Gender and Development Studies

Course Code
Course
Number of Credits
Description/Course Objective
Semester 
ED75.07  Gender Analysis and Gender Responsive Development Planning
3
 The course aims to highlight how women’s experience and strengthening their voices are crucial part of development planning process to achieve gender equality. This course critically assesses the present planning processes as well as gender mainstreaming practices. It is essential for development practitioners both in government and non-government as well as aid agencies to be able to conduct gender analysis and develop plans and manage project cycles with gender perspective. The course aims to equip students with knowledge on how engendering of development process can happen on the ground, and practical skills in gender and development, which is necessary to work as gender specialist/ program officers in organizations and projects. Jan Sem
ED75.11  Gender Politics, Civil Society and Human Rights
3
 This course aims to examine gender through power, contested in State institutions and the public sphere and exercised through various legal and policy instruments. It further aims to contextualize our knowledge of gender in its political past, underlining the important role the Nation-State has had in engendering spaces and identities while committing, condoning, or suppressing gender-based violence. In contrast, the course also aims to assess political participation and examine the role of the women’s movement, since such civil society mobilization is reinventing gender discourse, realigning power struggles, and consequently the locus of political action and development. The course has a final objective of examining norms and human rights instruments that both foster and inhibit political participation and gender equality. Jan Sem
ED75.9010  Selected Topic: Gender and Development Communication
3
 This Course explores the different influential theoretical approaches within the field of Development Communication, paying attention to origin, application and strengths and weaknesses of various strategies & development campaigns in different parts of the world and current theoretical debates. Using an interdisciplinary lens and theories from cultural studies, feminist approaches, communication for social change, media studies and development studies, we will explore different campaign artifacts, practices  to critically analyze gendered (masculine and feminine) representations within the development media discourse. The purpose is to gain insights into how “development communication” both influence and are influenced by gender/ class/ race/ ethnicity/ nationality and other social categories and impact norms, cultural formations and development agendas. The “media” in all its myriad forms – mass media, folk media, social media – plays an important role in constructing gendered norms, communication patterns and are ultimately tied to notions of the self, nation, aspirations and social change. Throughout the semester we will be considering how gender is linked to notions of power, identity visibility, voice, participation and other important elements of identity formation and how these are reflected in different kinds of development communication campaigns. Concurrently we will also be examining how having a gendered lens helps address or orient issues in media and development praxis.  Aug Sem
ED75.9013  Selected Topic: Gender and Global Health
3
 This course takes a cross-cultural, inter-disciplinary and multi-methodological approach to understand contemporary Gender and Health issues. In particular, the course will explore the gendered, socio-economic-cultural, racial/ethnic, and geographical dimensions that underlie the approaches to understanding public health research, interventions and policies. Students will gain a broad exposure to a number of health issues and the interdisciplinary theorizing of feminists, health communication scholars and practitioners, public health advocates and social scientist. The course is divided in to three interrelated sections with the first third focused on theoretical underpinnings for understanding gender and health issues – including the social construction of health issues and solutions, role of gender norms (femininity and masculinity) and the how structural issues of social roles, class, race, gender, sexual orientation etc. determine health and well-being of individuals. Issues of both women’s and men’s health will be overviewed within this context to understand how gendered norms and social roles impact the everyday lives and health of men and women in different parts of the world. The second section of the course will look at research and interventions related to specific health issues in order to expand on the theoretical approaches and critically examine the role gender plays in health research and promotion. In the final third of the class we will focus on policy perspectives and interrogate Gender Mainstreaming in health policy.   Jan Sem
ED75.9017  Selected Topic: Forced Migration and Human Trafficking in the Greater Mekong Sub-Region
1
 The course aims to understand various forms of forced migration and trafficking in persons in the Greater Mekong Sub-Region (GMSR), including refugee flows, disaster related migration, labor trafficking, sex slavery and other form of involuntary servitude. It will examine both disaster-related and political forms of forced migration (including statelessness), as well as human trafficking, including why women tend to be particularly vulnerable to involuntary servitude and sex trafficking, and why men are often overlooked as trafficked persons for labor purposes. We will end with a discussion of how policies affect, prevent or cause forced migration and with a presentation of key challenges when conducting research on forced migration and human trafficking. InterSem
ED75.9018  Selected Topic: Gender and Labor Migration in Asia
2
