Workshop 11

Sexuality, Morality and Power. Normative Gender Orders and their Dislocations

AG Anthropological Gender Studies

Social transformations evoke debates on morality and sexuality as well as the normative gender order, particularly when they are provoked by cross-cultural encounters. The history of colonialism, the spread of world religions and the responses to globalization attest to this. In these debates actors articulate their unease and fears of potential loss of meaning, alienation and marginalization as well as the need to justify political and cultural hegemonies. In the past, bridling sexual appetites, heterosexuality and male dominance were regarded as indicators of civilization, and they continue to be considered as such in many places today. The classification of cultures on the basis of a purported degree of sublimation (Triebsublimierung), which was so prominent in the colonial era, is today reactivated in reversal by political leaders in post-colonial countries. The immoral West is contrasted with Asian or Islamic values, unredeemed earthly justice with otherworldly rewards in heaven or damnation in hell. Such thinking is not without consequences for the social order, for it is precisely this that political actors attempt to control by asserting a categorical corpus of values.  One prominent case in point is the “anti-pornography law” recently passed in Indonesia that stigmatizes the customary dress of Bali and Papua as immoral and makes possible its criminal prosecution.

 

Although norm conformity is demanded and postulated, the lived reality of societies and communities is quite different. Deviant practices constantly undermine the purported order, and they are often tolerated and tacitly accepted, even becoming established parts of the social order, albeit within the confines of specific niches. Homo- and transsexuality are often practiced within established institutions of gender crossing and deviant sexual practices are integrated into religious cults and subcultures. The profound upheavals that are part and parcel of the “second wave of modernity“ lead to a proliferation of such adaptations, in some cases to striking hybridizations. Thus an imam recently became obliged to legitimize the permissive sexual relations between students in Saudi Arabia by inventing a so-called “marriage of friendship”. 

However, for each example of felicitous cultural hybridity and pragmatic redefinition, we also find other cases in which resistance to the reigning sexual order is quashed with sanctions of the utmost severity. The consequences that globalization holds for normative gender orders include not only creative integration, but also an increase in the vehemence with which struggles over cultural hegemonies and the boundaries of permissible deviance are fought out. These controversies reflect on-going struggles over who has the power of cultural interpretation, who holds political and social prerogatives and over the legitimization of normative systems.

The workshop will address the following broad issues:

-         Local constructions of sexuality and morality

-         Heteronormativity versus cultural homogeneity

-         Entanglements of global and local discourses on sexuality and morality

-         Gender systems and social power

-         Sex and consumption

-         Sexual repression and resistance

 

Kontakt

Prof. Dr. Susanne Schröter, Frankfurt, Suschroet@aol.com
Dr. Susanne Rodemeier, Passau, rodemeier@web.de

 

Termin / Raum

Mittwoch, 30.09.2009, 15.00 bis 16.45 Uhr und 17.15 bis 19.00 Uhr / Raum 823 (Festsaal Casino)

 

Vorträge inkl. Abstracts als pdf

Sprenger, Guido (Universität Münster): „The Sexual Life of Primitive Peoples“ German Sexology and Social Anthropology before the Third Reich

Poser, Anita von (Universität Heidelberg): ‘Traditional’ – ‘Christian’ – ‘Modern’ Negotiating Alternatives of Sexuality among the Bosmun of Papua New Guinea

Grossmann, Kristina (Universität Passau): Between Pragmatism and Ideology: „Gender“ in the Context of Aceh

Klenke, Karin (Universität Göttingen): Consuming Beauty: Schönheit, Moral und Macht in Tanah Karo, Nord-Sumatra

Heilmann, Matthias (Universität Frankfurt): Youth, Moral and Islamism – Livestyle and Imagination in the Justice and Prosperity Party (PKS), Indonesia

Nurul Ilmi Idrus (Makassar, Indonesien): Sexuality, local Conditions, and Islam in Indonesia

Thubauville, Sophia (South Omo Research Center, Jinka/Ethiopia, Max-Planck Institute for Anthropology, Halle): Child brides, virgins, adulteresses: Sexuality and agency of women in South Omo, Ethiopia

Klein, Thamar (MPI Halle): Technologies of Trans*-Citizenship: A South African Case Study.

Becker, Anja (Universität Köln) "Love in discourse and practice: love strategies of young Herero women in Namibia"

Schmitt, Susanne (Universität München) Sex and the Museum. Geographien von Sinnen und Sinnlichkeit im Deutschen Hygiene-Museum Dresden.