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Eastwards / Westwards: Which Direction for Gender Studies in the 21st Century?

Eastwards / Westwards: Which Direction for Gender Studies in the 21st Century?

Eastwards / Westwards: Which Direction for Gender Studies in the XXIst Century? is a collection of essays which focus on themes and methods that characterize the current research on gender in Asian countries in general, under a comparative approach that tries to cut across the boundaries of time and space.

In this collection, ideas derived from Gender Studies as they are practised all over the world have been subjected to scrutiny for their utility in helping to describe and understand regional phenomena. But the concepts of ‘local’ and ‘global’–with their discoursive productions–have not functioned here as a binary opposition: localism and globalism are mutually constitutive and the authors have interrogated those spaces of interaction between the ‘self’ and the ‘other’, bearing in mind their own embeddedness in social and cultural structures and their own historical memory.

Eastwards / Westwards: Which Direction for Gender Studies in the XXIst Century? provides a critical transnational perspective on some of the complex effects of the dynamics of cultural globalization, by exploring the relation between gender and education, politics, economics, anthropology, linguistics, historiography, sociology, literature, and popular culture, as agents of the (re)invention of old and new, male and female identities, their conversion into concepts and their circulation through time and space.


Clara Sarmento, PhD in Contemporary Portuguese Culture, develops her research on intercultural representations of gender, as the coordinator of the Centre for Intercultural Studies of the Polytechnic Institute of Oporto, where she holds her teaching position.

"In this rapidly changing world, the publication of Eastwards / Westwards: Which Direction for Gender Studies in the XXIst Century? is especially timely. Contextualized by the editor’s thoughtful introduction, these seven essays will provoke new questions regarding the interplay between current issues and the heritage of the past, especially in Asia. Writing in clear and accessible prose, an international group of scholars offers a range of interdisciplinary expertise and experience that provides a fund of fresh material and contemporary data. The geographical extent of the societies discussed (including new countries that have emerged from older entities, like the Ukraine and Kazakhstan, or Bangladesh) are a testimony to the insightful approaches and methodologies that are helping to open a new chapter in the study of women and gender relationships. A strength of the book is the attention given to common themes that thread through the volume. Insisting that the past is intertwined with the present, the authors remind us that in all societies the local specifics shaping the female condition are infused by global dynamics. Although young women today may be better educated and more ambitious than their mothers, they still carry with them the inherited expectations of their society, and the gender stereotypes so often encountered in novels and films are not easily displaced. Governments can institute regulations and reforms, but such measures do not necessarily lead to changes in cultural perceptions about appropriate behavior and language for women. Individually and collectively, the contributions to Eastwards / Westwards graphically show that the painful effects of Western influence, so evident in the colonial environment, can still be tracked as Asian societies respond to the often adverse exposure to a globalized economy. Taking us on an intellectual journey that is simultaneously exciting and disturbing, the editor and authors should be congratulated on producing a book that will undoubtedly be a most welcome addition to the field of women and gender studies."

—Professor Barbara Watson Andaya, Asian Studies Program, University of Hawai'i

"In a volume that is penetrating, straightforward and polemic, the editor collects seven essays on Asian cultural issues, mainly concerning women. What strikes the reader at first is probably the fact that the matters discussed here are, generally speaking, unknown (and thus considered exotic) in the West, and that in spite of the fact that cultural studies, gender studies and post-colonial studies are thriving among us. But something else challenges us to read Eastwards / Westwards: Which Directions for Gender Studies in the XXIst Century?: the unbiased approach of these seven contributions, which seem to overcome, in practice, central difficulties in cultural studies, namely those spelled out by Gayatri Spivak.
Filled with accounts of carefully documented practices, descriptions of stereotypical images, their counterparts and evolution, this book seems to show us what we did not know, and at the same time shed light both on the ‘other’ and on us.
Globalization is rapidly confronting us with what were once classified as ‘regional phenomena’ happening far away from us: due to the migration currents from East to West, they are now unfolding before our very eyes as real practices taking place among us. To ostracize people from different cultures or simply to turn our backs to all this has proved not to be a solution.
What kind of readers does Eastwards / Westwards: Which Directions for Gender Studies in the XXIst Century? appeal to? I would say almost every kind. You can read it out of sheer curiosity for exoticism, you can read it because you wish not only to know more about different cultures but to understand them better and you can read it as a scholar interested in cultural studies. Either way, while getting to know and understand the ‘other’, you are inevitably getting to know and understand yourself.
That women have a voice we all know; that their voice can be heard is something completely different. The contributions collected in Eastwards / Westwards: Which Directions for Gender Studies in the XXIst Century? echo the predicaments of Asian women, be they in India, in Ukraine, in Kazakhstan, in Bangladesh, in China, in Southeast Asia or as migrants in the West. "
—Professor Dalila Lopes, Coordinator of the Department of Languages and Culture, Polytechnic Institute of Oporto

