Critique & Humanism | 30 | 2009 | Sex and Gender: Cultivating Identities Today

Nancy Fraser, Mapping the feminist imagination: From redistribution to recognition to representation, in Constellations 12:3 (2005)

Bulgarian translation

Emancipation is not an all or nothing affair

Interview with Nancy Fraser by Marina Liakova 

Prague, 12 May 2007

Amortization of imagination in critical theory today?

Interview with Miglena Nikolchina by Dimitar Vatsov

Sofia, 24 October 2009

Feminism and the politics of our selves: Rethinking resistance

Amy Allen

Dartmouth College, Hanover

This paper rethinks the question of resistance in feminist theory from the point of view of what the author calls, following Michel Foucault, “the politics of our selves.” The paper draws on the work of Foucault, Judith Butler, and Juergen Habermas to illuminate both sides of the politics of the self: on the one hand, the way in which selves (including gendered selves) are constituted by power relations through the mechanism of subjection, and, on the other hand, the possibilities individuals have of critically resisting and deliberately transforming themselves. After sketching out my account of the politics of our selves, I discuss the ways in which this account can enable us to understand individual and collective resistance to gender subordination.

The places of women in the fields of early social sciences in Germany: Regarding the forms of male domination in science

Svetla Marinova

Sofia University St. Kliment Ohridski, Sofia

The paper draws attention to one aspect of the historical context of emergence and transformation of sociology that is left unthematized not only by traditional but also by sociologically suitable “histories of sociology” – the aspect of power-based gender relations. It describes the particular case of political transformation of the places of women in the fields of early social sciences in Germany in order to reveal how the democratization of the access to practical fields dominated and defined by men engenders intra-field strategies of maintaining privileged positions and territories. In other words, the paper elucidates how the formal provision of access to games, invented and directed by men, does not automatically safeguard women’s equal chances for recognition and impact. To the contrary, to a much greater extent, that condemns women to be deprived of opportunities to exercise influence and subjugates them insofar as they are formally “given a chance.” Focusing on the issue of political transformation of the places of women in the fields of early social sciences, the aim of the paper is to raise and reflect the more general problem of meaning and cognitive benefit of the study of sociology’s past through the categories of power and domination. In that sense, the paper posits itself in the research field of “history of sociology” and, more particularly, of “history of German sociology.”

Migration as a form of emancipation? Motives and models of women’s resettlement

Annette Treibel

University of Education, Karlsruhe

The paper raises the question to what extent and in what ways migrational processes have an impact on women’s emancipation. It examines individual motives and models of women’s resettlement in contemporary global society. Evidently, only part of the analyzed migrational movements are directly related to breaking away from traditional patriarchal forms of dependency. Whether and when migration leads to emancipation depends, on the one hand, on structural framework conditions, and, on the other hand, on the interests and individual experience of female migrants.

Young females negotiating, resisting and reconstructing othering

Synnøve Bendixsen

Humboldt University, Berlin 

The paper deals with the question how the national and public discourse of cultural otherness in Germany concerns the daily experiences of young female Muslims in Berlin. After considering how ‘othering’ discourses and gazes are part of interpellating or hailing the young females, the paper suggests how the young females resist, deconstruct and accommodate some of these discourses through strategies or situational management techniques. This takes place in an effort to alter or infl uence the current negative stereotypes of Muslims in Germany. Increased social pressure that is gendered is an unintended consequence of the representative role that the young females take on. At the same time, the females have the potential to interrupt, disturb and also prevent the attempt to insert them into particular ‘subject positions’ formed by the ‘othering’ discourses. In this process, the youth make use of techniques of presenting themselves and a management of identity takes place. The efforts of impression management indicated can illustrate the performative aspects of a religious social identity, embedded in social practice. The data for the paper arrives from fi eldwork with young women participating in a Muslim youth organization and from my regular visits in several mosques in Berlin during a period of 18 months.

