News and Events

OLD News

Events September- December 2011

November 2011

Men's violence against women, gender equality policies and criminal legal reform in Sweden

23rd November 2011

Venue: CLGS Centre Common room

Time: 14.00-16.00

Speaker: Monica Burman, Department of Law Umeå university, Sweden

That Sweden score high on gender equality rankings is regarded to be the result of a combination of progressive gender equality policies and general welfare measures that promote women's advancement. But overall gender equality does not necessarily protect women against male violence. Violence against women was rather late formulated as a gender equality issue of its own compared to other issues. But since the mid 1990's, when men's violence against women was politically defined as a specific gender-equality issue related to power and women's human rights, several legislative and policy measures, especially in the area of criminal law, have been undertaken in Sweden. In the most recent Swedish gender equality policy document, men's violence against women is even presented as the most prioritized gender equality issue, together with honour related violence, prostitution and trafficking for sexual purposes. A similar development can be observed as regards feminist legal research. It was not until the mid 2000's that gender and violence became a distinct research topic in Swedish feminist legal studies.

In the seminar I will make a short presentation of the Swedish situation as regards law, policy and feminist legal research and raise some critical issues which I hope can function as starting points for a discussion. I will mainly deal with criminal law and men's violence against women in heterosexual relationships, but also touch upon some other legal areas and forms of violence such as immigration law and sexual violence. The critical issues I want to raise mainly relate to how gender equality policies have been implemented in law and the outcomes of this. My presentation will especially revolve round three aspects: (1) the ongoing difficulties in recognizing the agency of women exposed to male violence without resorting to victim blaming, (2) the lacking gendering of male perpetrators, and (3) the emerging tendency to culturalise men's violence against women.

Contact Jo Pearman for further information

Unpacking the relations between the state and the gay and lesbian movement: A comparative perspective

Wednesday 16th November 2011

Venue: EX9 (Eliot Extension)

|Time: 16:00

Speaker: David Paternotte (Fonds de la recherche scientifique/Université libre de Bruxelles)

This talk will be aimed at mapping the complex relations between the state and the lesbian and gay movement through time and space. It will address two interconnected issues: to what extent is the lesbian and gay movement influenced by the state and, to a lesser extent, whether the lesbian and gay movement has somehow influenced the state, for instance by altering forms of sexual regulation.

The talk will be based on the recent publication of the book: Manon Tremblay, David Paternotte, Carol Johnson (eds.), The Lesbian and Gay Movement and the State: Comparative Insights into a Transformed Relationship, Ashgate, 2011. See: http://www.ashgate.com/default.aspx?page=637&calctitle=1&pageSubject=412&title_id=10104&edition_id=13417

Given the diversity in national trajectories, the book confronts fifteen countries spread over the five continents. It attempts to shed light on different kinds of relationships between these groups and the state, as well as on the way they have evolved in recent decades. We will visit it to touch in discussion the role of the state in constructing citizen's identities, state-civil society relations, judicial activism, the impact of federalism, and the increasing globalization of sexual identities.

Come along and join us, all welcome! And if anyone is interested, join us for a drink afterwards at the Gulbenkian.

For information please contact Arturo Sanchez-Garcia

October 2011

Milk of Sorrow

Monday 3 October 4-6pm

Venue Grimmond LT3

Film screening in conjunction with the Centre for Critical International Law (CECIL)

All are welcome to this informal event, there will be a brief introduction, a chance to watch the movie and some time for discussion. The film is in part inspired by testimonies shared with researchers about gender and state terrorism (but isn't a straight documentary). If you are interested in joining discussions about gender, sexuality, and transitional justice/reparations or interested in film, law, Latin America or gender and sexuality please come along.

A brief introduction to the film can be found here

KCLGS Centre Introduction & Welcome

Wednesday 5 October 4-6pm

Venue Ex9 (Eliot College extension)

The Kent Centre for Law, Gender and Sexuality would like to invite you to an introductory event to meet with colleagues with shared interests. The meeting will allow the Steering Committee of KCLGS to tell you more about events planned for this year and invite attendees to talk for a couple of minutes about their research interests. This will offer a quick an easy way to find out more about the work being done at Kent and to identify possible shared interests. And refreshments will be served!

