existence of homosexuality and nonheteronormative sexualities. Deploying the notion of psychopolitics, the article traces the interpenetrating psychosocial and sociopolitical aspects of homophobia. The argument is that analyses of issues of lesbian, gay, and “othered” sexualities are vital for a fuller understanding of the production of hegemonic forms of gender and masculinity in Africa. The article suggests that the threat posed by homosexuality is used as a distraction for some of the socioeconomic development-related failures of Africa’s ruling men but also, more significantly, for the impossibility of hegemonic African masculinity itself. 

Keywords: homophobia, homosexuality, heteronormative, heterosexual, masculinities

Topics: Gender, Men, Masculinity/ies, LGBTQ, Sexuality Regions: Africa, Southern Africa Countries: Malawi

Year: 2014

Citation:

Pratt, Nicola. “Reconceptualizing Gender, Reinscribing Racial–Sexual Boundaries in International Security: The Case of UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on ‘Women, Peace and Security.’” International Studies Quarterly 57, no. 4 (December 1, 2013): 772–83. doi:10.1111/isqu.12032.

Author: Nicola Pratt

Abstract:

The gendered boundaries of international security, historically identified by feminist scholarship, are being broken down since the passage of UN Security Council Resolution 1325, which calls on member states to mainstream a gender perspective into matters of conflict and peacebuilding. However, we should not read this as a positive step toward the transformation of the lives of women (and men) in conflict zones. Reading 1325 and subsequent resolutions through a postcolonial feminist lens reveals that this reconceptualization of gender occurs through a reinscription of racial–sexual boundaries, evocative of the political economy of imperialism. An examination of the discourses and practices of the “war on terror” exposes a similar configuration of gender, race, and sexuality. I argue that 1325 works in tandem with dominant security practices and discourses in the post-9/11 moment, normalizing the violence of counterterrorism and counterinsurgency measures. Understanding the significance of race and sexuality in the conceptualization of gender has implications for transnational feminist praxis and its ability to construct a counter-hegemonic project to transform the dominant structures of power that give rise to war, conflict, insecurity, and injustice.

Topics: Armed Conflict, Feminisms, Gender, Women, Men, Peacebuilding, Political Economies, Race, Security, UN Security Council Resolutions on WPS, UNSCR 1325, Sexuality

Year: 2013

Citation:

Author: Sandra Ponzanesi

Annotation:

Topics: Armed Conflict, Citizenship, Class, Coloniality/Post-Coloniality, Displacement & Migration, Forced Migration, Refugee/IDP Camps, Gender, Globalization, Humanitarian Assistance, Justice, Transitional Justice, Post-Conflict, Post-Conflict Reconstruction, Race, Peacekeeping, Religion, Sexuality, Trafficking, Violence Regions: Europe

Year: 2014

Citation:

Author: Paul Amar

Abstract:

Topics: Democracy / Democratization, Development, Economies, Gender, Gender Analysis, Security, Human Security, Sexuality Regions: Africa, MENA, North Africa, Americas, South America, Middle East Countries: Brazil, Egypt

Year: 2013

Citation:

Weber, Cynthia. “Queer Intellectual Curiosity as International Relations Method: Developing Queer International Relations Theoretical and Methodological Frameworks.” International Studies Quarterly 60, no. 1 (March 1, 2016): 11–23. doi:10.1111/isqu.12212.

Author: Cynthia Weber

Abstract:

This article outlines two theoretical and methodological approaches that take a queer intellectual curiosity about figurations of “homosexuality” and “the homosexual” as their core. These offer ways to conduct international relations (IR) research on “the homosexual” and on international relations figurations more broadly, for example, from “the woman” to “the human rights holder.” The first approach provides a method for analyzing figurations of “the homosexual” and sexualized orders of IR that are inscribed in IR as either normal or perverse. The second approach offers instructions on how to read plural figures and plural logics that signify as normal and/or perverse (and which might be described as queer). Together, they propose techniques, devices, and research questions to investigate singular and plural IR figurations—including but not exclusively those of “the homosexual”—that map international phenomena as diverse as colonialism, human rights, and the formation of states and international communities in ways that exceed IR survey research techniques that, for example, incorporate “the homosexual” into IR research through a “sexuality variable.”

Topics: Gender, Women, International Law, International Human Rights, LGBTQ, Rights, Human Rights, Sexuality

Year: 2016