Race and sexual politics
H Johnson
8 points
* 3 hours per week
* First semester
* Clayton
*
Prerequisites: First-year sequence in anthropology or women's studies or
permission of head
Objectives This subject aims to introduce students to a comparative anthropological/sociological and historical grounding in how racial, sexual and cultural stereotypes are constructed and manifested in a range of discourses past and present (eg AIDS, sex-tourism in South East Asia, European colonial images of colonised peoples); introduce students to a range of feminist, post-colonial and anthropological/sociological theories of racial, sexual and cultural difference, race and sexual discrimination, and the nature of knowledge itself; encourage in students an ability to reflect upon and be critically aware of their individual and collective relationships to the topics pursued in the subject and to others of relevance to them; enhance students' confidence in expressing their ideas in oral and written form and utilising the critical, conceptual and theoretical insights studied in the subject.
Synopsis This subject explores the construction of the `other' - that is, identity construction by way of racial, sexual and gendered self-identification and stereotyping in contemporary and colonial cultures. It does this by examining how social identities are constructed and manifested in a range of discourses (eg HIV/AIDS, sex-tourism of South East Asia, colonial images of colonised peoples). It encourages students to look for the links between race and sexual categories of difference and those of gender, class, ethnicity and nationality. Students are introduced to a range of feminist, post-colonial and anthropological theories of racial, sexual and cultural difference, race and sexual violence, and the nature of knowledge itself.
Assessment Written (5000 words): 70%
* Examination (1 hour): 20%
* Participation: 10%
Recommended texts
Frankenberg R White women, race matters: The social construction of whiteness University of Minnesota Press, 1993
Harding S Whose science? Whose knowledge? Thinking from women's lives Open U P, 1991
Hooks B Ain't I a woman: Black women and feminism South End Press, 1981
Hooks B Feminist theory: From margin to center South End Press, 1984
Pettman J Living in the margins: Racism, sexism and feminism in Australia Allen and Unwin, 1992
Ramazanoglu C Feminism and the contradictions of oppression Routledge, 1989
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