Feminist Knowledge | Review Essay: GWS in South Africa
Appendix: Institutional Review
The fully-fledged gender and women's studies departments in South Africa vary enormously in terms of resources, political orientation and prioritisation. It is noteworthy that most are known as gender studies centres or institutes, even when they may have started off as spaces for "women's studies". This signals a broader international debate around the gettoisation of women's studies and the need for feminists to focus on gender, rather than on women's issues. Although gender studies sites experienced rapid growth in the mid-nineties, it is sobering that, by the start of the new millennium, individual teachers and researchers are engaged in very fundamental battles regarding the recognition of their fields, the marginalisation of their research areas and teaching, the under-funding and lack of support for teaching and research, and the ongoing effort to combine ideological and political battles that take their work beyond the conventional academic activities of their academic colleagues with pressures to "deliver' in ways that their colleagues do.
UNISA's
Institute for Gender Studies
The Centre for Women's Studies, as the Institute was formerly known, was founded
in 1985. At its inception, it worked mainly through the voluntary efforts of
a small number of individuals, to support the liberation of South African women.
Since its inception it has developed as a key institutional space for gender
teaching, especially since it is located at South Africa's main distance-learning
institution.
At the end of 1996, members felt that the centre's work could best be continued through the establishment of an Institute for Gender Studies, which would offer academic coursework and certificate programmes. It was also felt that the Institute would continue its involvement in community projects. Today, the institute is staffed by two full-time staff members, who coordinate a long-established seminar programme that attempts to reach out to the public (approximately 30-40 attend from the campus and beyond), and includes panel discussions which seek to establish the practical relevance of the institute's work. The institute also produces a magazine, Siren News, which has recently developed a more intellectual orientation towards feminist politics and gender analysis.
The Institute tries to work on the coherence of its programme through regular working-committee groups, which discuss the programme's political and academic focus and engage in forward planning. This allows it to function as a department. However Jennifer Lemon as coordinator carries the main burden of driving the institute's activities and establishing its identity, and the institute is obviously under-resourced in terms of person-power and opportunities for intellectual and curricula capacity-building.
Pretoria
University, Centre for Gender Studies
Like UNISA, gender researchers and teachers face many challenges working in
a strongly patriarchal environment. The Centre has a history of advocacy work.
It started off as a space, funded by the Development Bank, which supported rural
women in the Transvaal, and was institutionalized as an academic space mainly
through Marinda Maree and relocated to sociology. Individual staff members,
situated in other departments but teaching in programmes offered by the centre,
have played a prominent role in shaping its identity. For example, Pamela Ryan
has undertaken important work on literary studies; Marjorie Jobson has worked
extensively on peacebuilding research and in continental peacebuilding networks;
while Marinda Maree has contributed to sociological work on gender. The Centre
offers a newsletter, focusing mainly on teaching and research directly linked
to the centre, and a seminar programme in which a variety of speakers from South
Africa and beyond speak offer talks on such subjects as gender and AIDS, gender
and institutional transformation or gender and education.
At present, the Centre offers
both undergraduate and postgraduate programmes, through the social sciences,
in gender studies. Although the BA, honours and MA degrees are offered in the
social sciences, course offerings come from a range of departments in the faculty
of humanities.
University of
Venda, Gender Studies Centre
The centre was launched as a gender equity unit in 1996, playing a role in conscientizing
staff and students and addressing the university's patriarchal institutional
climate. The launch of the programme took place through what many staff members
claim to be considerable administrative support and backing, especially by the
Vice-Chancellor, Professor Nkondo. One of the strengths of the centre is that
its student numbers have rapidly grown, with student enrolment at honours and
MA level having increased from approximately 25 in 2001 to approximately 55
in 2002. These numbers are striking in contrast to those at other, apparently
better-equipped universities.
Some teachers in gender studies at Venda attribute the growth in student enrolment to the successful marketing of the programme. They have stressed that the honours and recently launched masters programme clearly address marketable skills and the preparation of students for a labour market in which gender training, both at the level of the state and in commerce, is an important requisite.
Certain feminists view the trend towards market-oriented programmes and teaching as one that potentially compromises feminist politics. In view of the escalating emphasis in South Africa on gender within the market place, in politics and on market-driven programmes for university students, gender educators will be making important choices about what needs to be taught in the name of gender studies, and it will prove important to monitor developments in forthcoming years.
University
of Cape Town, African Gender Institute
The broad goals of the African Gender Institute have been defined as embracing
research and teaching and addressing the needs for advocacy and applied work
that are designed to further gender transformation at a continental level. Regarding
the former, the AGI offers courses for undergraduates and postgraduates that
expose students to a range of theories and topics concerning women and gender
on the African continent. Another of the AGI's academic programmes is the Associates
Programme, which offers women gender researchers from all over Africa financial
support and assistance in the form of peer review mechanisms and access to research
resources. The institute also offers opportunities for research fellows with
their own funding to undertake research while based at the AGI. Linkages with
scholars from beyond South Africa have considerably boosted the AGI's profile
nationally and continentally. It is distinctive among South African gender studies
centres not only because of its strong continental focus, but also because of
its capacity. Fulltime staff at the AGI include a chair in gender studies, the
director of the institute, two lecturers in the academic programme, an officer
who manages the institute's publications and communication, and four administrators.
