Seminar: Revisiting Feminist Anthropology: Queer and Postcolonial Perspectives

Feminist anthropology aims to overcome androcentric/masculinist perspectives in anthropological knowledge production on the one hand, and to challenge feminist theories developed in Europe and North America on the other. This MA reading course introduces classical concerns of “feminist anthropology” that has been recognized as a sub-discipline of anthropology since the 1970s.

Reading old and new texts, we will explore how (postcolonial) feminist anthropologists and their perspectives on women, gender and sexuality, on race and colonialism, on representation and positioning have made their way into anthropology. There will be a special focus on feminist ethnographic writings on/from the Middle East and on Black feminist practice. The visit of „Wasted Land“ a performance on „ecological neo-colonialism“ by Ntando Cele forms an integral part of the Seminar scheduled for Friday evening 29.11.!

No previous knowledge of feminism is required, but a willingness to read/listen deeply, to be moved by the readings and to engage with the activist traditions in which they may be set. Creative exercises will help us to reflect on our positionalities and transfer the concepts we have developed to our own research practices.

We will read texts by authors such as Zora Neale Hurston, Lilith Mahmud, Nadja Al-Ali, Lara Deeb, Ella Cara Deloria, Henrietta Moore, Oyeronke Oyewumi or Ifi Amadiume, Lila Abu-Lughod and others.

The visit of the performance "Wasted Land" at Kaserne Basel has to paid by the course participants themselves. Kaserne usually offer a sliding scale with a minumum of 15 CHF to be paid.