Women and Gender studies
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For this specialization we advise you to register in the Major Human Rights, Gender and Conflict Studies: Social Justice Perspectives (SJP) but other Majors also give access to this specialization.
Women and Gender Studies takes the production of knowledge as its starting point, addressing the interface between the material and discursive dimensions of gendered inequalities and transformative politics. Using critical, interdisciplinary perspectives, the specialization explores how social-economic-political processes connect with inequalities and exclusion, from the most intimate to the most public spheres of social life. Gender is approached in intersection with other relations of power.
The specialization in Women, Gender, Development provides advanced, interdisciplinary studies that address the interface between the material and the discursive dimensions of gendered inequalities and transformative politics.
After completing the specialization, participants will be familiar with the major theoretical perspectives and policy debates on women, gender and development. They will be able to monitor and evaluate gendered outcomes of projects and policies and formulate alternative proposals from a gender conscious perspective.
Target group
This specialization is invaluable for young and mid-career professionals in governmental and non-governmental organizations and agencies, grass-roots activists and academics who wish to conduct research, advocacy and policy formulation in the domain of women, gender and development.
The specialization provides the foundation for analytical and critical thinking on the relationship between the production of knowledge in social sciences and development studies, and gendered social relations of power, in the context of globalization. It offers a comprehensive understanding of the gendered processes, patterns and policy implications of socioeconomic restructuring and poverty, and critically assesses a range of social protection policies. It also reviews development policies, debates and approaches to reproductive health, sexuality, rights and empowerment. A key focus of the specialization is the relationship between knowledge and power, highlighting analytical insights into the shaping of gender politics in the policy fields, and in the strategies of resistance and social transformation.
What do alumni say about WGD?
See video footage from ISS staff members and other colleagues in Feminist Dialogues.
Teaching Staff
Amrita Chhachhi's main areas of specialization are 1) gender, labour and globalisation/neoliberalism, social protection/human security, collective action, corporate social responsibility and labour market/ social policies and 2) gender, culture and globalisation with a focus on culture/identity, religious fundamentalisms, ethnic/communal conflict, peace initiatives and social movements. She has special expertise in the area of context specific curriculum development and tailor made training courses in the field of Women/Gender/ Labour/Conflict and Development. She has contributed to the establishment of Women/Gender Studies at the University of West Indies, University of Namibia, Dhaka University, Bangladesh and Aden University, Yemen.
For more information, see: www.iss.nl/chhachhi
Silke Heumann joined the ISS Faculty in 2010 and is currently the Convenor of the Women, Gender and Development specialization. She was trained in Sociology (Licenciatura Central American University -Managua, honors) with a specialization in Gender and Sexuality as well as Development Studies (MA in Social Sciences, University of Amsterdam, honors) and a regional focus on Latin America. Her PhD thesis on Sexual politics and Regime Transition in Nicaragua (2010, University of Amsterdam) explored the relationship between the personal and political to explain debates and mobilizations around gender and sexuality in post-revolutionary Nicaragua, and in particular the increasing power and resonance of “pro-life” groups and discourses. It draws on social movement theories, feminist theories, discourse analysis and the insights of oral history and emotional sociology.Both her teaching and research are characterized by an interest in cross- and inter-disciplinary approaches, intersectionality, the relationship between power and knowledge, and the connections between personal, (inter)subjective and emotional issues and broader socio-economic and political processes, particularly in the reproduction of power relations.
For more information, see: www.iss.nl/heumann.
Nahda Shehada teaches Gender, Culture and Development at the Institute of Social Studies. She is interested in the anthropology of Islamic Law, particularly in the Arab World region. She is currently coordinating a three-year research project entitled ‘Islamic Family Law in Palestine: Text and Context’ in cooperation with Zurich and Bern Universities/ Switzerland. Between 2005 and 2006, she was a researcher at the Institute for the Study of Islam in the Modern World (ISIM) in Leiden and is chercheure associée at the Laboratoire d'anthropologie urbaine (CNRS, Ivry-sur-Seine, France). In 2005, she worked as a researcher at Bern University. She is currently convening the WGD program at the ISS.
For more information, see: www.iss.nl/shehada.
Dubravka Zarkov is Associate Professor in Gender, Development and Conflict Studies. She has specialised in intersections of gender, sexuality, and ethnicity in the context of violent conflict and conflict transformation and is particularly interested in (sexual) violence against women and men in war, and its representations in the media. She teaches (among others) on following subjects: gender discourses; violent conflict, media analysis; feminist epistemologies.
For more information, see: www.iss.nl/zarkov
