CentreLGS Conference: Theorising Intersectionality
Saturday 21 - Sunday 22 May 2005 @ Keele University
Abstracts:
To view participants abstracts, please click on the alphabetical
links below (abstracts are listed by surname), or download
the full list of abstracts in Microsoft Word format.
A - B
| C - D
| E - G
| H - J
| K | L
- P | Q
- R | S
| T - V
| W - Z
Maria Helena Karma
University of Helsinki, Finland
Paper Title: 'Feminst Knowledge, Normativity
and Legal Interpretation’
Abstract: Maria Drakopoulou (2000) has
argued that the modern epistemological foundation has
caused major problems for the very possibility of the
normative feminist knowledge and the feminist political
project. She suggests that women’s emancipated legal
project has reached its limits due to the insoluble problems
caused by the subjectivist epistemology.
In my presentation, I firstly would like to continue
the discussion of the problems of the subjectivist epistemology
and feminist legal thinking in the context of legal application
and imputation in criminal trials. I examine whether it
could be possible to overcome the modern epistemological
problems with the aid of postmodern identity theory and
discourse analytical reading of legal texts. I approach
the question of imputation by rejecting the liberal subject
and free will, and the caring subject shaped by ethic
of care.
Secondly, in postmodern theorizing (e.g. Butler 1990),
analytical identity categories have been conceived of
as signifying practices that define rules which regulate
the possibilities of knowledge and agency. With the aid
of this theoretical basis, I would like to discuss about
the problems that might be caused by our choosing of analytical
distinctions of discourse analysis.
Drakopoulou, M., 'The Ethic of Care, Female Subjectivity
and Feminist Legal Scholarship', Feminist Legal Studies
8 (2000), 199-226.
Butler, J.,'Gender Trouble. Feminism and the Subversion
of Identity' (New York: Routledge 1999 (1990)), 221 pp.
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Eunjung Kim
University of Illinois, USA
Paper Title: 'Undividable Bodies: Symbiotic Relationships
among Marginalised Identities in Post war Korea'
Abstract: The proposed presentation
explores the "intersectionality" among sexuality,
gender, race and disability in the context of mid twentieth
century postwar Korean culture. This study performs its
analysis with reference to disability studies which focuses
on the construction of disability in order to reveal the
inscribed stories upon human bodies as a social and historical
entity. It will also draw upon the limiting formulations
of single identity politics in which bodily experiences
are often dissected into discursive and disciplinary divisions.
Addressing the problematic nature of the term "intersection,"
which is the assumption of separate trajectories of identities,
I will attempt to suggest symbiotic relationship of the
categorical constructions of marginality and to forward
the attention to the undividable nature of bodily experiences.
I will argue that modern othering strategies often situate
gender, disability, race, and sexuality as interdependent
coordinates of marginalization based on the analyses of
post-colonial short stories on the United Stated army
presence, "Wonsaek Ottugi" (Colorful Toy) and
"Taeyang-eui Yusan" (Inheritance of the Sun)
depicting the births of biracial children and their stigmatization
process as disabled through the pre-constituted and gendered
rules of sexuality of prostitution.
*******************
Jane Krishnadas
Keele University, UK
Paper Title: 'From Recognition to Reflections;
an analysis of the role of right in constructing identities'
Abstract: In this paper I trace how
women’s identities were constructed through rights
in the post-earthquake reconstruction process, Maharashtra
India. I trace the construction of ‘woman’
as intersecting age, familial, caste, religious and ethnic
identities through my analysis of the World Bank and State
Government Policy, NGO research and programmes, public
and private legislation, non-formal legal spheres and
local women’s organising.
I argue that the reduction of ‘woman’s’
identity into the fixed constructs of the policy or legal
subject actively constructs a hierarchical and static
identity, constitutive and dependent upon the ‘other’
race, class, caste, and religion; historically constructed
by and which perpetuate patriarchy within social reconstruction
processes. Intersectionality may only broaden the individual
identification of woman, limiting the plurality and common
grounds of women’s identities and struggles. Through
the experience of women’s organising, I explore
a rights bearing ideology which moves from the individual,
process of recognition to the multiple and mutual process
of reflection.
*******************
Christian Klesse
Keele University, UK
Paper Title: 'Female Bisexual Non-Monogamies
and Differentialist Anti-Promiscuity Discourses'
Abstract: Popular discourses on bisexuality
assume a peculiar interrelation between bisexuality and
non-monogamy. Drawing upon a qualitative research in gay
male and bisexual non-monogamies in the UK, this article
explores bisexual women’s accounts on the effects
of promiscuity allegations on non-monogamous sexual and
relationship practice. Due to the prominence of gender
as a differentialising factor in the discourses on promiscuity,
to be publicly known as bisexual and non-monogamous tends
to have particularly stigmatising effects on women. The
issue is further complicated by the intersection of promiscuity
discourses with discourses on race/ethnicity and class.
The regimes of violence that go hand in hand with the
stigmatisation through promiscuity allegations police
women’s sexual behaviour make it more risky for
women of certain positioning to move and socialise in
sex-positive subcultural scenes and spaces.
*******************
Ayça Kurtoglu
Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey
Paper Title: Whose Equality Is It? The Gender
Politics of The State and Feminism in Turkey
Abstract: There have been significant
developments towards the achievement of equality between
men and women by the influence of second wave feminism
in Turkey. In spite of this, this paper focuses on the
relevant laws and looks critically at what has been achieved
by legal amendments in the light of concerns developed
by the literature on intersectionality. While accepting
the importance of the legal amendments, made under the
influence of feminist groups in the last two decades,
and the achievement of equality between men and women,
this paper claims that the equality achieved through the
legal amendments means in reality equality for and between
middle-class, heterosexual and formally married men and
women. In order to substantiate the claim, the paper focuses
on the family law, the law for the elimination of violence
within the family and the penal code and shows that the
amendments not only ignores the presence of both many
women (those who have no or little education, who do not
belong to the dominant culture, who are not married and
who are not heterosexual) and other cultural practises
and social conditions that influence many people’s
lives more than the state-made laws, but also superimposes
an understanding of equality which favours middle-classes.
Secondly, the paper will connect the path and the pace
of the changes in the laws to both the identity politics
of the state at both national and international levels,
and the politics of feminism in Turkey. Finally, the paper
will have three suggestions: First, the policy- and decision-makers
should take the variety of inequalities among women into
consideration. Secondly both the identity politics of
the state and the politics of feminism must be read more
critically. Lastly, if an aim of the legal amendments
is to eliminate inequalities, then feminist groups should
pay more attention to unequal positions of women both
within the category of women and among and within other
social categories, and incorporate their problems in overall
feminist politics.
