Gender And Social Justice: Southern Perspectives

Sociology has a long but troubled history of engagement with gender issues. Development of the field is now vitally dependent on perspectives from the global South. Issues of collective voice, societal violence, structural transformation, and the relation between gender and land, are among the issues that emerge strongly from the social experience of the colonised world. A re-thinking of gender – beyond the currently influential northern perspectives – is required, which will involve a rethinking of the historicity of gender, a reconsideration of embodiment, and a recognition of world-level gender dynamics. Sociology is a resource for documenting and understanding issues of gender justice, in relation to material inequality, recognition and embodiment. Social science generally is a resource for the democratisation of society on a world scale.