About the GWS Project | FSN Memorandum of Agreement

Memorandum of Agreement

Introduction

On the days of January 23rd-25th 2002 the African Gender Institute hosted a regional workshop 'Strengthening Gender and Women's Studies' at the President Hotel in Cape Town. Attended by over thirty women involved in gender studies and activism in nine different African countries, the workshop set out to:

· Explore the various motivations and conditions generating an interest in gender in diverse African contexts,
· Map the institutional, financial and technological conditions within which African gender studies has emerged and developed during the last 2 decades,
· Examine the availability of resources and materials for teaching gender studies in Africa and the articulation of teaching resource needs with the kind of research currently being conducted,
· Develop the linkages between ICT gender activism and gender studies in and beyond the academy,
· Explore the strategic and political relevance of teaching and research in gender studies to governance and policy making, and the implications of this articulation for regional transformation and development, particularly in the area of gender equality and justice,
· Set out an agenda for the strengthening of transformative gender studies in African teaching and research institutions,
· Develop a set of partnerships for the pursuit and implementation of the above agenda

During the workshop deliberations, gender and women's studies was defined as a field of work that combines diverse intellectual interests with feminist activism, and which offers a valuable means of contributing to the process of transformation towards a more equitable, just and democratic society. However, it was noted that there are now many kinds of gender and women's studies, emanating from a range of institutions and actors. These were described as ranging from purely technocratic work conducted in the service of hegemonic development discourses to teaching and research work overtly concerned with advancing a feminist intellectual and political agenda. Furthermore, it was also noted that not all such studies are relevant to the continental African interest in advancing the transformation of our societies towards democracy and social justice.

The workshop heightened the participants' collective awareness of the need to make good use of information and communication technologies and developments in feminist research and pedagogy, before considering ways of strengthening feminist studies in African contexts.

To this end, participants reiterated the importance of maintaining a close and reciprocal engagment between feminist academic work, activism and policy advocacy. Participants further emphasized the need to ensure that teaching in African institutions draws on local knowledge and research, so as to ensure that feminist intellectual work is strongly grounded in the lived realities and interests of women on the continent.

On January 25th 2002, the final day of the workshop, it was agreed that the African Gender Institute should initiate and establish a continental network to pursue the ongoing work of strengthening transformative feminist studies in African contexts.

The network will be referred to hereafter as the Feminist Studies Network, and will be initiated and hosted by the African Gender Institute in Cape Town.

Members

It was agreed that all workshop invitees be invited to constitute the initial membership of the network, with the possibility of including additional members at later stages, on the basis of their contribution to feminist studies in Africa, and subject to their endorsement of this Agreement.

The network will comprise women teachers, researchers and ICT activists based on the African continent, and who undertake to participate actively in the following Objectives and Activities to which the Feminist Studies Network is committed.

Objectives and Activities

The network will exist to bring teachers and researchers involved in gender and women's studies together to pursue the broad objective of strengthening transformative gender and women's studies in African contexts. This will be done by the following activities of the members:

1 Bring together teachers and researchers working in feminist studies, with a view to developing intellectual linkages and skills exchanges that will contribute to the strengthening of feminist theory and practice in African contexts

2 Collaborate with feminist ICT networks to develop an ICT strategy to support the strengthening of linkages between those involved in feminist studies in African contexts,

3 Contribute to research, training and capacity building activities in the field of feminist studies, through faculty exchanges and other forms of collegial collaboration,

4 Contribute to the development and dissemination of a regional core-curriculum for feminist studies in African contexts,

5 Contribute to the documentation, discussion and dissemination of intellectual resources necessary for the teaching of transformative feminist studies in African contexts.