[Civsoc-mw] FW: [CODESRIA News] CODESRIA 2017 Gender Institut: Feminist Scholarship, Universities and Social Transformation in Africa

Sun Apr 16 20:52:01 CAT 2017

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Subject: [CODESRIA News] CODESRIA 2017 Gender Institut: Feminist
Scholarship, Universities and Social Transformation in Africa

 CODESRIA 2017 Gender Institut: Feminist Scholarship, Universities and
Social Transformation in Africa

Application Deadline: 15th May 2017

Date: 12 -23 June 2017
Venue: Dakar, Senegal

Call for Applications

The Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa,
CODESRIA, invites applications from academics and researchers from African
universities and research centers to participate in the 2017 session of the
Gender institute, which will take place in Dakar, Senegal from June 12-23,
2017.

Over the last two decades, CODESRIA has convened an annual gender institute
to fortify efforts at integrating gender research and scholarship into the
mainstream of social science in Africa. The overall objective of the gender
institute continues to be to contribute to a greater awareness about gender
issues in African social research milieus, the integration of gender
analysis into social research undertaken in Africa, and the inclusion of
gender approaches in the agenda of social science debates on methodology.
Besides, the institute has served as a strategy to catalyze efforts by
feminist academics in the universities to create space for women's studies
as a new epistemology in the study of the disciplines and challenge the
prevailing androcentric view of society and culture. Ultimately, these
efforts were not meant to be ends in themselves. They were part of the
broader efforts to make universities in the continent much better and
entrench them as critical spaces for the continent's transformation.

After slightly over two decades of CODESRIA's engagement with issues of
gender scholarship using various fora, including the Gender Institute, the
2017 session of the institute seeks to provide an opportunity for
participants to reflect on gains made and persisting challenges. This is
especially in respect to the ways in which the engagements have made
universities in Africa better institutions to spearhead the project of
social transformation.

Universities in the continent have grown tremendously. New continental,
regional and national level development blueprints such as the African
Union's vision 2063 place higher education and gender dimensions as central
to realizing the visions articulated in different policy documents. At the
institutional levels, enrollments are surging, institutional diversity is
growing and missions have been reviewed to refocus the teaching and research
functions of universities to better address societal needs. Feminist
scholarship now flourishes in a number of institutions compared to the
situation two decades ago. Revised curricular, new access policies and
funding interventions have increased the number of women participating in
the institutions.

At the same time, there is a sense that the institutions continue to operate
in a manner that does not engage more organically with emerging problems in
society. Increased graduate unemployment has, for example, been blamed on
lack of better preparation at the institutions; growing pressures for
curriculum reform and decolonization, including pressures to decolonize
feminist scholarship abound; new challenges in graduate education are
emerging, including the urging to connect graduate level teaching and
research to global trends; among others. These issues bring into focus the
need to re-examine how the various developments, including a greater
embracement of feminist and gender scholarship, have contributed or limited
the potential of the institutions to connect more organically with society.

Universities have since their establishment been conceived as critical
drivers of social transformation and change. At the very least, this
conception implies that universities have to work in ways that trigger
fundamental changes in society's core institutions, the polity and the
economy, with major implications for relationships between social groups or
classes, and for the means of the creation and distribution of wealth, power
and status. This means going beyond the reproduction outcomes that have
often been more apparent to examining the potentials that academic discourse
creates to fundamentally reshape social relations for the common good. The
immersion of feminist scholarship into all aspects of university life in
Africa therefore logically creates an expectation of alternative outcomes.
Indeed, transformation is at the very core of feminist praxis. As a theory
of knowledge and an intellectual practice, feminism deconstructs the
epistemological foundations of patriarchy and contributes to the
emancipation of women as subjects, but also in the transformation of
institutions as sites for critical intellectual engagements.

Feminism and gender discourses have potential to create alternative visions
of society by challenging structural obstacles to progressive social change.
While past scholarship has focused on examining how the institutions have
been made receptive to feminist scholarship and to the female gender in a
physical and epistemological sense, it is time reflections were made on the
extent that feminist scholarship has made universities in Africa better
institutions for society; for the transformation project. How empowering has
gender scholarship been in imagining better approaches to studying and
producing knowledge on and about Africa?

Candidates submitting proposals for consideration as laureates should
critically interrogate the outcomes of feminist and gender scholarship in
connection to the broad debate on the role of higher education in social
transformation; understood more generally as the radical and fundamental
changes in society's core institutions, the polity and the economy, with
major implications for relationships between social groups or classes, and
for the means of the creation and distribution of wealth, power and status.
Proposals should more specifically interrogate issues revolving around
trends in knowledge production and consumption, its content, quality,
utility and demand for Africa's transformation and its fit with regards to
sustainable development concerns in Africa.

Laureates

Candidates submitting proposals for consideration should be PhD students or
early career academics in the social sciences and humanities and those
working in the broad field of gender and women studies. Scholars outside
universities but actively engaged in the area of policy process and/or
social movements and civil society organizations are also encouraged to
apply. The number of places available for laureates of this Institute is
only fifteen (15). Africa-based academics and non-African scholars who are
able to support their participation are also encouraged to submit proposals
for consideration.

Applications

Applications for consideration as laureates for the institute should
include:
1. One duly completed application form;
2. An application letter indicating institutional or organizational
affiliation;
4. A curriculum vitae;
5. A research proposal of not more than ten (10) pages, including a
descriptive analysis of the work the applicant intends to undertake, an
outline of the theoretical interest of the topic chosen by the applicant,
and the relationship of the topic to the problematic and concerns of the
theme of the Institute;
6. Two (2) reference letters from scholars or researchers known for their
competence and expertise in the candidate's research area (geographic and
disciplinary), including their names, addresses, telephone numbers and
e-mail addresses.

Deadline

The deadline for the submission of applications is 15th May 2017. Laureates
will be informed of the outcome of the selection process by 30 May 2017.
Selected laureates will be expected to prepare and submit completed draft
research papers to be presented during the Institute to CODESRIA no later
than 15th June 2017. Laureates will be expected to work on the submitted
draft (and not on the abstract of the proposal) and prepare it during the
Institute for subsequent possible publication.

All applications should be sent by email to: gender.institute at codesria.sn
<mailto:gender.institute at codesria.sn> 

For further information, please contact:

CODESRIA
Gender Institute
Tel. (221) 33 825 98 21/22/23 
E-mail:  <mailto:gender.institute at codesria.sn> gender.institute at codesria.sn
Website:  <http://www.codesria.org/> http://www.codesria.org

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