Events in 2010- 11

September 2011
Tuesday 13th and Wednesday 14th
Event: Monitoring Parents: Science, evidence, experts and the new parenting culture
To be held at the University of Kent
Organised by Parenting Culture Studies, and the Kent Centre for Law, Gender and Sexuality
MAY 2011
16th at 16:00 to 18:00
Venue EX9
Doreen Massey Seminar-
with commentary by Donatella Alessandrini, Stacy Douglas and Sarah Keenan
This event has been rearranged from December.
March
Wednesday 16th, 12-2pm , EX9
Seminar by Ponni Arasu Dara Purvis and Ivana Radacic (PECANS visitors)
For abstracts please see Visitors tab.
Wednesday 23rd, 12:00-18:00, RLT2
Diminishing Returns? Feminist Engagements with the Return to "the Commons"
A Workshop
Hosted by Kent Law School and the Kent Cenre for Law, Gender and Sexuality
Light lunch will be served.
Participants:
Rosemary Coombe (Yorke University, Presenter)
Radhika Desai (University of Manitoba, Presenter)
Denise Ferreira da Silva (QMUL, Presenter)
Nina Power (Roehampton, Presenter)
Discussants:
Donatella Alessandrini (Kent Law School, Discussant)
Brenna Bhandar (Kent Law School, Discussant)
April
Tuesday 5th, 14:00-16:00, KCLGS Common Room
Seminar by
Penny Crofts (University of Technology, Sydney)
Penny Crofts is a senior lecturer at the Faculty of Law, University of Technology, Sydney. She has been researching the legal regulation of the sex industry in NSW for a decade, and is currently completing a project analysing the influence of regulation upon the impact of brothels upon the community.
Brothels as outlaws or citizens?
In this paper Penny will consider the historical regulation of brothels as inherently disorderly and attempts by the Legislature to regulate brothels as potentially lawful businesses. Penny outlines the disadvantages associated with the continued regard and regulation by some local councils of brothels as illegal, and contrast this with the advantages associated with legalisation and regulation of the sex industry as demonstrated in some local government areas in NSW. Penny draws upon original primary research of surveys and interviews to demonstrate the positive effects of good regulation upon sex workers, clients, and the surrounding community.
February Wednesday 16th, 15:30 EX9 Seminar by Suzanne Lenon and Marcia Oliver (PECANS visitors)
Suzanne Lenon
Deep Relationality: Civil Partnerships & Forced Marriage in the UK Over the course of the last several years, law and policy makers in Britain have grappled with two seemingly unrelated human rights issues: on the one hand, extending Civil Partnership to same-sex couples followed by a rejection of the legalization of same-sex marriage; and on the other, designing a number of policy initiatives and legal reforms to tackle the issue of forced marriage, with a particular focus on the ‘overseas’ dimension and augmenting racialized immigration restrictions. The various discourses shaping these legal and policy responses are not bound by national specificity but garner meaning from and within transnational circulation of discourses of “gay rights” and “women’s rights”. In this paper, I examine the legal and policy responses to these two rights-based issues, not as discrete state projects but as mutually constituting racial and sexual formations. I highlight a relational analytic that opposes comparisons in order to foreground the racializing discourses and ideological scaffolding that conjoin them. Through an examination of Parliamentary debates over civil partnership and forced marriage, I investigate ways in which the figures of the “good gay” and the “imperiled woman” emerge through and against each other. In so doing, the paper pays specific attention to how the articulation of partnership/marriage rights for lesbians and gay men becomes complicit with racist state regulations concerning forced marriage.
Marcia Oliver Global Governance, Gender Reform, and HIV/AIDS Prevention in Uganda This paper will focus on recent developments in HIV/AIDS governance in Uganda, with a particular focus on the influence of former President George W. Bush’s global AIDS policy (otherwise known as the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief) and broader shifts in development thought toward a more ‘inclusive’ neoliberalism. Drawing on my previous fieldwork in Uganda, I will discuss the increased attention that is paid to gender inequality, poverty, and good governance mechanisms in HIV/AIDS prevention projects, some of the constraints development workers confront in implementing these projects, as well as the contested dynamics of recent gender reform initiatives in terms of advancing neoliberalism, religious-moral conservatisms, and feminist commitments to sexual and economic justice. Secondly, I will discuss some of the challenges of my research and situate these within the objectives of my upcoming research trip to Kampala in March.
