1. INTRODUCTION
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The African
Gender Institute (AGI) at the University of Cape Town, South Africa, was established
in 1996, through the support of the then-Vice-Chancellor, Dr. Mamphela Ramphele.
The goal of the Institute was to strengthen African-based researchers’, writers’,
and scholars’ understanding of gender analysis and its importance to social
transformation on the continent.
The AGI’s
Strengthening Gender and Women’s Studies for Africa’s Transformation (GWS
Africa) Project pursues the Institute’s mission by developing and disseminating
intellectual resources, and supporting intellectual dialogue and networking.
A key aim of the continental workshop, which launched the Project in January
2002 was to strengthen regional collaboration among the often isolated gender
and women’s studies teachers and scholars throughout the continent. The holding
of a South African workshop in September 2002 provided a platform for South
African scholars to develop their priorities and to participate in the continental
Project. The national workshop explored the particular history of gender and
women’s studies research and teaching, as well as the national parameters
of the educational and institutional climate that the AGI shares with other
departments and research centres dedicated to gender transformation.
In preparing for the workshop, the AGI identified all
the South African GWS sites and visited key institutions in the disparate
provinces of the country: UNISA; Pretoria University, the National Research
Foundation; the University of the Witwatersrand, the Centre for the Study
for Violence and Reconciliation, WomensNet, the University of Venda and the
University of the North.
The workshop had three main
objectives:
- To review Gender and Women’s Studies (GWS) in South Africa and share
information and experiences in teaching, research and networks.
- To discuss ongoing challenges and recent trends within the Higher
Education sector, as well as Information and Communication Technologies
(ICTs) and their implications for GWS.
- To develop South African engagement with the continental GWS Africa
Project, while also providing a general platform for networking, decision-making
and action regarding national priorities and initiatives.
These objectives were operationalised
through the following working themes:
- Day One: Trends in South African Gender Research and Teaching
- Day Two: Institutional Contexts of GWS in South Africa
- Day Three: Envisaging Future Directions for GWS in South Africa
Given this broad spectrum of
issues and the diversity of participants’ locations, the workshop, facilitated
by Jane Bennett of the African Gender Institute and Natasha Primo from WomensNet,
employed a combination of participant input through panel presentations, plenary
and small group discussions, and short exercises. (See appendix 1 for detailed
programme).
2.
TRENDS IN SOUTH AFRICAN GENDER RESEARCH AND TEACHING
2.1. INTRODUCTION
Amina Mama, Chair in Gender
Studies at the University of Cape Town and GWS Africa Project Co-ordinator,
warmly welcomed workshop participants and noted the importance of such a gathering
of Gender and Women’s Studies (GWS) scholars, teachers and activists within
the South African context. She stressed
the importance of women’s educational empowerment, in particular, through
GWS, in developing the intellectual and analytical resources for challenging
different power structures. Amina
went on to state that the development of GWS meant recognising that the much-celebrated
information age heralded by the new millennium continued to marginalise certain
forms of knowledge, and challenged participants to think seriously about the
production of knowledge that could best serve Africa, rather than service
Western interests. The axiom that there is no theory without practice
and no practice that does not beget theory, was seen to ground GWS on the
continent, and the realisation of this linkage posited as the basis of workshop
deliberations.
Exercise
1: Images and Identities
Moving into a more discursive
space, participants explored their identities through an exercise
requiring them to write the words or phrases that best described
their public face on the front of
a T-shirt, and on the reverse side, the words that expressed
who “they really were”. The
purpose of the exercise was to open up participants’ images
of their own and others’ identities as a foundation for networking
during the course of the workshop.
Exercise
2: Titles and Locations
Participants were then
asked to introduce themselves and their institutional locations.
(See appendix 2 for list of participants.)
DISCUSSION
Workshop
Process
Participants saw the workshop as a safe space within which to reflect
on the challenges, opportunities and value of being feminists within an academic
environment. The expectations of linking
theory with praxis, building and sustaining empowering relationships, and
developing mentoring mechanisms were linked to discussion about the workshop
process and objectives.
Networking
The development of links at the local and continental levels
was strongly affirmed as the means of breaking isolation and encouraging feminist
intellectual engagement. It was noted that existing institutional mechanisms
were inadequate in supporting both national and continental networks.
Burnout
Expressing feelings of being
overburdened and worn out, participants articulated the hope of being invigorated
in their commitment to GWS, as a key site in the struggle to overcome women’s
oppression.
