Researching and Teaching Histories of Women, Gender and Sexualities: Global Reflections on the Past, Present and Future

Abstract

Today, as hard-fought gender rights come under attack globally, scholars researching histories of women, gender and sexualities face unprecedented challenges. Their ability to research and teach in these fields has become increasingly difficult and, in some cases, it has become dangerous for them to do so. Across the world, teaching and research in gender, reproductive rights, and sexualities has been the focus of intense political scrutiny. The academic freedom of scholars working in these areas has progressively been subject to a political and legislative onslaught. At the same time, incidences of gender-based violence and coordinated attacks on the rights of queer, trans, and non-binary individuals have increased. Issues to do with gender, women and sexualities are hot – on a knife’s edge – on both the scholarly and political agenda. Founded in 1987, the International Federation for Research in Women’s History (IFRWH) champions research in all aspects of women’s and gender history at an international level. At the same time, it advocates for academics to be able to pursue issues related to social justice that have far reaching effects beyond the academy. In this IFRWH panel, we bring together researchers and representatives from the global IFRWH community to consider changing historiographical trends in women, gender and sexualities from a global perspective. In doing so, we draw attention to the issues that connect us across geographical and cultural boundaries, and to the differences that mark our communities and conditions out as distinctive. Our papers span themes pertinent to the intersectional history of gender equity, including class, race, sexuality, family, violence, and activisms, as well as national and international, feminist and anti-feminist, epistemologies. Comprising speakers situated in Argentina, Australia, Bangladesh, Ireland, the UK, and the USA, it will provoke audiences to reflect on the future of the discipline, and the challenges of researching and teaching histories of women, gender, and sexualities in the contemporary political climate.

Papers

Is There a Feminist Movement in Bangladesh? Responses to Violence Against Women in the 50 Years of Independence

Asha Islam Nayeem

Gender, Class, Race, & Sexuality: Researching & Writing Radical Histories in the United States

Carolyn J. Eichner

Rethinking Histories of the Irish Family. The Reconstituting the Irish Family Research Network (RIFNET) project

Leanne Calvert

Mapping Emergent Cartographies: Feminist Knowledge, Social reproduction, and Resistance Across Peripheries

Paula Lucía Aguilar

Corralling Women’s Records and Remnants: Safeguarding the Future of Feminist Knowledge

Sharon Crozier-De Rosa

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Researching and Teaching Histories of Women, Gender and Sexualities: Global Reflections on the Past, Present and Future

Abstract

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Chair

Panelists