Friday 18th, February 1.30pm-5.15pm, CNWsr8
Engendering Transitional Justice: Workshop
The theme of the workshop is engendering transitional justice. It will consider ways in which, notwithstanding the significant normative developments in the field of sexual violence crimes, the practice and structures of transitional justice remain gendered. Through a consideration of different sites of transitional justice practice it will examine how gendered understandings of harm and the responses thereto pervade transitional justice theory and practice and how international (criminal) law can (if at all) play a role in engendering justice in transition.
How might gender justice in transition be understood? What is a gendered understanding of transition?
Who (which actors) are best placed to deliver it/shape its development?
What role might transitional justice mechanisms (international/national) play in delivering it? What other mechanisms might deliver gender justice?
2011 January Wednesday 26th 2pm, KCLGS Common Room Seminar by Stu Marvel (PECANS visitor)
2010- September
Wednesday 15th - Thursday 16th Welfare to Work Conference
For more information, please see the website[7] or blog[8].
October
Wednesday 13th, 2pm, EX9
Natural Law Workshop[9]
Wednesday 20th, 12pm, KCLGS Common Room
Social Event
Wednesday 20th, 1pm, KCLGS Common Room
A Rough Guide to... the work of Bruno Latour
November
Wednesday 3rd, 1pm, KCLGS Common Room
Reading group on Law, Gender and Sexuality and the State
As part of a larger workshop series engaging with old and new questions of "the state", we will begin by having a reading group revisiting some key feminist texts. If you are interested in attending or would like to know more about the series of workshops on the state, please email Stacy Douglas - S.M.Douglas@kent.ac.uk.
Wednesday 17th, 1pm, KCLGS Common Room
A Rough Guide to... the Equality Act
Wednesday 24th, 1pm, KCLGS Common Room
Reading group on Doreen Massey, in preparation for her visit to Kent in December.
Please email Toni Williams[10] - if you wish to participate so that you can get the readings.
December
Thursday 2nd, 10.30-12.00pm, KLS Committe Room, Eliot Extension
Seminar by Doreen Massey
Wednesday 8th, 2pm, EX9
Seminar by Sharon Hayes[11] (Queensland University of Technology)
Programme
Speakers:
Catherine O’Rourke (Transitional Justice Institute, University of Ulster)
Addressing a Web of Gender-based Harms against Women in Transitional Justice
Drawing on empirical work conducted by the author in three different transitional contexts, the paper describes a web of gender-based harms against women, namely how public harms of political repression and conflict violence exacerbate nominally 'private' harms experienced by women, in particular domestic violence and reduced reproductive autonomy. Without collapsing the distinction between public and private harms in transitional justice, this empirical work provides the basis of a theoretical and legal argument for transitional justice to address a web of public and private harms against women in periods of transition, drawing in particular on more recent human rights innovations around due diligence requirements of states in respect of 'private' violence against women and reproductive rights infringements.
Diana Sankey (University of Kent)
Deprivations of Subsistence Needs, Gendered Harms and the Limited Scope of Transitional Justice
The paper argues that while transitional justice has begun to acknowledge some gendered harms, it has so far failed to reflect the range of harms experienced by women, in particular the significance of deprivations of subsistence needs and ongoing socio-economic forms of violence. It discusses the nature of such deprivations in terms of the relationship between existing gender inequalities, underlying socio-economic inequalities and the gendered experience of these deprivations. The paper argues that it is important to understand both women's vulnerability to harms centred on deprivations of subsistence needs and their agency in coping with and resisting the experience of such harms. It concludes that engendering transitional justice would require much greater focus on both the range of harms experienced by women in situations of conflict and repression and on the ongoing forms of violence which women experience in transitional societies. Such a shift would therefore require a move away from the current focus on short-term political transition, towards a broader goal of promoting longer-term societal transformation.
Sari Kouvo (International Centre for Transitional Justice)
Poor Weapons for a Rough War: Gender and Transitional Justice in Afghanistan