The
two panels on the first day explored different areas of gender research and
teaching. Presentations highlighted the range of epistemological frameworks
that have been developed in these areas, as well as the creation of alliances
for sustainable transformation.
2.2.
EPISTEMOLOGIES AND SITES FOR GWS
Panellists
Lisa Vetten, Centre for the
Study of Violence and Reconciliation (CSVR)
Kopano Ratele, Dept. of Psychology,
University of the Western Cape
Relebohile Moletsane, Dept. of Education, University of Natal (Durban)
Lisa Vetten
The CSVR is a Non Governmental
Organisation (NGO), and its gender programme grew out of the provision of
support services to women experiencing gender-based violence (GBV).
Currently, this programme is one of five run by the CSVR, with this
situation presenting many challenges for strategy and gender-sensitive practice.
The women only staffing profile of the gender programme, as well as the strategic
choice to maintain a separate programme, as opposed to “mainstreaming gender”,
were raised as points of tension within the organisation.
At present, the CSVR is reassessing its strategic impact in response to the growing realisation that work to combat GBV requires that service provision should be complemented by research and policy activism. Tensions between “intellectual” and “activist” research were raised in relation to the point that NGO research is often considered not academic enough because it does not engage directly with theory. While there is a need to create analytical capacity within the NGO sector through more formal links with academia, it is also vital that research undertaken within academia be made accessible to all stakeholders.
Kopano Ratele
Steve Biko’s work was cited
as the clearest expression of black social and political experience in South
Africa, and it was used as a basis for critical reflection on masculinity.
Kopano argued that Biko’s indictment of apartheid strongly expressed rage
about a loss of black manhood. The nostalgia for a lost masculinity was seen
as a major obstacle in addressing the freedom of both black men and women.
Activating discussion around
reconstructions of black manhood was seen as crucial in the face of the increase
of GBV in South Africa. Kopano argued
that scholars have a responsibility to transcend the thinking about race,
freedom and manhood associated with Biko in the 60s and 70s, and to explore
forms of consciousness-raising that are key to transforming all power relations.
Relebohile
Moletsane
Reflecting on the impact of
HIV/AIDS on education in rural KwaZulu-Natal, Relebohile noted that the link
between politics and praxis requires feminist researchers to straddle the
sites of the personal, professional and political. She gave the example of
how the effects of cultural practices such as early marriage and sexual abuse
of girl learners presented feminist academics with the moral and political
imperatives to social and political action.
Relebohile stated that the
post-apartheid academy appeared to be devoid of any kind of social responsibility,
and attributed this to the fact that global competitiveness, which prioritised
individual achievement and hegemonic Western discourses, were superseding
local needs and concerns. To counteract
this trend, Relebohile advocated an “activist professionalism” based on mutual
trust, responsibility, reciprocity and solidarity. Relebohile argued that
this formed the basis of a feminist working framework within the academy.
DISCUSSION
Gender Activism and Language
Multiple levels of language
and representation were identified, and it was acknowledged that the various
academic, activist and policy sites manifested diverse agendas and stereotypes. It was noted that each site had changed drastically
since the 1980s, when both the academy and civil society were viewed as sites
of struggle. Today, activism is located mainly in NGOs, and focuses on policy
reform. In Higher Education (HE), the increased commodification of knowledge
and a move towards corporate-style managerialism have led to technocratic
discourses on “gender mainstreaming”. Participants felt it was necessary to understand
and analyse these shifts more comprehensively in order to redefine feminist
strategy and ensure that gender discourse, as a political language open to
manipulation, did not become depoliticised.
Alliance Building
The interconnectedness of gender
with race and class was seen to demand alliances across different forms of
activism. Participants acknowledged that these alliances often generated contradictory
positionings.
Taboos
Participants observed that
feminist discourses continued to be silenced or marginalised in different
zones of research. The areas of culture, sexuality and race were difficult
to negotiate because of the complexity of the issues they raised, and because
of the lack of a confident African feminist grounding. Identifying the limitations
of many Western feminist theories, participants strongly advocated theoretical
paradigms that addressed African women’s lived experiences.
Exercise
3: Conceptual And Practical
Ancestries
Working in small groups,
participants were asked to reflect on their intellectual ancestry
by answering the questions: What book would you like to have
written? Who are your intellectual/creative ancestors?
The range of responses prompted significant reflection about
how and why participants used gender as a tool towards social
change.
