Family, gender and sexuality
2-credit course, Winter Term 2017
Rita Béres-Deák
The topic of family and kinship has been central to both feminist activism and gender studies. On the one hand, gender inequalities within the family have often been the target of feminist critique and analysis. On the other hand, recent developments in society and technology (such as assisted reproduction techniques, transnational families or same-sex parenting) have challenged formerly unquestioned assumptions about the nature of family, including ones related to gender and sexuality. Such developments have also caused heated debates on the social and political levels, with worries about the ‘decline of the family’, ethical issues regarding assisted reproduction and adoption, and new concepts and communities formed in response to new family forms.
This course is aimed at giving a general overview of approaches to family from a feminist perspective, with special focus on gender and sexuality. It strives to dismantle taken-for-granted assumptions about the family, explore its less widely acknowledged forms, and explore how it is influenced by gender, sexuality, race, and mainstream institutions such as the state or market forces. It is especially, but not exclusively, aimed at MA students whose research topic is in some way related to family or kinship.
Most of the readings come from the field of social sciences. While they include some basic theoretical texts, many of them are case studies. The latter give opportunity for students to analyze given phenomena or cultures from a gender perspective, and also provide examples for analyzing primary material, possibly useful for those who are going to base their term paper or thesis on fieldwork.
During the course, each student must give a short (10-15 minute) presentation of a chosen text in class, which includes a short summary of the text, the student’s personal reflections on the topic (based on her/his own experience or readings) and its relevance to her/his MA thesis topic. Students may choose this text from among the course material (in which case they present on the class when we discuss their text) or choose another one relevant to their research topic (the teacher is available for help in making this choice). In the latter case the student must present on one of the last classes of term. Students can also suggest for these two classes topics that have not been (adequately) covered during the rest of the course.
At the end of term students must submit a 10-15-page term paper one week after the end of term. This paper can be either a literature review connected to a given topic in the field of kinship studies (which may, of course, be connected to the student’s research topic) or the analysis of some primary material related to family (literary or media text, material collected during fieldwork) from a feminist perspective, based on the issues discussed during the course.
Learning outcomes: TBC
Assessment:
Active class participation: 25%
In-class presentation: 30%
Term paper: 45%
Readings (to be finalized)
- Gender and kinship
Scheffler, Harold W. (2004 [1973]): Sexism and Naturalism in the Study of Kinship.In Parkin, Robert – Linda Stone eds.: Kinship and Family. An Anthropological Reader. Malden-Oxford-Carlton: Blackwell. Pp. 294-308.
Collier, Jane Fishburne-Sylvia Junko Yanagisako (1987): Toward a Unified Analysis of Gender and Kinship. In Collier, Jane Fishburne-Sylvia Junko Yanagisako eds.: Gender and Kinship. Essays Toward a Unified Analysis. Stanford: Stanford University Press (pp. 14-35.)
- Gender roles in the family
Tilly, Louise A. – Joan W. Scott (1987): Women, Work and Family. New York and London: Routledge (pp. 227-232)
Di Leonardo, Micaela (1992): The Female World of Cards and Holidays: Women, Families and the Work of Kinship. In Thorne, Barrie and Marilyn Yalom eds.: Rethinking the Family. Some Feminist Questions. Boston: Northeastern University Press. pp. 246-261.
Hochschild, Arlie Russell (2003 [1989]):The Second Shift. London: Penguin Books. (pp. 35-62)
- Intersectional analysis of gender, race, sexuality and kinship
Stewart, Michael (1997): The Time of the Gypsies. Oxford – Boulder: Westview Press (extract) OR
Stack, Carol (1974): All Our Kin.New York: Basic Books (extract)
Sinnott, Megan (2007): Gender Subjectivity: Dees and Toms in Thailand. In Wieringa, Saskia E., Evelyn Blackwood and Abha Baiya (eds.): Women’s Sexualities and Masculinities in a Globalizing Asia. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Pp. 119-138.
Padavic, Irene and Jonniann Butterfield (2011): Mothers, Fathers and “Mathers”: Negotiating a Lesbian Co-Parental Identity. Gender and Society25. pp. 176-196.