"Clara Sarmento has adroitly selected and very usefully introduced this collection of essays exploring the local realities beneath the theoretical assumptions of the liberation and empowerment of women in Asian societies, with a focus on those of China, the Ukraine, Kazahkstan, and the Hindi-speaking, Bangla-speaking, and formerly Portuguese areas of India. To paraphrase the title of Alicia Tolstokorova’s essay, the Revolution of Gender Equality still falls deceptively but decisively short of its goals. Not surprisingly, Language and local languages are found to be at the center of the paradox: the “old ways” of history are imbedded in dialects; in the signs, symbols, and pledges of marriage; in religious formulations of all kinds. Stereotypes of “the Other Woman,” such as the prostitute, remain operative. The “old language” of states formerly subsumed by Russia now leaves them vulnerable to the incursions of Muslim fundamentalism and the subsequent erosion of their multiculturalism. Investigations of local languages reveal varying degrees of opposition between tradition and modernity and between cultural evolution and permanent biases beneath idealistic representations. The cinematic image of a newly liberated woman, for instance, does not immediately create a real woman of such liberated roles and definitions. The return of a culture to its nationalistic “roots” may actually exclude women from public discourse and expose them to being “criticized, categorized, and scorned.” New “marriage laws,” which attempt to free women from feudalism, may have unforeseen consequences such as the increase of “single women, of de facto unions, of homosexuality, of late marriages, and divorce” which are not necessarily of benefit to either the individual or the society. Foucault’s “archeological method” and Gramsci’s “Inventory” of the “historical processes,” along with the “traces” of Derrida and the “imaginary” of Lacan provide a syncretic conceptual framework for understanding the practical failures of Gender Theory and constructing a program for re-directing and traversing the minefield of real social action. Global uniformity and superficial Westernization must be eschewed. A sensitivity to the persistence of deep layers of popular local preferences is paramount. Western Theory and Eastern History gaze upon each other in a symbiotic match. I have been in frequent and detailed correspondence with Clara Sarmento since visiting Portugal, Porto, and ISCAP in November 2002. I believe I have read almost every book, article, and paper she has authored during that period. I long ago ran out of superlatives with which to express the high esteem in which I hold her as a scholar/critic of literature, the arts, culture, and society. Her intelligence, erudition, and eloquence are matched only by her unabashed generosity of spirit. And I know that when she writes, she writes not only for herself but on behalf of her congenial and productive colleagues at ISCAP, with whom she hosted me when I lectured there on (of all people!) Charles Bukowski—not a noted theorist (!) but one who portrayed as fully as anyone ever has the signs, symptoms, and symbols of the Gender Games. Clara has produced here a magnificent collection of essays to be digested by specialist and generalist alike. I know that my own thought processes have already been modified by my reading of the manuscript and that the paradoxes explored herein will inevitably find their way into my teaching, my poetry, my fiction, my criticism, and my life as a man, an American, and, I hope, a thinking member of our species. I recommend it to all readers who care about, speculate upon, and involve themselves with the future of humanity."

—Gerald Locklin, Ph.D., Professor of English, California State University, Long Beach; Part-Time Lecturer, Master of Professional Writing Program, University of Southern California

Elisabetta Colla

Raasheed Mahmood

Maria de Manso

Anjali Pande

Alissa Tolstokorova

Buy This Book

ISBN: 1-84718-308-5

ISBN13: 9781847183088

Release Date: 11th October 2007

Pages: 195

Price: £34.99

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