On the correct use of human trafficking: debates on a social problem and a legal category

Nadege Ragaru

Sciences Po, Paris

In a little over a decade, human traffi cking has become a major issue on the international agenda. The present article looks at the process through which it was constructed as a “social problem” (Murray Edelman) promoted by an ever increasing number of often competing actors (women organizations, international actors, governments, NGOs) who offer their own – typically divergent – readings of its origins and of the solutions to be implemented. Human traffi cking, it is argued, has turned into an arena where a diversity of networks endeavor to ascertain their expertise, to strengthen their legitimacy and to vie for public and/or private funding. Today the issue is – alternatively or simultaneously – envisioned as a human rights issue, a question of illegal migration and/or organized crime and a form of slavery. These multiple (re)formulations have resulted in often contradictory and short-lived anti-traffi cking programs that need to be viewed as part and parcel of the “problem” rather than its solution.

Legitimizing the control of the eastern European prostitute in contemporary German trafficking discourse

Jenny Künkel

Free University, Berlin 

Drawing on a media analysis of the trafficking discourse in the wake of FIFA Soccer World Cup 2006 in Germany, and on interview-based case studies on local sex work
policies, the paper contrasts the representations of migrant sex workers as victims or perpetrators in local and national discourses. The national discourse on trafficking presents the ‘Eastern European prostitute’ as an innocent victim lured into prostitution by the threats or false promises of ruthless men. As implication of the absence of migrant’s agency and structural violence in the narration, the discourse functions as control discourse: It 1) serves to authorize raids in the sex industry, 2) becomes a field of negotiation of work relations, legitimizing precarious (migrant) work beyond the sex industry, and 3) functions to stabilize the exclusive European migration regime. The local discourse, on the contrary, turns the victims into perpetrators. The paper thus argues for an account that combines agency approaches with the analysis of structural violence.

Mount analogue. Theatre of thought

Snejanka Mihaylova

DasArts, Amsterdam

Piersandra Di Matteo

University of Bologna, Bologna

The point of departure for this new voyage towards Mont Analogue is the Theatre of Thought. We have been experiencing the terrible attraction of the unthinkable, which rather than securing a safe ground for theoretical reflection has opened onto a series of contradictions and collapses. The most difficult to get over perhaps is the relationship between theatre and event, two terms that seem inseparable but which, in their reciprocal attraction and repulsion, lead into an abyss, into the vortex that swirls between language and thought. In a constellation with four cardinal points – theatre, event, language, thought – every movement directs us towards the infinite, where what is at stake is a question of reality and its relation to representation.

Bulgarian nation-state, modernization and women’s political citizenship (1878-1944)

Krassimira Daskalova

Sofia University St. Kliment Ohridski, Sofia

The article deals with the history of women’s suffrage in Bulgaria, its main forces, actors and achievements in the 19th and early 20th centuries presented against the broader institutional, political, social and cultural factors which played a role in shaping the process of modernization and women’s emancipation. The text is part of a wider historical project dedicated to the role of women and gender relations in modern Bulgarian culture.

Gender (in)equalities in contemporary Bulgarian society – one gains, everybody lose

Milena Dimitrova

Sofia University St. Kliment Ohridski, Sofia

The article examines to what extent it is relevant to discuss gender inequality in Bulgaria today. Within this framework, the article attempts to answer the questions does gender inequality exist, and if it does what are its dimensions? The analysis is based primarily on the empirical data of the World Economic Forum, Eurobarometer and two comparative national representative public opinion surveys; this data allows for the measurement of shifts in Bulgarians’ attitudes during the period between 1999 and 2008. The indicators set in the surveys reflect the behavioral models, imposed and reproduced by the social norms. They provide insight into how these norms affect the identity formation of men and women, predetermine their professional development, and shape their interpersonal relations. The collected data also attempt to analyze the “natural” character of the (in) equalities and propose an explanation why despite the predominant feeling that there is gender equality in Bulgaria, de facto men and women interpret differently their de jure equal opportunities.

Mission and topics of gender studies in Bulgaria

Interview with Tatyana Kotzeva by Marina Liakova

Sofia, 17 April 2009

Metamorphoses of the woman from a housewife into a worker: Images of women in Zhenata Dnes (Women Today) (1949-1956)

Veronica Dimitrova

Sofia University St. Kliment Ohridski, Sofia

I track the changes in the vision of the woman in the period from 1949 to 1956 in the official feminine magazine Zhenata dnes (Women Today). On the one hand, upon its formation the image of the woman as a ‘worker’ sought to distance itself from the image of the ‘housewife,’ characteristic for the magazines prior to September 9, 1944. On the other hand, in the mid-1950s socialism’s emancipatory project became non-linear and partially returned the image of the woman to the household hearth.

