Chinese
Society for Women’s Studies
Spring
2003
Content
Conference
Report
News
of Conferences
Update
of Some Useful Websites
The
First Nordic-China Women & Gender Studies Conference:
Re-Negotiating
the Politics of the Public and the Private - Gender and Politics in China and
the Nordic Countries
19-22
November 2002
This
international conference focused on gender and politics in China and the Nordic
countries. The aim was to develop transnational, cross-cultural and
cross-disciplinary perspectives on the significance and relevance of the
feminist public-private critique in and across the Chinese and Nordic contexts.
The main question addressed was: How do political actors and grassroots
activists cross the boundaries of, merge or create boundaries between what is
perceived as a public and thereby a political matter and what is a private and
thereby a non-political matter? Moreover, the conference addressed questions of
how these issues are addressed in the two different contexts and of the
similarities and the differences between the Nordic women friendly states and
the Chinese socialist state.
The conference brought together 70 academics and
activists engaged in studies of women’s political participation and activism in
China and the Nordic countries from China, the Nordic countries (Norway, Sweden,
Finland, Denmark), India, Austria and Great Britain. Twenty-six scholars and
activists presented papers to the conference.
Central
themes
Conference participants were
specialists on either the Nordic or the Chinese contexts. They came to the
conference not only with questions and confusions based on different experiences
of the public and private in their home countries (most participants were
engaged in studies of their home country), but also with great curiosity for
each other’s views and theoretical understandings. What is “the public” and what
is “the private” in the Nordic context? What is “the public” and what is “the
private” in the Chinese context? Can we understand the two contexts by using a
seemingly similar terminology? As a result of different disciplinary backgrounds
and knowledge of the two contexts, the themes brought forward by the
participants were also very disparate. Nonetheless, the conference constituted a
unique and earnest effort to explore diversities, to engage in dialogue and to
search for common ground to speak from.
The following themes were discussed during the conference: women as public and private actors, power in the public and the private domain, domestic violence, re-negotiating the public and the private, the public and the private in local and global perspectives. The presentations dealt with a variety of issues, such as discourses on privacy, discourses of women in politics across the public and the private divide, feminism, state feminism, and the role of information and communication technology in the public-private discussion. The issue of domestic violence and the ways in which activism against violence against women involves bringing a private issue into the public domain occupied a central place in the presentations by Chinese scholars and activists.
The conference approached
the public and the private theme primarily through addressing diverse and varied
political issues rather than by highlighting theoretical puzzles. Many
presentations carried an overt “gender” rather than “public-private”
perspective. Nonetheless, it was through “engendering” the issues in concern
that the relevance of the public-private theme became clear. The discussions on
the Chinese population control policy and legislation on domestic violence, for
instance, showed how government policies and political actors can be very
gender-blind. Very often this gender-blindness stems from the specific way of
viewing what is the public and private matter and what women are. Are they
primarily individuals with rights or primarily parts of an entity such as the
family? Both the Chinese and Nordic presentations clearly indicated that the
shifting of boundaries between the public and the private, as well as action
pushing for this change, are an important precondition for gender equality and
social change. Views varied on the question of the degree of acceptable state
intervention into the private sphere of people’s lives. For example, some
Chinese participants engaged in activism against domestic violence advocated for
more and effective public intervention than the status quo, while others
cautioned against state intervention in respect to privacy and individual
freedom. Re-negotiating the politics of the public and the private is a gradual,
bottom-up process entailing the change of ideas and practices and a constant
re-negotiation. In an era of globalization and rapidly developing information
and communication technology, new tools have become available for pushing the
boundaries between the public and private. As the discussions showed, the use of
the Internet today allows the private to become more “public” and vice
versa.
The
conference was convened by the Women's Studies Centre and the Nordic Centre,
Fudan University, China, Malmö University and Lund University, Sweden and the
Nordic Institute of Asian Studies. The conference was sponsored by the Danish
Council for Development Research, Denmark, the Norwegian Institute of Human
Rights, Oslo University, Norway and the Royal Norwegian Consulate, Shanghai,
China.
Plans are underway to
convene the Second Nordic-China Women and Gender Studies Conference in August
2005 at Malmö University in Sweden. For more information about the First
Nordic-China Women and Gender Studies Conference please visit the conference
homepage at http://eurasia.nias.ku.dk/norwag
where paper abstracts in Chinese and English and a selection of full-length
conference papers in either Chinese or English can also be viewed.
Qi Wang, the Centre for East and Southeast Asian
Studies, Lund University, Sweden. Email qi.wang@ace.lu.se
Pauline Stoltz, Political Science, Malmö University,
Sweden. Email Pauline.stoltz@ts.mah
Cecilia Milwertz, the Nordic Institute of Asian
Studies. Email milwertz@nias.ku.dk
WAGNet
Graduate Thesis Workshop
WAGNet is planning a workshop entitled 'Gender in Chinese Studies:
Approaches and Directions', to be held in September 2003 at Oxford University,
UK. Up to TWELVE young scholars working within the area of Gender/Women in
Chinese Studies will be invited to come together and present the main thrust of
their theorising and empirical investigation in the most constructive and
meaningful way. The organizers now invite applications from doctoral students in
all disciplines and time periods of Chinese Studies to take part in the
Workshop. The research project concerned should treat issues of 'women' and
'gender' as central and significant categories of analyses. For more information
or to download the application form, visit http://www.wagnet.ox.ac.uk/gsw/index.html
Women's
Bell" is going to be held in Fudan University, Shanghai from July 17
to
July
21, 2004.
There will be seventeen panels covering topics ranging
from
translating
feminism, feminism and male intellectuals, feminism and
CCP's
women's
liberation, women and war, feminism and art, feminism and
popular
culture,
feminism and media, to contemporary feminist activism. Over
seventy
papers
that will be presented on these panels are from various fields and
by
scholars
in and outside China, including a group of CSWS members.
Selected
conference
papers will be published in two volumes (one in Chinese and one
in
English).
CSWS
members who are interested in observing the conference may contact
Wang
Zheng
at wangzhen@umich.edu
Update
of Some Useful Websites
Gender Studies
Programme at The Chinese University of Hong Kong
http://www.cuhk.edu.hk/ant/gender
Women Culture
Museum http://www.snnu.edu.cn/wcm
当代女生教育
www.cgedu.net
两性视野
http://www.alleyeshot.com
(Min
Dongchao)
Newsletter
editor: Min Dongchao
Email:
minal@minal1994.freeserve.co.uk