Vera Mackie
Visiting Professor at IGS / Professor, Curtin University of Technology, Australia
The 11th IGS Evening Seminar Series
Gender and Globalization in Asia and the Pacific
date
November 7, 14, 28, Dec 5, 12 2001
professor
Prof. Vera Mackie (Visiting Professor at IGS / Professor, Curtin University of Technology, Australia)
Vera Mackie is a Visiting Professor at the Institute for Gender Studies(IGS), Ochanomizu University. She has taught at Swinburne University of Technology, the University of Adelaide, the University of Melbourne and Curtin University of Technology. Her current position is Foundation Professor of Japanese Studies at Curtin University of Technology and other recent positions include: Head of the School of Languages and Intercultural Education at Curtin University of Technology, Associate Dean: Research in the Division of Humanities at Curtin University of Technology, Director of Women's Studies and Co-Director of the Gender Studies Research Unit at the University of Melbourne, and Senior Lecturer in Modern Japanese History at the University of Melbourne. She majored in Japanese and Linguistics at Monash University, going on to complete an MA in Japanese Studies at Monash University and PhD in History and Women's Studies at the University of Adelaide. Research projects have focused on the History of the Women's Movement in Japan, Socialist Women in Early Twentieth Century Japan, the Politics of Visual Culture in Twentieth Century Japan, and Gender, Politics and Citizenship in Contemporary Japan and Australia. These projects have been funded by the Japan Foundation, the Toyota Foundation and the Australian Research Council.
Publications
2001a P. Jones and V. Mackie (eds), Relationships: Australia and Japan, 1870-1950s, History Monographs Series, Melbourne: Univ. of Melbourne.
2001b ‘The Trans-sexual Citizen: Queering Sameness and Difference’, Australian Feminist Studies, vol.16, no.2.
2000a ‘Sexual Violence, Silence and Human Rights Discourse: The Emergence of the Military Prostitution Issue’, in A. M. Hilsdon, V. Mackie et al. (eds) Human Rights and Gender Politics: Asia Pacific Perspectives, London: Routledge.
2000b ‘The Dimensions of Citizenship in Modern Japan: Gender, Class, Ethnicity and Sexuality’, in A. Vandenberg (ed.) Democracy and Citizenship in a Global Era, London: Macmillan.
1997 Creating Socialist Women in Japan: Gender, Labour and Activism, 1900-1937, Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press.
1996 ‘Feminist Critiques of Modern Japanese Politics’, in M. Threlfall (ed.) Mapping the Women’s Movement, London: Verso.
1992 ‘Japan and South East Asia: The International Division of Labour and Leisure’ , in D. Harrison (ed.), Tourism and the Less Developed Countries, London: Belhaven Press.
1988 ‘Division of Labour’, in G. McCormack and Y. Sugimoto (eds), Modernization and Beyond the Japanese Trajectory, Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press.
overview
This lecture series will focus on Gender and Globalization in Asia and the Pacific, with a particular focus on Australia, Japan and Southeast Asia. What relationships do Japan and Australia have with other countries in the region? This lecture series will consider how the various gendered phenomena associated with globalization look from the specific vantage point of the Asia-Pacific region. What are the routes of the flows of products, people, finance, signs and symbols in the region? Who moves where and with what purpose? Who are the tourists and who are the hosts? Who are the producers and who are the consumers? Who seeks marriage partners and where? How are these actors positioned in the multiple axes of gender, class, ‘race’, ethnicity and sexuality? How do these processes appear (or fail to appear) in cultural representations? After an introductory lecture which considers theoretical definitions of globalization, we will focus on the themes of the body, sexual identities, cultural representation, and political activism. This discussion will be informed by the perspectives of feminist theory, postcolonial theory, and cultural studies, and the associated challenges to the disciplines of political science, political economy and international relations.
1. Thinking about Gender and Globalization
This lecture will provide an introduction to the themes of the lecture series on ' Gender and Globalization in Asia and the Pacific’. This will include the consideration of: definitions of globalization; the specific manifestations of globalization in Australia, Japan and Southeast Asia; the theoretical perspectives necessary to a consideration of gender and globalization; and a discussion of the necessity to consider the relationship between political economy and cultural representations.
Wednesday November 14
2. Globalization and the Body
This lecture will focus on the embodied experiences of globalization. Or, could we say ‘the globalized body’ and ’embodied globalization’? This will first of all include a consideration of globalization as involving the movement of people (i.e. bodies). We will then consider how globalization is reflected in reproduction, sexuality, the commodified sexual service industry, the embodied services provided through the tourist industry, the embodied experiences of work in transnational factories, the embodied experiences of migrant workers and marriage migrants, the embodied experiences of both tourists and their hosts, and the ways in which the physical labour of migrant workers is incorporated into the economic and class structures of the host societies, in opposition to the ‘mental labour’ of more privileged members of those societies. Embodiment is thus not simply a matter of individual experience, but is part of the very structures of modern societies.
Wednesday November 28
3. Globalization and Representation
How do the experiences of globalization appear (or fail to appear) in cultural representations? This lecture will consider the ways in which the gaze of powerful observers on those less powerful is structured in specific and localized relationships of domination and subordination. We will develop models of spectatorship and desire which recognise that both spectators and their objects are positioned according to multiple axes of gender, class, ‘race' , ethnicity and sexuality. The second part of the lecture will consider alternative representations of globalization, which may involve self-representation, or even the gaze' from below’.
Wednesday December 5
4. Globalization and Sexual Identities
This lecture will consider the question of the production of identities as sexual identities in the context of debates on the globalization of cultural forms. Do all societies operate according to binaristic models of male/female and heterosexual/homosexual, or are other models imaginable? Some commentators argue that in some societies we can see alternative models based on multiple configurations of sex, gender and sexuality. The debates about ' gay' , ' lesbian' , ‘transgender’ and 'queer' identities in a global context may also be seen as a specific instance of debates on ' globalization' , ' localisation' , and ' glocalisation’. Some argue that gay identities are a global phenomenon, with a common gay culture existing across national borders, while others argue that, even where a loanword such as' gay' is employed, it may have different connotations and meanings in particular local contexts. Gay, lesbian and queer identities may also be linked to political struggles in particular local contexts.
Wednesday December 12 (or Thursday December 11)
5. Globalization and Transnational Feminism
Women’s movements have, since the earliest days, been built on links between women in different countries. Given the processes of globalization, such international links have become increasingly necessary. However, the language used to discuss these linkages has changed: from ' international' , to ' global’, to ‘transnational' , reflecting changing views of the interconnectedness of nations in the world system. This lecture will consider recent feminist actions in the Asia-Pacific region, the changing language of globalization, transnationality and feminism, and a discussion of the relationship between language, discourse, cultural practices, political economy, activism and social transformation. In a world where concepts of citizenship are circumscribed by national boundaries, is it possible for feminist movements to transcend national boundaries?
※This event is finished.