2.3 ICTS AND GWS
Panellists
Natasha Primo, WomensNet
Debbie Bonnin, Agenda Advisory Board
Natasha Primo
WomensNet was established in 1996
as an electronic communications, outreach, information development, and support
programme, designed to make the Internet accessible and useful to women. It
trains individual women, girls and gender organisations
in the effective use of ICTs; develops and disseminates relevant information;
maintains the WomensNet website, http://womensnet.org.za,
as a key information resource; engages in advocacy and lobbying around issues
of gender equity and ICTs; and networks locally, continentally and globally.
Since technological control currently resides in the global north,
WomensNet is important in developing African-oriented content on the Internet.
Natasha’s linked her description
of WomensNet to key points about the role of ICTs in disseminating feminist
knowledge and empowering women. ICTs were defined as a diverse set of technological
tools and resources for creating, disseminating, storing and managing information
at the local and global levels. Natasha argued that ICTs play a complex role
in an intricate web of resources by providing access to education, ending
isolation, and facilitating women’s access to different forms of empowering
information and knowledge. Governments and development agencies treat technologies
as neutral, value-free tools, and assume that the adoption of these technologies
will naturally lead to development. Yet information is a primary resource,
and the politics of access to and usage of ICTs can marginalise men and women,
and especially women.
Debbie Bonnin
Agenda was launched in
1986 as a feminist project committed to supporting the gender knowledge produced
both within and outside of the academy. Its emphasis on social change through
education involved offering women the forum and skills for articulating their
interests in transforming power relations in South Africa. The commitment to developing voice and skills
led the editorial collective to engage intensively with contributors in the
development of articles for publication.
Over the years, Agenda
has struggled to define a commitment to “social change”. While one main initial
concern was to bridge the gap between the academy and activist sites, it later
became equally important to examine issues of representation in terms of the
racial differences among authors and the choice of themes for issues. Agenda’s
projects have included a journalist intern programme, writing workshops, radio
outreach and mentoring programmes.
DISCUSSION
Changing
Contexts
In the 1980s, a project like
Agenda was part of the broader activist-orientated media operating
in a hostile environment, and addressed the goals of democracy and justice
at a range of levels. Participants
stated that activist sites have become increasingly elitist, and the wide-ranging
discussion about human rights and political struggle, despite the absence
of policing and censorship before 1994, has steadily decreased.
Participants felt that it was
crucial to track how both WomensNet and Agenda have reinvented themselves
through maintaining strong community-based links and outreach in order to
remain focused on relevant and crucial issues. The WomensNet and Agenda case studies
also raised issues of financial sustainability. Given their reliance on donor
funding, and the needs for organisational sustainability and skills regeneration,
these organisations, like many others in the new South Africa, have become
quite vulnerable.
Networking as a Strategy
The networking emphasis in
both cases led participants to reflect on the importance of networking within
and across sites in order to ensure mutual support, to share experiences for
informing strategy, and to access important resources. It was noted that the activist spirit of volunteerism
had been overtaken by a consultant mentality where people expect to be paid
for everything they do. It was noted
that, at the inception of GWS in South Africa, gender resources were often
free resources, but that they are becoming increasingly costly and inaccessible.
In this context, creative ways of sharing information can contribute significantly
to collective growth and development. Networking and ICTs were identified as key tools for sharing information,
strengthening activism and facilitating the interchange between organisational
and academic sites.
3. INSTITUTIONAL CONTEXTS OF GWS IN SOUTH AFRICA
Natasha Primo welcomed participants
to day two, dedicated to exploring institutional opportunities and challenges
in developing innovative gender knowledge that was relevant to different constituency
needs.
3.1. TEACHING AND RESEARCH CHALLENGES
AT DIFFERENT SOUTH AFRICAN UNIVERSITIES
Presenters:
Elaine Salo, African Gender Institute
(AGI)
Jennifer Lemon, Centre for Women’s
Studies (CWS), UNISA
Rose Ayuru, University of Venda
Elaine Salo
Elaine described her introduction
to GWS as a student of social sciences at the University of Cape Town as a
historically white university (HWU). The impact of apartheid policy in the
early 1980s was reinforced by the dominance of white students and staff at
the institution, leading her to an increasing interest in developing tools
for challenging gender oppression and for deconstructing race and colonialism.
The pursuit of further studies in the U.S. brought to the fore the extent
of Northern economic, political and cultural dominance over Africa. Elaine’s
overall experiences as a student cemented her belief that teaching needed
to be grounded in activism in relation to a range of social inequities.