- The family and the state 1: definition of family
Weeks, Jeffrey (1995 [1991]): Pretended Family Relationships in Weeks: Against Nature. Essays on History, Sexuality and identity. London: Rivers Oram Press, pp. 134-157.
Maurer, Bill (1996): The Land, the Law and Legitimate Children: Thinking through Gender, Kinship and Nation in the British Virgin Islands. In Maynes, Mary Jo, Ann Waltner, Birgitte Soland and Ulrike Strasser eds.: Gender, Kinship and Power.A Comparative and Interdisciplinary History. New York – London: Routledge, pp. 351-364.
- The family and the state 2: reproduction
Kligman, Gail (1998): The Politics of Duplicity. Controlling Reproduction in Ceausescu’s Romania. Berkeley-Los Angeles-London: University of California Press (pp. 71-87)
Melhuus, Marit and Signe Howell (2009): Adoption and Assisted Conception: One Universe of Unnatural Procreation. An Examination of Norwegian Legislation. In Edwards, Jeanette and Charles Salazar: European Kinship in the Age of Biotechnology. New York-Oxford: Berghahn Books. Pp. 144-161
- New developments in kinship: transnationalism
Erel, Umut (2002): Reconceptualizing Motherhood: Experiences of Migrant Women from Turkey Living in Germany. In Bryceson, Deborah-Ulla Vuorela: The Transnational Family. New European Frontiers and Global Networks. Oxford-New York: Berg Pp. 127-146.
Howell, Signe (2001): Self-Conscious Kinship: Some Contested Values in Norwegian Transnational Adoption. in Franklin-McKinnon eds.: Relative Values. Reconfiguring Kinship Studies. Durham-London: Duke UP. Pp. 203-223.
- New developments in kinship: assisted reproduction technologies
Hayden, Corinne P. (2004): Gender, Genetics and Generation: Reformulating Biology. Lesbian Kinship. In Robert Parkin and Linda Stone eds.: Kinship and Family. An Anthropological Reader. Boston: Blackwell. pp. 378-934
Cynthia R. Daniels and Erin Heidt-Forsythe (2012): Gendered Eugenics and the Problematic of Free Market Reproductive Technologies: Sperm and Egg Donation in the United States. Signs, Vol. 37, No. 3 (Spring 2012), pp. 719-747
- The ‘hegemony of the gene’
Rapp, Rayna (1995): Heredity, or: Revisiting the Facts of Life. In Yanagisako, Sylvia and Carol Delaney: Naturalizing Power. Essays in Feminist Cultural Analysis. New York- London: Routledge. Pp. 69-86.
Porqueres i Gené, Enric and Jérôme Wilgaux (2009): Incest, Embodiment, Genes and Kinship. In Edwards, Jeanette and Charles Salazar: European Kinship in the Age of Biotechnology. New York-Oxford: Berghahn Books. Pp. 112-127.
- Chosen families
Weston, Kath (1991): Families We Choose. Lesbians, Gays, Kinship. New York: Columbia University Press. (extract)
White, Jenny B. (2000): Kinship, reciprocity, and the world market. In Schweitzer, Peter P. ed.: Dividends of Kinship. Meanings and Uses of Social Relatedness. London and New York: Routledge. Pp. 124-150.
- Same-sex parenting
Gross, Martine, 2011. Grandparenting in French Lesbian and Gay Families. In Takács, J. and Kuhar, R. eds. Doing Families. Gay and Lesbian Family Practices. Ljubljana: Mirovni Inštitut, pp. 117-134
Ryan-Flood, Róisin (2005): Contested Heteronormativities: Discourses of Fatherhood among Lesbian Parents in Sweden and Ireland. Sexualities 2005 8:189-204 OR
Lewin, Ellen (2009): Who’s Gay? What’s Gay? Dilemmas of Identity Among Gay Fathers. In Lewin-Leap eds.: Out in Public. Reinventing Lesbian/Gay Anthropology in a Globalizing World. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell. Pp. 86-103.
- Student presentations, further discussion
- Student presentations, further discussion