 The course aims to take a gender approach to studying various forms of labor migration in Asia. It will examine how the gender division of labor resulting from migration usually leads to more exploitation and less protection for women migrants by labor and immigration laws. After a survey of migration theories, the course aims to look at structural and social determinants that enables such transnational migration and to take place, the gendered impact of such movements, and the range of measures and legal instruments that exist locally, regionally and internationally that cover, control and protect labor migrants. We will end the course with a session on conducting research on migration. InterSem
ED75.9020  Selected Topic: Gender and Development: Principles and Concepts
2
 In the recent decades of economic development and continued environmental degradation, gender and development studies have become a major concern. This course provides an overview of the history of gender and development, and discusses key concepts in gender and development and its relevance in development in the region. The course aims to familiarize students with social science thinking and writing, and gender perspectives. Aug Sem
ED75.9021  Selected Topic: Science, Technology and Gender
2
 This course aims to examine the gender dimensions of science and implications from technological change. It asks a basic question: Are science and technologies gendered? The course first covers the debates around gender, science and technologies, then examines the relation between new technologies and gender through impacts, uses and responses. It ends with an interrogation about what science and changing technologies may mean for gender, and vice versa, in a future world. Aug Sem
ED75.9022  Selected Topic: Gender, Enterprise and Organization
2
 The objective of the course is to provide students the knowledge on women’s economic empowerment. The course is designed to analyze gender aspects of business management, both in micro- and large enterprise/ organizations under the globalizing economy. In the first half of the course, we examine how women in many parts of Asia play a role as managers of household economy and dominate “micro-enterprises” and the informal economy, and whether or not they are able to translate their small business into stronger negotiation power and recognition in society. In the latter half, role of women in large-scale enterprises and organizations, whether in the government or corporate sectors, is explored. In both sessions, policy and program support to facilitate women’s advancement in these fields are discussed. Aug Sem
ED75.9023  Selected Topic: Gender Issues in Global Economy
1
 Globalization and regional economic integration are features that characterize the economy nowadays. The course discusses gender issues under such economic globalization. Patterns in economic development differs under different states and locations, and gender issues and relations are shaped by and also shape the economy. The course provides key concepts in understanding gender issues in economic globalization. Aug Sem
ED75.9024  Selected Topic: Gender, Culture and Human Development
2
 This course aims to examine how understandings of gender, and sexuality are culturally constructed through social structures and global ideological systems, and how economic, political, and cultural structures enforce gender distinctions and its implications for development. The course draws from the interdisciplinary fields of feminist/gender studies, development studies and cultural studies. It has three main objectives, the first to review fundamental approaches on gender, culture and development and the related role of culture in understanding gender and development. The second to examine how understanding of gender and sexuality are reproduced, negotiated and deployed in the context of contemporary development, globalization and transnational issues. Jan Sem
ED75.9029 Selected Topic: Global Digital Cultures, Gender and Development
1
 This introductory theory course aims to study contemporary digital cultures and the role of digital media technologies in reconstituting social inequalities of gender, class and race/ethnicity and emerging questions on equity and social justice. It draws from the fields of feminist theory, digital humanities and development studies among others to help elaborate on theoretical and methodological discussions in the field. The course will start with an overview of how to understand digital inequality and its relationship to culture; the next four sections will relate these discussions on gender/race/class inequalities to the role of (a) digital design and architecture, (b) data and algorithms (c) digital violence and activism and (d) digital leisure for Development in entrenching and/or subverting them. The class takes a primarily intersectional lens in understanding these issues, especially in the context of Gender and the Global South. Jan Sem
ED75.9030 Selected Topic: Diversity, Equity and Social Justice in Digital Cultures
2
 This introductory theory course aims to study contemporary digital cultures and the role of digital media technologies in reconstituting social inequalities of gender, class and race/ethnicity and emerging questions on equity and social justice. It draws from the fields of feminist theory, digital humanities and development studies among others to help elaborate on theoretical and methodological discussions in the field. The class takes a primarily intersectional lens in understanding these issues, especially in the context of societies in the Global South.

The course will start with a theoretical overview of feminist approaches to studying digital culture and recent theorizing on digital architectures and its relationship to social inequality and marginalization. The second half of the class will focus on emerging thematic issues in gender, diversity and equity – and the role of digital technologies in promoting/subverting fights for social justice.

 Jan Sem