The theme that has been selected for the 2004 Institute is:
Gender in the Economy of Care.
The struggles for social equality between men and women remain
an area of continuing relevance to any quest for a holistic
understanding of economy, society and politics in contemporary
Africa. The household, in spite of its changing forms over the
years, constitutes the primary framework within which the basic
ground rules for these struggles are set – and, therefore, the
main site where the quest for gender equality and justice are
fought, won and/or lost in the first instance. It is the arena
where the power relations that are germane to the dynamics of
gender in the broader society are fashioned, given ideological
legitimation, institutionalised, contested, revised and
transformed. Previous academic preoccupations with the household
from a gender point of view have involved scholars in a close
interrogation of history, tradition and culture; the mode of
construction and exercise of patriarchal power; the
contradictory interface between patriarchy and matriarchy and
within these categories as well; the framework for the
structuring of opportunities between the girl-child and the
boy-child; the gender/sexual division of labour; the dynamics of
domesticity; and the practice of male power and masculinity,
including domestic violence of various kinds. Interest has also
been shown in the household as a site of a complex of
transactions: production, exchange, socialisation, affection,
and identity formation.
More recently, attention has been drawn to the emergence and
growing importance of female-headed households and the
implication of this development for the concept of the family
“breadwinner” and the politics of femininity. Female headship of
households was initially linked to the destabilising
consequences of the migrant labour system; today, it has been
reinforced by the ravages of the HIV/AIDS pandemic, the spate of
violent conflicts occurring across the continent, and the
increase in the number of displaced persons, developments which
in their own right feed into the growth of the domestic economy
of care. At all stages of the evolution of the household, the
centrality of the labour of women to its production and
reproduction and, ultimately, the production and reproduction of
the economy at the local, national and regional levels has never
been in question. Gender economists have sought to demonstrate
the critical function performed by women’s unpaid labour – most
of which pertains to the structuring of the system of care - in
the politics of the wage relationship, urban settlement
patterns, national productivity, competitiveness, and external
(cross-border) trade.
The exigencies of household welfare internal to the well-being
of the members of the family constitute a permanent element in
the structuring of the economy of care and the central role
which women play in it. The changing requirements of the
macro-economy at different phases of the process of accumulation
impacts on the domestic, household context to produce other
critical elements of demand on the time and resources of women
to shape the evolution of the care economy. The structuring of
the particular role which different categories of women assume
in the economy of care is, clearly, a function of their broader
social position, a fact which makes the arena of the care
economy a terrain of complex, interlocking gender and class
equations. In the contemporary context, critical developments
which have had a direct impact on the changing content and
contours of the economy of care include the economic crises
which most African countries began to undergo in the period from
the 1980s onwards and which have persisted for much of the last
two decades; the orthodox structural adjustment programmes
sponsored by the IMF and the World Bank and which fed into the
overall dynamic of crises, stagnation and decline; the rapid and
far-reaching erosion of state capacity, including the historic
role assumed by the post-colonial state in basic social
provisioning; the expanding boundaries of unemployment, poverty
and informalisation; the processes of globalisation which have
produced a set of new opportunities and constraints; the
widespread alienation of the youth that has become a key feature
of the contemporary African political terrain; the increased
precariousness of the condition of the child; and the emergence
and institutionalisation of various low-level survival
strategies as individuals, households, and communities seek to
cope with the effects of prolonged economic crises and
structural adjustment. These developments have impacted directly
on the household in a way as to compel changes in the gender
division of labour, produce new pressures on the allocation of
women’s time, catalyse the emergence of new gender identities,
and steer women into various new activity clusters designed to
secure the welfare of the family.
Participants in the 2004 Gender Institute will be invited to,
among other things, explore various aspects and dimensions of
the economy of care as viewed from the perspective of the
changing requirements for the upkeep and well-being of the
family, the reconstitution of the division of labour within the
household, and the re-composition of male – female relations at
a time of broad-ranging retrenchments that have affected the
state and state capacity, the public sector, the formal economy,
the health status of the citizenry and the stability of the
polity. The wealth of conceptual, theoretical and methodological
issues thrown up by the growing economy of care will be explored
by participants in the Institute as will the range of factors
that account for its changing content and context. The basic
contours of the economy of care will also be examined by the
participants, including especially a disaggregation of the
differing location of different categories of women and men in
the structure of care and the interface of gender and class
which it produces. Furthermore, the shifting composition of
male-female relations within the household and beyond, as well
as the import of the of reversals taking place in
pre-established roles will be analysed from the point of view of
the dialectic of the empowerment and disempowerment of women.
The economy of care also broaches the issue of the public
provision of social services. The interface between the public
and the “private” realms in the constitution of the economy of
care will be explored as part of the overall critique that will
be undertaken of contemporary public policy-making in Africa.
The challenges posed by the processes of globalisation to the
economy of care and the opportunities that they offer will also
be studied. It is expected that the contributions from the
participants in the Institute will generate a significant
African contribution to the body of literature which is emerging
on the political economy of care.
The objectives of the 2004 Gender Institute are to:
-
Provide a platform to African scholars with an interest in
undertaking theoretical and empirical research on gender in
the economy of care;
-
Familiarise researchers with the latest literature in the
field and through this help consolidate an African perspective
on the theoretical debates taking place;
-
Sharpen researchers’ gender analytic skills, as well as
promote an African feminist methodology in the study of the
economy of care;
-
Encourage African knowledge production on the economy of care
and, in so doing, contributing to the emergence of a critical
mass of networked intellectuals with an active research
interest in deepening research on this theme.