Gender ideas and practices of the post socialist urban families in Bulgaria

Nevena Dimova

New Bulgarian University, Sofia 

This study looks at the changing gender relations in postsocialist families with young children in “Lozenetz” neighborhood in Sofi a. Through three family scenarios, I study the roles and responsibilities of men and women, as well as the notions and perceptions of gender relations and connect them to the context of social politics and practices of the Bulgarian state, to the alleged gendering of the labor market, and to the personal choices of individuals in the current transformation in Bulgaria.

Based on two months of ethnographic fieldwork, this project shows that competitive as well as equal models of family relations have been constructed after 1989. These practices are possible also because of the creation of new roles, such as “super man,” “equal partner,” and “active father,” associating some men in Bulgaria with active participation in the private space of the family.

Gender aspects of the Bulgarian street obituary

Emilia Karaboeva

Eindhoven University of Technology, Eindhoven

The paper discusses the questions how and why in some cultures attitudes towards men and towards women continue to be different even after their death. For the purposes of the research, various types of obituaries are analyzed in a comparative perspective, the focus being on the phenomenon Bulgarian street obituary.

The main conclusion is that obituaries in general confirm the larger importance of men in society and that obituaries should be considered not only and not so much as a reflection of actual gender relations but more importantly, as an instrument of reconfirmation of those relations. Contrary to the common case, however, the Bulgarian street obituary rather mitigates the borders between “male” and “female.” The analysis demonstrates that the Bulgarian street obituary does not reveal considerable distinction between men and women with respect to death and death-related rituals.

The fight against gender discrimination is a lonely quest

Interview with Margarita Ilieva by Vyara Angelova

Sofia, 15 June 2009

Homosexuality in the view of Bulgarian students: A reconstruction attempt

Vyara Angelova

Sofia University St. Kliment Ohridski, Sofia

Marina Liakova

University of Education, Karlsruhe

The paper examines various ways in which homosexuality is perceived by Bulgarian students at Sofi a University. The analysis is based on in-depth interviews with students from different faculties and disciplines. The main task of the research is to evaluate to what extent and how undergraduates accept or respectively reject sexual difference. The text offers a comparison between attitudes of students and those of internet-forums’ users towards homosexuality. We searched for the social reasons behind the pronouncement of acceptance or rejection of differences. The conclusions are laid within the context of the debate on the construction of social minorities.

The male cook and the female cook: gender roles in the kitchen

Raicho Pozharliev

Sofia University St. Kliment Ohridski, Sofia

The paper analyzes gender roles, identifi cations and power hierarchies in the field of eating and in the kitchen. The author argues that the kitchen is a system of cultural activities, in which the man and the woman not only compete with each other and exchange their power positions, and moreover it is a fi eld of emancipation for both men and women. The paper challenges the simplistic treatment of the kitchen as a “natural” woman’s place, opposed to the public places of the man and analyzes it as giving cultural opportunities to both men and women. Thus, on the basis of historical-cultural facts, the complex dialectics of male-female relationships in the fi eld of cooking is revealed.

Redneck: A trial of identity

Snejana Popova

Sofia University St. Kliment Ohridski, Sofia

In the paper, the subject of research are symbolic inequalities in new media and more particularly, in internet discussions. The analysis ascertains that the discussion-based publicity of the web magnifies differences of origin and encourages mimicry. It reveals a number of contradictions suggesting problematic identity that is put to the test by internet discussions.

Beyond the archetype

Review of the Archetype series

Darin Tenev

Critique & Humanism after 20 years and 30 volumes

Dobrin Todorov

University of Mining and Geology St. Ivan Rilski, Sofia

The paper analyzes the development of Critique & Humanism journal throughout its 20-year-long history. Two periods are outlined by focusing on the changes that the journal underwent throughout time. The journal’s main characteristics are studied – content, structure and authors. The analysis reveals the leading role of the journal within the Bulgarian press in the humanities during the post-totalitarian period.