The presentation will focus on how gender has been (or not) mainstreamed into transitional justice processes, exemplified with a case study on gender and transitional justice in Afghanistan.
Annie Bunting (York University, Canada)
Forced Marriage in Conflict Situations: Insights from the History of Slavery and Prosecuting Gender Crimes
In this paper, I will discuss the phenomenon of "forced marriage" that took place during the prolonged conflicts in Sierra Leone, Liberia, Uganda, Rwanda and the DRC. With a particular focus on the recent decisions from the Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL) that found these gender violations to constitute a separate heading of crime against humanity (forced marriage) as opposed to sexual slavery, I will examine the developments in international law. Secondly, I will discuss an international research collaboration that I am directing with historians of slavery and women's human rights scholars and activists to place the decisions from the SCSL in historical and comparative context.
2009-2010
June -10 Pregnancy and Pregnancy Planning in the New Parenting Culture
We are delighted to announce that a conference, will be taking place on 22nd and 23rd June at the University of Kent. This event is supported by Parenting Cultures, the ESRC, bpas and KCLGS. Speakers include Professor Kristin Luke, Elizabeth Josselyn Boalt Professor of Law and Professor of Sociology, University of California, Berkeley and Elizabeth Armstrong, Associate Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs, Princeton University. Some information is available here
Further details will be available in March. The cost of the event will be £120 for 2 days and £80 for 1 day (with subsidised tickets at £25 for students). If you would like to pre-reserve a place please email us.
May-10
Thursday 13th, 4pm, W1-SR6 - 'It’s not about a them and an us’- Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Trans activism in Brighton and Hove beyond oppositional politics.
Speakers: Kath Browne and Leela Baski.
Contemporary English social and governmental structures set up contexts that have to some extent legislated for LGBT equalities. This necessitates a conceptualisation of how activism can operate beyond oppositional politics to pursue social justice agendas. Cooper’s (2009) assertion of ‘alternormativity’ can help to conceptualise how processes other than oppositional political engagements can effect social change and contribute to achieving social justice. Activism and social movements can be conceptualised within an oppositional mode of thinking, where enemies need to be found and challenged. However, where power is considered in terms of complicity, such politics can be uncomfortable at best. LGBT community political activism is not only or always about protest and resistance. This paper explores activism that works with, rather than against, service providers, policy makers and those ‘in power’. This has occurred in Brighton & Hove to such an extent that in recent years there has been little or no evidence of political action that operates within oppositional modes of engagement. This paper charts the original Count Me In research, undertaken in 2000 and how this was built from and built into LGBT activism. Count Me In heralded the formation of Spectrum (the local LGBT community forum), as well as placing LGBT needs on the table for LGBT and mainstream services in Brighton & Hove. Tracing the history and current role of Spectrum (the LGBT forum in Brighton & Hove) in enhancing LGBT lives outside of oppositional modes of operating, the paper offers insights into the possibilities of partnership working beyond them/us divides. It then turns to explore the experiences of those who are both activists and insiders, further contesting the boundaries of them/us, activist/service provider, gay/straight.
Thursday 13th, 4pm, W1-SR6 - 'It’s not about a them and an us’- Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Trans activism in Brighton and Hove beyond oppositional politics.
Speakers: Kath Browne and Leela Baski
Contemporary English social and governmental structures set up contexts that have to some extent legislated for LGBT equalities. This necessitates a conceptualisation of how activism can operate beyond oppositional politics to pursue social justice agendas. Cooper’s (2009) assertion of ‘alternormativity’ can help to conceptualise how processes other than oppositional political engagements can effect social change and contribute to achieving social justice. Activism and social movements can be conceptualised within an oppositional mode of thinking, where enemies need to be found and challenged. However, where power is considered in terms of complicity, such politics can be uncomfortable at best. LGBT community political activism is not only or always