The AGI's work in applied fields has to date focused on: strategies for addressing sexual harassment in educational institutions (Gender Based Violence in Education), gender research, writing and training workshops (Regional and National Training and Workshops) and work towards institutional transformation, which involves producing knowledge about transforming different institutions and organisations as well as training and support for those involved in their transformation.
The AGI produces a regular newsletter, AGI News, with topical issues relating to gender in Africa (such as militarism, gender-based violence and institutional transformation) being explored by academics, policy-makers and other experts from all over Africa.
While the above are the fully-fledged or formally recognised centres or institutes, other universities have also functioned as important gender or women's studies "nodes". Here individual staff members offer courses, or there are programmes on gender that draw teachers from a range of staff. Research is produced by individual academics or those working in groups.
WITS,
Programme for Gender Studies
The centre consists of a grouping of educators and researchers who have major
commitments in their home departments. It will, according to the present coordinator,
be in abeyance during 2003.
As is the case with Pretoria, dedicated staff members at this centre have contributed to giving a distinct dynamism and leadership to the centre, with academics like Cathi Albertyn, Shireen Hassim and Sheila Meintjes all having grappled with gender politics and research at a stage when the field was a far more beleagured one in South Africa than it currently is.
The Gender Studies Programme
is defined as being "committed to educating intellectuals, researchers,
policy-makers and activists interested in dismantling patriarchal structures
and promoting gender equity in the African
Context" (website).
University
of the Western Cape, Programme in Gender Studies
The university's gender studies programme has long benefited from its previous
connection to advocacy and awareness-raising on campus through the Gender Equity
Unit. The university offers a masters degree in gender studies since 1995, and
recently began offering courses at the undergraduate level. At undergraduate
level, second-year students take general courses designed to equip them with
a basic foundation in gender concepts, theory and methodology, after completing
a general foundation first year. Third year courses encourage them to focus
on specific aspects in preparation for the labour market or further study at
postgraduate level. The BA Hons and M Phil courses prepare students for one
of the following strands: Women and Health;
Women, Gender and Management; Gender and Social Policy and Cultural Studies.
University
of the Transkei, Programme in Gender Studies
This university offers a BA in gender studies. Compulsory courses are provided
in theory and methodology, with electives being offered on courses including
such subjects as feminist ethics, gender and religion, women and health, women
and agriculture and gender violence.
University of Natal Gender
Studies Programme
The university offers undergraduate and postgraduate programmes in gender studies.
Students may take courses from a range of fields that include art history, literary
studies and psychology. Both the Pietermartizburg and Durban campuses of this
university offer these programmes.
The
Role of the National Research Foundation (NRF)
As the governmental agency that funds and generally supports projects and academics
at South African universities, the National Research Foundation is a potential
source both of support for gender research and of information that might help
gender researchers in pursuing their own work. With the shift from the former
university-supporting body, the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC), to the
NRF, the focus on supporting historically subordinate groups (mainly black and
women academics) became an urgent priority. This has made gender researchers
and projects more likely recipients of assistance than before. The main resources
for gender researchers and students offered by the NRF are the Women in Research
Audit Report, the Nexus Database and the Yenza Website ( http://www.nrf.ac.za/yenza/
). The former is a comprehensive survey of women in South African universities,
which includes a detailed database. Although the report does not focus on gender
research, it offers students, researchers and teachers who deal with gender
important information about the distinctive challenges facing women within South
African universities.
An NRF resource that does provide information about gender research is the Nexus Database, which tracks information and details about research subjects and projects undertaken by students and academics registered with the NRF. The Yenza website initially played a role in disseminating information about activities and coursework at thus that did not have the resources or capacity to provide reliable information via the Internet. The Yenza website has hosted course offerings in gender studies at universities like the University of Durban-Westville, the University of the Transkei and Venda University.
WomensNet
Although this website was initially set up as a project of Sangonet and the
Commission on Gender Equality, it has recently begun operating as an independent
project. It includes a wide range of recent news reports, and information, resources
and links of value to gender activists. The website does not host research,
but offers many links to bibliographies and sites of research at universities
in and beyond South Africa.
Subjects on the Womensnet
website include:
News; Job and Study Opportunities; En-Gendering Broadcast Legislation; HIV/AIDS;
Women'sNet @ the World Conference Against Racism; Beijing +5 in Africa; Women
& Human Rights; Preventing Violence Against Women; Gender in Parliament;
Health; New Communication Technologies
Women and Enterprise; Gender Links and Resources; and Directory of SA Women's
Organisations. Womensnet also has links to GENNET, an e-mail discussion forum
focusing on South African gender-related topics.