White, Arguing with the Crocodile
Wiegersma, "Peasant Patriarchy and the Subversion of the Collective in Vietnam" in Review of Radical Political Economics 23(3&4):174-197
Moore, Feminism and Anthropology (pages 116-127)

 

The following questions are intended to guide your reading and will serve as the basis for class discussion:

1. How does White seek to challenge a dominant discourse about women's status in India and Bangladesh? What does she mean by the statement that gender is a "contested image"? What evidence from her fieldwork supports this claim?

2. White takes issue with academic analyses which relate gender to public and private spheres. What is the substance of her critique? How does her fieldwork evidence support her view? What are the advantages and disadvantages to her approach?

3. How do White and Wiegersma depict the "household" as a social, economic, and kin unit? How do state policies and development programs function positively and negatively, directly and indirectly, to constitute household forms and functions? How do the effects of these policies vary according to class, type of economic activity, and gender?

4. How do White and Wiegersma depict women's actions and strategizing, both within the household and between different households? What factors do they cite as determining the outcome and significance of women's actions?

5. Based on the readings for this week and previous weeks, how would you propose to conduct your own ethnographic investigation of households and gendered divisions of labor? What specific theoretical concepts/definitions and methodological strategies would you employ? What issues would you concentrate on?

 

For more information, contact:  aleshkow@holycross.edu