Search results for "Gender studies"

The everyday and spectacle of subdued citizenship in northern Uganda

2019

Drawing on ethnographic research in the Acholi town of Kitgum in northern Uganda, this chapter illustrates how citizenship practices are embedded in particular relationships between the state and its citizens. Two key arenas for learning are identified: the everyday, which in this region is tinged by memories of past violence and fears of its recurrence, and moments of spectacular state performance such as the burial of a prominent politician. The chapter shows how practices of citizenship are learned through embodied experiences: by taking part in public debate, by voting or by greeting a flag, but also by running away from a soldier or by staying quiet due to fear. The chapter’s overall a…

L'article de recherche en anglais scientifique

2010

Enabling and constraining family: young women building their educational paths in Tanzania

2015

For an increasing number of African girls and women, upgrading the level of education has become a strategy for life improvement. This paper analyses the role that family plays in enabling women's education and contributes to understanding on the interconnectivity of education, work and family in women's lives in collective societies. The analysis focuses on how young Tanzanian women perceive the role of family and education in their ‘youth task’, of becoming adult. The analysis is based on interviews with seven young Tanzanian women enrolled in non-formal secondary education and nine professional women enrolled in higher education. The results show that the women were determined to pursue …

Rethinking gender and technology within intersections in the Global South

2019

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book examines mobile technology use in the Global South through the lens of intersectional understandings of power. It explores the integration of mobile phones in the lives of women from Gishu County in Kenya, and the meanings and symbolism attributed to this technology. The book deals with the material-feminist concept of social reproduction to understand the deepening precarity of the urban poor in Tanzania and their gendered responses to it. It explains the concept of young men’s financial inclusion linked to the proliferation of mobile money in Uganda. The book discusses th…

How older and younger people see technology in Northern and Southern Europe : Closing the generation gap

2016

Background Mental representations of technology can be affected by many social and biological factors. The aim of this study was to test the effects of two of these factors, age and culture, on how people mentally represent and experience technologies by comparing the conceptions of old and young people in Spain and Finland. Both Spain and Finland are European countries, but they are historically, geographically, and culturally very different. Method The study is framed within the life-based design (LBD) paradigm, where culture and age interact to define particular forms of life in which technology might be used and perceived differently. We hypothesised that there are differences in the me…

Cultural Politics of Love and Provision among Poor Youth in Urban Tanzania

2015

This article examines how urban youth in the poorest neighbourhoods of Dar es Salaam negotiate the terms of transactional intimacy, that is, heterosexual relations in which men are expected to provide for women materially. Using the concept of ‘affect’, I argue that this negotiation involves different levels of male providership, as well as moral values attached to notions of ‘true love’ and the Swahili concept of tamaa. Poor men and women view their agency differently within transactional intimacy, with women describing themselves as exploited by men who do not fulfil their end of the transactional bargain, and poor men portraying themselves as deeply disempowered in comparison to wealthie…

Exercising exclusions: Space, visibility, and monitoring of the exercising fat female body

2019

The author’s aim is to inspect the position of the fat (female) body in the field of exercise. Specifically, the author is interested in fat women’s experiences of their treatment while exercising in public, and argues that, in particular, public spaces for exercise, such as gyms and swimming pools, are currently discursively and concretely constructed as “exclusive” spaces for the normative bodied. Bodies that are deemed non-normative, such as fat bodies, are often made either invisible or intolerable in the discourse of physical activity and exercise. Consequently, public spaces for exercise such as gyms or swimming pools are seen as out of bounds for non-normative bodies and this is refl…

Witnessing the experience of European bordering: Watching the documentaryUnder den samme himmelin an immigration detention centre

2017

This article draws on theories of bordering and mediated witnessing to examine a documentary film that mediates migrants’ experiences of bordering in Europe. My analysis of Under den samme himmel/Days of Hope shows how the film captures the multiplicity of bordering practices, from geographical to socio-cultural borderings. The analysis is informed by watching and discussing the film in an immigrant detention facility in Finland with people who experienced and eye-witnessed experiences similar to those depicted in the film. This creates a sense of co-presence of the experiential landscapes in the border zones, and the film invites viewers to consider borders not as lines in the landscape, b…

Bisexual desires for more than one gender as a challenge to normative relationship ideals

2018

Normative western understandings of intimate relationships continue to draw upon the discourses of romantic love and the ideal of finding ‘the one’ who meets all our romantic and sexual needs. As desire is not sexually or emotionally exclusive, even people in normative relationships have to make sense of desires beyond the monogamous ideal. Bisexual people engage in these negotiations from a challenging cultural position. As a desire for more than one gender, bisexuality is persistently culturally associated with wavering desire, promiscuity and multiple partners. In light of these cultural conditions, I explore how Finnish bisexual women – and their (ex-)partners of various genders who do …

Diversity begets diversity: A global perspective on gender equality in scientific society leadership.

2018

Research shows that gender inequality is still a major issue in academic science, yet academic societies may serve as underappreciated and effective avenues for promoting female leadership. That is, society membership is often self-selective, and board positions are elected (with a high turnover compared to institutions)—these characteristics, among others, may thus create an environment conducive to gender equality. We therefore investigate this potential using an information-theoretic approach to quantify gender equality (male:female ratios) in zoology society boards around the world. We compare alternative models to analyze how society characteristics might predict or correlate with the …