TOPICS: ANTHROPOLOGY OF GENDER in Fall 2019 (AN2091)

This course examines gender roles and relations from an anthropological perspective. While all human societies make distinctions based on gender, the content of these distinctions varies from one social goup to another. Anthropology has greatly contributed, since the 1930s, to develop contemporary understanding of gender as a social construction, which orients people’s beliefs and practices. The anthropology of gender focuses on how culture shapes individual and collective understandings of gender difference, and the ways in which gender difference structures cultural beliefs and forms of social organisation around the world.

In this course key concepts such as gender, sex, sexuality, kinship, sexual division of labour, social reproduction and symbolism, on the basis of anthropological literature from the last century to this day. We will deal with these topics on the base of ethnographic case studies from different places and times, in order to highlight the historical dimension of cultural constructs.

The course will be divided in to three sections. The first focuses on anthropological literature on gender roles and relations from the 1930s to the 1970s. It introduces the notion of gender as culturally variable and initiates students to different ways of thinking about gender difference, kinship, biological and social reproduction (non-binary systems, female husbands, different views on intersectuality, etc.). The second section focuses on feminist anthropology, between 1970 and 1990. This section will introduce students to discussions on the « cultural universal » of womens’ subordination, feminist research methods and theories, but also to the debate about whether feminism and anthropology make a good match. The third and last section will deal with anthropological literature since from the 1990s to this day, in order to how anthropologists have widened their approach in order to incorporate queer, intersectional and post-colonial approaches to gender role