As a lecturer at the University
of the Western Cape, a historically black university (HBU), from the late
1980s, Elaine turned to various progressive writings ordinarily marginalised
within the academy. Joining the AGI
in 2000, she was struck by the lack of substantive transformation at UCT,
particularly regarding the racial staff composition within the faculty of
humanities. Elaine identified the
role of the AGI in contesting the ingrained racial and elitist biases of the
South African academy through a curriculum that focused on African identities
and agendas, and a commitment to meaningful engagement with students.
Reflecting on her experiences of teaching undergraduate GWS courses
at UCT, Elaine observed that teaching students to read critically and analytically,
to claim language as their own, to develop the confidence to speak through
engaging in peer review, and to experience the broadly empowering impact of
education, were all fundamental.
Jennifer Lemon
The Centre for Women’s Studies
(CWS) at UNISA is a distance learning facility that targets students locally
and continentally. The CSW was founded by a group of white liberal and radical
feminists who offered courses in women’s and lesbian studies and extended
their activism to development and policy reform. By 1996, however, there was pressure to re-focus,
illustrated by the debate within the CWS around a discursive move from women’s
to gender studies. The teaching focus of the CWS is complemented by research
on gender, the publication of a newsletter, the development of training materials
and the provision of policy advocacy support for CBOs and NGOs, especially
in the area of GBV.
Currently, the Centre offers
an honours degree in gender studies with plans for a coursework masters programme.
The honours programme services the humanities faculty, and, because of the
need to ensure its sustainability, is currently housed in the more conservative
space of the English Department. The
CWS has a co-ordinator who works in liaison with an advisory group,
including heads of departments and deans.
The Centre’s courses are cross-listed with the gender courses offered
by other departments at UNISA, an arrangement that leaves the CWS with little
control over course content. The CWS also lives with the threat of financial
viability under the stipulated criteria of student numbers.
Rose Ayuru
The Centre for Gender Studies
(CGS) at the University of Venda was established in 1999, and has co-ordinated
the integration of gender into the curriculum of the University. Reflecting
on teaching and research challenges at HBUs, Prof Ayuru noted that HE in South
Africa still carried the legacy of uneven development, and that gender teaching
and research involved confronting these inequities. While the current restructuring
of the HE landscape in South Africa was welcomed, the nature of the restructuring,
especially in terms of proposed mergers, was viewed as a highly problematic
top-down intervention.
Teaching at the University
of Venda presents numerous challenges. The
scarcity of teaching resources, students’ lack of preparedness and language
barriers posed particular problems. In
order to capacitate students, extra time was needed to develop basic skills
beyond the curriculum. For those students
who had the capacity and wished to pursue postgraduate study, the escalating
costs of HE and lack of funding often served to frustrate progress. A multi-dimensional
approach for overcoming these obstacles was advocated. This was seen to entail
a mix of formal learning through teaching; a “learner-centred participatory
active approach” to research; community outreach activities through mutually
beneficial gender training workshops and discussion forums; the use of the
media and ICTs; and networking amongst HE institutions and civil society as
a whole.
DISCUSSION
GWS
Models
Based on the panel presentations,
three models for the institutionalisation of gender were identified. The CWS
at UNISA embodied Model 1, a small coordinating centre within the university
institution that draws in capacity from other departments. With this model,
interdepartmental linkages and capacities present various tensions and challenges.
Model 2, embodied in the Universities of Venda and Cape Town, manifested an
institutionalised centre and dedicated faculty.
The challenge here lay in institutional support and the investment
in intellectual capacity-building. The University of the Witwatersrand illustrated
Model 3. This saw a seemingly more mainstreamed approach with a dispersed
network or think tank, drawn from across departments, who collectively contributed
to a graduate programme
[1]
. The key question raised but not fully explored
was: how do these models impact on the politics of gender on campus, and,
more specifically, on GWS curricula?
Who
takes GWS courses?
In reviewing students’ motivations
over the last two decades, many participants emphasised that students in the
1980s were highly politicised, and that today there appears to be a growing
apathy amongst students. GWS teachers observed that students are drawn from
a wide range of disciplines, including the social sciences and commerce.
Students’ motivations in taking GWS courses ranged from career advancement
through the “lucrative” field of gender and development, to adopting feminism’s
transformatory agenda. It was noted that mentoring went a long way towards
influencing student decisions on course choices. This strand of discussion
led to self-reflexive interrogation, with participants noting that GWS teachers
have an ethical imperative to deliver a quality product that contributes both
to students’ personal growth and to broader transformatory goals. Participants
felt that a relevant GWS curriculum needed to be attentive to the needs of
students and the changing local, regional and global contexts in which they
were situated.
