ANTH/WMNS 324, 31 March 2009 CULTURE CONTACT, DEVELOPMENT AND THE GLOBAL ECONOMY

What do we mean by: Culture contact/colonialism? Development? Global economy?

Question de la nuit: Are women’s positions more affected by their access to material resources or by gender ideologies in the processes of change resulting from colonialism, capitalist expansion and development?

The readings variously present a tendency to discuss ideology or material conditions in their analysis of how development affects women.

Lockwood: says that access to material resources works with ideology in establishing Tahitian women’s gender position after colonialism; nevertheless, ideology cannot overcome material conditions - examples of one island in which women’s activities are domestic-based and traditional, but they earn significant income and, as a result, have a high gender status versus another island in which women are engaging in new activities (producing potatoes as a cash crop) but earn less income than men and have a lower gender status.

Wilson-Moore: examines how to work within Bangladeshi gender norms to ensure that their families have good nutrition and possibly give women access to income. - argues that development projects should not try to change women’s roles too much as this will lead to backlash, and could jeopardize family access to the products of home gardens.

Cairoli: looks at how capitalism adapts to Moroccan gender roles for men and women to achieve profits in the garment trade. - Argues that women who work in Moroccan factories collude with their economic exploitation by insisting on the conceptual maintenance of their traditional gender roles; this positions the factory owner as a protective father whom they must obey – a few women resist

Constable: looks at how Filipina domestic workers are perceived by Hong Kong Chinese employers as sexual threats, not because they are, but because of the anxieties the employers experience in the transition of Hong Kong from a British colony to a unit within the People’s Republic of China; also comments that the Filipina domestic workers’ dress choices reflect their accommodation and resistance to the Chinese perceptions.

Zimmer-Tamakoshi: pre-contact Papua New Guinean gender role ideology is carried over to punish women who try to succeed in the capitalist world - this leads to elite women, in particular, being targets of horrendous violence by their partners and others, as they are scapegoated by men who do perceive that they (the men) have lost dominance.

How could we compare and contrast among these readings? Course website