CALL FOR PAPERS for a conference at the University of the Western Cape, Cape
Town, South Africa, 19 - 22 January 2005.

Writing African Women

- Poetics and Politics of African Gender Research -

The conference is organized in the context of the Sexuality, Gender and
Society in Africa programme at the Nordic Africa Institute, Uppsala, Sweden

The aim of this three-day conference is to facilitate discussion on a range
of
subjects relating to the critical study of gendered subjects, relationships
and discourses in Africa. The conference seeks to address two main obstacles
to critical gender research in the contemporary African political and
academic
environment:  On one hand, the conference will critically confront the
growing
backlash against feminism in contemporary Africa, a backlash associated
especially with a resurgence of traditionalism and the argument that
feminism
is un-African.  On the other hand, by drawing on critical theories and
interdisciplinary approaches, papers will challenge the predominance of
atomised and sector-specific gender work that is being actively encouraged
by
neo-liberalism, the hegemony of Gender-and-Development paradigms and donor
prescriptions.

We are interested in the ways in which gender aspects of African societies -
often rooted in assumptions regarding patriarchal African traditions on one
hand and in Western Enlightenment-based notions of gender equality on the
other - are constituted by states, donor agencies, NGOs etc - and by
researchers. We are concerned, critically, with strands in African studies
and certain NGO practices that summarily denounce everything
ostensibly 'traditionally African' as detrimental to women. We are equally
concerned about Afrocentric approaches that have emerged in response to the
above-mentioned perspectives; the re-enchantment of tradition and the
propagation of imaginaries drawing on a mythical African
past appear to be not much more than yet another attempt at asserting
African
otherness through romanticisation. Against these binary, yet complementary,
conceptualisations of Africa as 'unique', the conference aspires to
investigate new ways of theorizing women's and men's lives in Africa, in
modes which may also enhance the outlook and deepen the understanding of
gendered lives elsewhere.

THEMES

THE CONSTRUCTION OF GENDER IN ACADEMIC AND POPULAR KNOWLEDGE

The prominent traditional/modern cleavage in much of African gender research
may be attributed to the mutually constitutive nature of academic and
popular
discourses. The conference aims to take a critical and careful look at the
complicity of researchers and informants respectively in the ongoing
construction of academic and cultural knowledge, and social practices of
gender. How are these parts interconnected discursively and practically?
What
are the implications of power imbalances between the different players? How
has gender been constructed in the 'long conversation' between missionaries,
colonial administrators and local men and women? How did men and women in
pre-
colonial Africa think about gender - if they thought in those terms at all?
Which cultural discourses on gender have been appropriated in specific
historical, social and geographical locations, which have been appropriated
piecemeal and which have been rejected? How is gender currently constituted
in the discourses used by states, donors, religious representatives, civil
society organizations etc - and by 'grass root' men and women? Which are the
lessons from feminist re-interpretations of 'tradition'? Also in the context
of this theme we would like to see some critical attention directed at the
parts played by applied social science approaches to constructions of
gender,
such as Gender-and-Development studies or medical anthropology.

MULTIPLE/SITUATIONAL IDENTITIES

This theme aims to explore the multiplicity of identities in the historical
and contemporary African experience. Historically, how has gender been
constituted and how is it currently mediated in relation to other forms of
identity? What are the connections between subjectivities, multiple cultural
discourses and gendered identities in specific social situations? Recent
feminist research, in the wake of the criticisms of early feminist writings
that universalised gender, has focused increasingly on the contextual ways
in
which gendered identities and relations are played out. How do, in these
contexts, issues of power come into play? How is it possible in studies of
multiple identities to take not only discourses, but also embodied practices
into consideration? By exploring discussions on, among other subjects,
masculinities, gay and lesbian identities, heterosexism, and the social and
discursive constructions of gendered identities within different sites and
through a range of social and cultural practices, the conference aims to
generate debate about what 'gender' in African and other contexts means.

 REVISIONING GENDERED KNOWLEDGES

 Fresh critical interest in African women's writing and cultural production,
and the growing interest in the politics and imaginative force of this
production presents important challenges in terms of investigating how
women's knowledges can contest power. To what extent have, for example,
theatre and oral performance, fiction and artwork, as well as African
women's
traditional forms of cultural expression (eg oral poetry) provided knowledge
that talks back to dominant discourses? How do audiences engage with
gendered
meanings in different cultural texts (such as soap opera or romance fiction)
and create subversive knowledges that read against the grain of dominant
gendered meanings? In what way does everyday cultural behaviour, manifested,
for example, in cooking practices, dress styles, the performative codes of
African youth subcultures etc, work to unsettle dominant discourses of
gender, and to constitute sites for exploring marginal forms of knowledge?
This theme aims to explore the visionary and imaginative power of marginal
knowledges, as expressed in social practices as well as in cultural
production.

 TOPICS

The organizers invite proposals for papers on any aspect of gender research
related to African contexts, provided that they touch on the conference
themes. We are interested in theorizing which is located in real historical
time and space, drawing on the ethnography, historiography, literature and
cultural research of Southern, East, West and North Africa. Hence, we
encourage papers that emphasise epistemological and methodological
perspectives as well as those based on empirical studies.

Among topics of interest are the following: New historical and contemporary
perspectives on matriliny, on rituals, on women's movements and activism,
and
on citizenship. Discussions of sexualities, masculinities, motherhood and
fatherhood, etc. Investigations regarding food, clothing, orature and
literature, popular and public cultures, memory, music and performance, etc.

Signe Arnfred, The Nordic Africa Institute, Sweden
Heike Becker, University of the Western Cape, South Africa.
Desiree Lewis, Cape Town, South Africa

Deadline for proposals, 15 Sept 2004

Proposals should include a title, abstract (approximately 250 words), name
and
institutional affiliation of the presenter/s.

Proposals should be sent by e-mail, fax or post to

Signe Arnfred, [log in to unmask], fax: + 46  18 56 22 90, post: The
Sexuality,Gender and Society on Africa programme, the Nordic Africa
Institute,PO box 1703, 75 147 Uppsala, Sweden

Notifications regarding selection of proposals by Oct 1,

deadline for final papers, 15 Dec 2004

The conference is free of charge; accommodation and food in Cape Town will
be
provided for all presenters. Travel for African participants will be funded,
while participants from elsewhere are encouraged to seek their own funding
for
travel.