Newsletter #3

Newsletter #3 2016

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Happy 2016!!
The Centre for Research on Culture and Gender (CRCG) wishes you a joyful new year, with a lot of creative ideas and new challenges!
For more information on people and projects: check the CRCG website.

Upcoming Events

Brown Bag Seminars - February 2016

The CRCG seminars will take place from 12.00 - 14.00; you can bring your own lunch. Venue: Rozier, room 100.038. The format of the seminars can vary but they will all be informal and discussion-oriented. Open to everyone. More information

Carine Plancke:

'Women's dances in post-genocide Rwanda: Gender equality, female identity and the waning of the sacred'

Dr. Carine Plancke is a Marie Curie research fellow at the Centre for Dance Research of the University of Roehampton (UK) where she does research on dance, gender and reconstruction in post-genocide Rwanda.

02 February 2016
12:00-14:00

Room 100.038, CRCG - Rozier 44, 9000 Gent

Rozita Dimova:

'Ethnographic observations of objects, things, commodities, designs,...'

Dr. Rozita Dimova is Associate Professor in Slavonic and East-European Studies (2013-pres), Department of Languages and Cultures, Ghent University. Her work has engaged a broad range of theoretical and ethnographic issues. Her research interests include ethnic and national identities, class, gender, consumption/commodities, refugees, the state and the neo-liberal forms of governance in South-eastern Europe and in the West.

29 February 2016
12:00-14:00

Room 100.038, CRCG - Rozier 44, 9000 Gent
Register by sending an email to Ladan.Rahbari@UGent.be

Workshop on Gender and Migration: Current Trends in the European Union

This workshop is held on the 3^rd of March 2016 at Ghent University as part of an annual workshop organized by the Department of Languages and Cultures. This year CRCG is co-organizing this event presenting an introduction on migration trends in the European Union and beyond, with a special focus on intersectionality. The participants are Political Sciences students from Kyushu University Japan, staying in Ghent as a part of their visit to Europe in order to learn about political institutions in the EU and to interact with and come into contact with European students. The workshop language is English and will be presented by Drs. Amal Miri and Dr. Ladan Rahbari.

Feminist Perspectives on Labour: PhD Seminar and Evening Lecture with Prof. Camille Barbagallo

Prof. Camille Barbagallo, School of Social Sciences, University of East London

Organized by MENARG & CRG, with the collaboration of CRCG
Venue: Facultaire vergaderzaal Decaan John Vincke, Faculty Political & Social Sciences, Korte Meer 5, 9000 Gent
When: 4th of March 2016, Seminar: 09:30 – 16:30; time and venue of the evening lecture TBA
Information & Registration: Sigrid.Vertommen@UGent.be

For over a century, feminist and other scholars have been discussing how labour is a crucial site where gender relations are performed, enforced and consolidated. Gender divisions play an important role, for instance, in attributing levels of “productivity” to certain types of work, the most cited example being the gendered difference between “productive” waged work versus “reproductive” housework. Gender relations also prescribe how we, as workers, are supposed to act and behave on the workfloor. In this seminar we will discuss how gender is put to work throughout the different modes of capitalist production, from Fordist-Keynesian to more contemporary neoliberal modes of production. We will also look at feminist perspectives on post-work imaginaries.

Internationalisation@Home Event: Home and Away: Identity and Belonging in the Context of Migration

Organized by the Department of Languages and Cultures
Venue: Blandijnberg 2, 9000 Ghent
When: Tuesday 12 April 2016, 9:00-17:00
With Workshop by Birsen Taspinar & Amal Miri on marriage migration and gender (13:00)
Programme

Registration

New Research Projects:

Intersexuality

The Centre for Sexology and Gender (Ghent University Hospital) together with CRCG have been commissioned by the Flemish Minister of Equality Policies and the federal state secretary of Equality to carry out a study on ‘intersexuality’ in 2016-2017. The research project will apply an interdisciplinary approach to look at the challenges and needs in terms of medical care, social rights and personal well-being among individuals with an intersex condition (often referred to as DSD - disorder of sexual development).
Contact:
Dr. Joz Motmans (Centre for Sexology and Gender/Transinfopunt UZGent)
Prof. dr. Chia Longman (CRCG)

Harmful Cultural Practices

A Critical Analysis of Cross-Cultural Discourses and Moral Understandings of Gender, Sexuality and Embodiment

This FWO research project (2015-2019) under supervision of Prof. Gily Coene (RHEA, VUB) and Prof. Chia Longman (CRCG) consists of two joint doctoral research projects:

Dr. Ladan Rahbari (CRCG): Harmful Cultural Practices in the West: A Study of Cosmetic Surgery and Sex Reassignment Surgery in Belgium

The project offers a critical overview of the feminist approaches addressing harmful cultural practices. The concepts of ‘harmfulness’ and ‘culture’ are investigated in the western context. The empirical research aims on investigating the dilemma of choice, the agency and the effects of socio-economic and contextual factors on the ‘decision’ of undergoing cosmetic or sex reassignment surgery.