about protest and resistance. This paper explores activism that works with, rather than against, service providers, policy makers and those ‘in power’. This has occurred in Brighton & Hove to such an extent that in recent years there has been little or no evidence of political action that operates within oppositional modes of engagement. This paper charts the original Count Me In research, undertaken in 2000 and how this was built from and built into LGBT activism. Count Me In heralded the formation of Spectrum (the local LGBT community forum), as well as placing LGBT needs on the table for LGBT and mainstream services in Brighton & Hove. Tracing the history and current role of Spectrum (the LGBT forum in Brighton & Hove) in enhancing LGBT lives outside of oppositional modes of operating, the paper offers insights into the possibilities of partnership working beyond them/us divides. It then turns to explore the experiences of those who are both activists and insiders, further contesting the boundaries of them/us, activist/service provider, gay/straight.
Monday 17th, 7.30-9.00pm, Amnesty International UK Section, The Human Rights Action Centre, 17 - 25 New Inn Yard, London EC2A 3EA - The Cotton Field Case and Femicide in Mexico
Speaker: Andrea Medina Rosas
On December 10, 2009, the day that commemorates ratification of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (Court) issued the judgement of the “Cotton Field” case, condemning the Mexican State for violating the human rights of three women who were disappeared, tortured (the Court uses the terms ‘battered’ and ‘abused’), and murdered in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, as well as for the violation of the human rights of their mothers and next of kin. Nevertheless, the sentence is not the final point in the legal process. The sentencing only marks the beginning of the next critical stage – ensuring that the orders for reparation of damages are effectively complied with. This is an opportune and important moment to adopt this sentence as a legal and political tool for reflection and action at the local, regional and international levels, with a view to make the Court’s orders a reality and also to advance beyond the Court’s decision.
April-10
Wednesday 17th, 12pm, EX9 - Joint CLGS/KLS Staff seminar
Speakers:
Andreja Zevnik
Simona Rentea
Veronique Voruz
March-10
Wednesday 17th, 2-5pm, W1- SR6 - Public Talk by David Kato on Ugandan Gay Rights
Introduction - Sokari Ekine
Criminalisation of LGBT in Sub-Saharan Africa: Cases and Responses
David Kato
Advocacy/Litigation officer at Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG) "A Matter of Life and Death: the Struggle for Ugandan Gay Rights"
Chair - Kate Bedford, Kent Law School
Followed by a Q&A Session.
Thursday 25th March, 5pm, GLT1 - Professor Moira Gatens
"Why Bother to Read George Eliot Today?"
Abstract: Before becoming a novelist, George Eliot worked as a translator, an essayist, and as an editor of the Westminster Review. In addition to translating Spinoza’s Tractatus Theologico-Politicus and the Ethica, she translated David Strauss’ Das Leben Jesu and Ludwig Feuerbach’s Das Wesen des Christentums. All three philosophers were important figures for the development of textual critique through the movement to interpret Scripture and religion in mythological, metaphorical, and anthropological terms. Although Eliot declared her loss of faith in a transcendent God when still young, as she matured she increasingly came to hold a deep respect for religious traditions. She came to understand these traditions as developmentally connected to present human life and values. The enduring presence of the past and the role of imagination and memory in forming and sustaining community are essential features of her social and moral philosophy. In this paper I offer an alternative way to understand Eliot's literary 'realism' based on her understanding of 'critique' and her 'experimental' approach to fiction writing.
January -10
Wednesday 27th January, 2-5pm EX9 - Legal History Workshop
November-09
Monday 2nd November, 3-4pm, Eliot Upper Senior Common Room - KLS Marks Equal Pay Day
See here for more details
October-09
Wednesday 14th Venue TBC - Meet the Steering Group
Lunch and informal get together - one part social and one part discussion of ideas for KCLGS activities: so please bring any and all thoughts about the kinds of events, visitors and other activities that you'd like to see and that the K-CLGS steering group could help to facilitate.
Please contact Sarah Slowe to confirm attendance (numbers needed for catering)
Thursday 22nd October, 1-2pm CLGS Common Room - An Introductory guide to the Proposal to Place Teenage Mothers in a Network of Supervised Homes

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