Decolonising Gender and Sexuality
Tutor: Liz Egan
CONTENT WARNING: Discussion of sexual violence and racist violence in the readings.
Decolonisation continues to be used in varied contexts within and beyond academia. Efforts to decolonise the curriculum or library reading lists have seen a greater emphasis on the diversity of subjects taught and the scholars that we read. But decolonisation also means challenging colonial systems of power and knowledge. As feminist histories sought to disrupt traditional narratives by not simply inserting women into the story but questioning the assumptions, structures, and power relations that underpinned those narratives, decolonial approaches have similarly sought to challenge white, heteronormative, Eurocentric narratives, including those of 'whitestream' feminism. Decolonising the history of gender and sexuality means grappling with the continuing experiences of colonialism while also rethinking the methodological approaches we might use.
Seminar Questions
- How have gender roles shaped, or been shaped by historical processes such as the slave trade and colonialism?
- To what extent is 鈥榟eteropatriarchy鈥� or 鈥榟eteropaternalism鈥� a Western concept?
- Marilyn Lake posited that in 1970s feminist historiography that ,鈥淕ender, historians came to recognize, was implicated in the conception and construction of power itself.鈥� What is the significance of this in the context of settler colonialism?
- What is the relationship between decolonization, power, and knowledge?
Core readings:
Maile Arvin, Eve Tuck, and Angie Morrill, 鈥楧ecolonizing Feminism: Challenging Connections Between Settler Colonialism and Heteropatriarchy鈥�, Feminist Formations (2013), pp. 8-34.
Haskins, Victoria, and Maynard, John, 鈥楽ex, race and power鈥�, Historical Studies (2005), pp. 191-216.
Then choose at least one of the following:
Mimi Sheller, Citizenship from below: Erotic Agency and Caribbean Freedom (Duke University Press, 2012) <> Ch. 3
Sabine Lang, 2016. 鈥淣ative American Men-Women, Lesbians, Two-Spirits: Contemporary and Historical Perspectives.鈥� Journal of Lesbian Studies 20 (3–4): 299–323.
Indrani Chatterjee; When 鈥淪exuality鈥� Floated Free of Histories in South Asia. Journal of Asian Studies 1 November 2012; 71 (4): 945–962. doi:
Further Readings:
Cecily Jones, Engendering Whiteness: White Women and Colonialism in Barbados and North Carolina, 1627–1865 (Manchester University Press, 2007)
Lake, Marilyn, 鈥榃omen鈥檚 and Gender History in Australia: A Transformative Practice鈥�, Journal of Women鈥檚 History (2013), pp. 190-211.
Akena, Francis Adyanga, 鈥楥ritical Analysis of the Production of Western Knowledge and Its Implications for Indigenous Knowledge and Decolonization,鈥� Journal of Black Studies, (2012) pp. 599–619.
Clark, Madeleine, 鈥業ndigenous Subjectivity in Australia: Are we Queer?鈥�, Journal of Global Indigeneity (2015), pp. 1-5.
Clark, Madeleine, 鈥樷�淣o one will touch your body unless you say so鈥� : Normativity and Bodily Autonomy in Australian Aboriginal Writing鈥�, Transmotion, (2021), pp. 132–157.鈥�
Hunt, Sarah, and Holmes, Cindy, 鈥楨veryday Decolonization: Living a Decolonizing Queer Politics鈥�, Journal of Lesbian Studies (2015), pp. 154-172.
Lugones, Mar铆a, 鈥楾oward a Decolonial Feminism鈥�, Hypatia (2010), pp. 742-759.
Mahanty, Chandra Talpade, 鈥楿nder Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourses鈥� boundary 2, (1984) pp. 333-358.
Pierson, Ruth Roach, Chaudhuri, Nupur, and McAuley, Beth, Nation, Empire, Colony: Historicizing Gender and Race (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998).
Russell, Lynette, 鈥樷�滶ither, or, Neither Nor鈥�: Resisting the Production of Gender, Race and Class Dichotomies in the Pre-Colonial Period鈥�, The Archeology of Plural and Changing Identities ed. by Eleanor Conlin Casella and Chris Fowler (New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers, 2005), pp. 33-54.
Schiwy, Freya, 鈥楧ecolonization and the Question of Subjectivity鈥�, Cultural Studies (2007), pp. 271-294.
Smith, Linda Tuhawai, Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples, 3rd edn (London: Zed Publishing, 2021).