Susan Dierickx (RHEA, VUB) : Vaginal Practices Among Sub-Saharan African Migrants and Minorities in Belgium

Based on anthropology and feminist ethical theory, this study will critically explore the concept of ‘harmful cultural practices’ in relation to sexual practices among Sub-Saharan African migrants and minorities in Belgium. My research will focus on the ways in which these migrant and minority women and men give meaning to vaginal practices. What do these women and men perceive to be cultural/traditional, harmful and valuable? Which broader social and moral frameworks on gender, sexuality and the body come into play? How does this change during the migration process and further life course?

Marriage Migration

Integration, Identity and Empowerment among Moroccan Women in Belgium - Amal Miri (CRCG):

This FWO funded doctoral research project (2015-2019) under joint supervision of Prof. Longman (CRCG), Prof. Nadia Fadil (KU Leuven) and Prof. Sarah Bracke (UGent/VUB), aims to uncover the agency of Muslim female marriage migrants and female partners ("receiving partners") from Moroccan origin living in Belgium. The project focusses in particular on how they use their cultural and religious capital to negotiate and navigate gender relations, and as such counter some of the challenges of marriage, migration and integration. This ethnographic project draws on postcolonial, feminist and gender theories that valorizes individual experiences and struggles by approaching gender - in relation to other identity markers such as ethnicity, class, religion, and sexual identity - as a principal structuring force in shaping the life experience.

Other News:

Welcome to Corine Van Hellemont and Sabrina Vandevelde!

Corine Van Hellemont and Sabrina Vandevelde will both be in charge of the coordination of the Interuniversity Master Gender and Diversity. Corine Van Hellemont will be responsible for the internships and Sabrina Vandevelde will do the general coordination of the master program.

Visiting Researcher: Fadi Saleh

From March until August, CRCG welcomes Fadi Saleh (University of Göttingen) as a visiting fellow. He will be working on his PhD-project: 'What are Queer Persons in the Middle East and North Africa Doing When they are NOT Suffering: On the Becoming-Joyful of the “Suffering MENA Queer.”'

Congratulations Christof Bex!

Christof Bex, who is a trainee at CRCG and a student of the Interuniversity Master Gender and Diversity, became the first winner of the DiverGent prize for the best thesis in the field of gender and diversity for his master thesis on the educational trajectories of unaccompanied minors.

DiGeSt: Call for Papers #7

Deadline for Issue #7 (2017) article submissions: 10 July 2016 - contributions to What Are You Reading: 10 September 2016

For more information: website DiGeSt

Please also consider subscribing to the journal: A subscription for one year (two issues or one double issue) costs 35 EUR and 25 EUR for students. Please send your name, address and affiliation to info@academiapress.be.

News from our Affiliated Members:

An van. Dienderen - 'Lili'

Short film, part of the research project: 'China Girls and the Color Genie'. Funded by School of Arts Ghent and Research Fund University College Ghent, commissioned by Contour7

In a TV studio a girl named Lili is asked to serve as a so-called China Girl. China Girls, used in cinema history since the 1920’s, are women with Caucasian skin who are filmed alongside a colour-chart in order to adjust the colours of the film. They have no dialogues to memorize or characters to impersonate. All they have to do, is have an impeccable white complexion. Their skin – white as porcelain – is used as a reference for the colour grading of camera and printing, ultimately excluding people of colour who do not conform to this implicit norm. Lili tells the story of one of these China Girls through archival material, found footage and documentary recordings, and questions the tradition of China Girls contextualized in a society, which, according to anthropologist Michael Taussig exemplifies chromophobic uneasiness with color.
Will be screened at:
- International Film festival Rotterdam
- National Museum of Ethnology at Osaka, Japan
- Association Kazimir and the Academy of Arts, Split, Croatia

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