Why do we teach GWS?
It was noted that the interdepartmental
alliances on which much GWS teaching relies were often fraught.
Teaching is dependent on goodwill, and adds to already heavy workloads,
with little by way of compensation.
Briefly reflecting on the history
of South African GWS, participants noted that engagement with GWS began in
the 1980s as a political project committed to dismantling apartheid and achieving
democracy. GWS was consequently inaugurated
in the context of the spirit of a community-based activism that transcended
official structures. In recent years, there has been a realisation that an
activist spirit is not sufficient to sustain GWS programmes within university
sites. Support from the upper levels of institutions is important in guaranteeing
sustainability, and this requires very different strategies from those employed
in the past.
3.2.
CHALLENGES FOR RESEARCH AND ACTIVISM
BEYOND THE UNIVERSITY
Panellists:
Zanele Hlatywayo, Women’s Health Project (WHP), University
of the Witwatersrand
Alison
Lazarus, Centre for Conflict Resolution (CCR), Cape Town
Panel 4, drawing on the experiences of NGOs involved in activism, training
and research, explored the realities,
challenges, and opportunities for informal and formal partnerships between
NGOs and university departments or centres.
Zanele Hlatywayo
The Women’s Health Project,
located at the School of Public Health at the University of the Witwatersrand,
focuses on research, training and advocacy, although the project is developing
an elective for a masters programme in public health. While the WHP runs a number of projects, the presentation focused
on its Capacity Building for Abortion Advocacy Project.
The academic emphasis of the Project,
which began in 1999, involved analysing the policy development and implementation
process by focusing on factors that facilitated or impeded changes in abortion
policy. Reflecting on the challenges
of being located within an academic institution, Zanele noted that what gets
rewarded within an academic institution is often at odds with the needs of
community stakeholders. Publishing
was sited as an example of this tension. University institutes and projects
are under pressure to publish for promotional points. While this contributes
to a growing body of progressive knowledge, dedicated black women working
at community level are pigeon-holed as the custodians of data that they relay
to women researchers, who are often white, and who become the primary authors
of publications. Zanele noted that
the power dynamics of race and class perpetuate forms of marginalisation that
are not being addressed. Open discussion forums were affirmed for addressing difficult issues
and realising more meaningful participation and sustainable development.
Alison Lazarus
The Centre for Conflict Resolution
works both nationally and continentally in contributing towards just and sustainable
peace. The integration of gender into its programming has been a major challenge,
with the Centre investing in a project promoting the recognition and legitimation
of women’s knowledge within the peace-building paradigm.
The CCR grew out of the Centre
for Inter-group Studies, established at UCT in 1968 to focus on inter-group
relations and dialogue in the context of apartheid. By 1992, in the context
of a rapidly changing political climate, it had moved towards mediation and
peace-building, a move which coincided
with a UCT directive for the Centre to become independent. Servicing links
with UCT remain, and some staff members voluntarily teach graduate courses
at UCT. However, this affiliation
causes tensions when NGO activism and processes clash with academic bureaucracy
and the pressure for academically accredited publishable outputs.
A number of challenges continue
to face the CCR. Research remains in the hands of white men and women, and
the research agendas are determined by this minority grouping. The need for ideologically sound gender-based
research was seen as important in influencing local and regional peace-building.
The CCR has identified its publication, Track Two, which is edited
by a black woman, as an important means for developing this research. The
accreditation of Track Two as a SAPSE publication will support the
Centre’s contribution to epistemological debates about what constitutes “valid
knowledge” within the academy.
DISCUSSION
Transformation
Participants noted that cosmetic
transformations, in the form of numbers of women or black people on boards
or employed as staff members were hollow transformations. It was claimed that the value of gender as
a political tool rested on the way it encouraged a search for deeper structural
transformation. Participants felt
that lasting change required constant evaluation and the refinement of strategy.
This process is informed by clarity of analysis, and an understanding
of the current global order and its power dynamics, based on economics, race,
gender and privilege.
Alliances
Participants addressed the
issue of building bridges between NGOs, research centres and academic sites
or teaching programmes in order to maintain mutually sustaining and equitable
relationships. The challenge was to
think clearly about what makes linkages difficult and what is valuable about
being located within a university.
Exercise 4: “What We Wish Someone Had Told Us About This Work”
After an intense set of deliberations participants were asked to share
what they wished someone had told them about GWS work. Some
participants’ responses: