Intersectional Feminist Approaches (GEO-38806)

The challenges we face today demand interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research. They also demand careful considerations of structural modes of (in)justice. That said, uncovering and making sense of gender, race, wealth, generation, sexuality, effects of colonial practice, and more, is not straightforward. These differences demand a better understanding of the intersecting processes that shape the challenges we study in their specific socio-ecological settings.

This interactive course exposes students to diverse concepts (e.g., intersectionality, agency, care, decolonisation, performativity, reflexivity) and approaches (e.g., epistemology, history, political ecology, postcapitalism, poststructuralism, posthumanism) that are useful for understanding intersecting processes.

Through participatory sessions and post-session reflections, this course helps students, first, to develop, operationalize and integrate a feminist intersectional framework into their own (thesis) research. The process used for this integration, then, serves as a model for independent integration of other concepts and approaches relevant to students’ own interests. Additionally, students are supported to practice skills such as self-reflection, holding brave spaces, perspective-taking, and attitudes that reflect on ethical qualities of respect, reciprocity and responsibility, which improve their ability to engage with (more-than-human) actors from diverse backgrounds.

General information:

Registration:

You can register for this course via Osiris. For PhD candidates: first you need to apply or renew your student enrolment number. Please contact WASS for the application form.

Lecturers:

• dr. Chizu Sato, Cultural Geography
• dr. Trista Lin, Cultural Geography
• dr. Jessica Duncan, Rural Sociology
• dr. Margreet van der Burg, Knowledge Technology and Innovation
• dr.ir. Clemens Driessen, Cultural Geography 
• dr.ir. Gemma van der Haar, Sociology of Development and Change
• Esha Shah, PhD, Water Resources Management
• Onno Morrow, PhD, Rural Sociology
• prof.dr. Robert Fletcher, Sociology of Development and Change

• Lectures & interactive learning;
• Tutorial discussions;
• Individual assignments (development of and reflection on an individual conceptual framework and pitch);
• Group assignment;
• Self study.

Some (advanced) knowledge in gender studies or social justice

Literature