Gender and Sexuality Research and the Impact of the International Development Regime
Stream Convenor: Sandra Manuel, Eduardo Mondlane University Mozambique

For this stream, I invite contributions to discuss the impact of the international development regime on the lecturing, learning and research production on gender and sexuality in the Global South in general, and the African continent in particular. The interest emerges from acknowledging an underlining discursive construction of an “Other” in the international development regime. In such a reading, it is widely believed that girls in the Global South are unable to partake in modernity’s offerings, which include not only consumption products (such as sanitary pads and tampons) but also enlightened ideas and values about sexuality. Thus, the international development regime views the third-world woman and girl as being out of step with modernity and arrested in a different temporal zone or backward time. Such understanding, which anchors a colonial gaze on the conditions of these women and girls, is the backdrop for the development of policies and interventions, and informs academic writing and reflection.

I am interested in discussing challenges to these assumptions, and creative responses towards producing rigorous research on gender and sexuality through a critical reflection on the impact of the development regime. In such a discussion, I am interested in exploring the theoretical, methodological and epistemological frames that may help us read these contradictions and rethink gender analysis. Additionally, I am interested in dialogues about how knowledge production from the Global South can amplify, question as well as debate concepts and perspectives in the global social world, rather than narrowing and provincializing it to the South.

Please send ideas for panels and presentations to Sandra Manuel, Assistant Professor in Anthropology, Department of Archaeology and Anthropology, University Eduardo Mondlane
sandra.c.manuel@uem.ac.mz or s.manuel@kaleidoscopio.co.mz