Anthropological Approaches to Gender and Sexuality

4.0 credits

How do people across the world experience, construct, and perform gender? How have notions of gender been shaped by cultural, economic, political, and social forces? This course will examine gender as a key component of social life. Beginning with a basic overview of anthropological and sociological approaches to gender and sexuality, we will move on to examine some of the key theories and concepts that inform this work. What distinguishes sex from gender? How does gender intersect with race, class, religion, and nationhood? Special attention will be given to how colonialism, globalization, and neoliberal capitalism have shaped gendered experiences and practices across the world. By interrogating these concepts, we challenge binary understandings of gender and open space for a more inclusive, global exploration of the topic. Students will be introduced to feminist, queer, and decolonial theories, providing multiple perspectives for analyzing gender as a social structure and lived experience. The course will then examine ethnographic case studies from diverse regions, highlighting how gender is constructed and performed in different sociocultural contexts. Topics include rituals of gender transition in Indigenous cultures, gender nonconforming roles in South Asia (such as hijras), the fluidity of gender categories in Polynesia, and state regulation of bodies and identities. Students will be encouraged to think critically about how anthropological approaches to gender are relevant in everyday life. We will explore the gendered dynamics of work, politics, education, healthcare, and media, examining how cultural assumptions about masculinity and femininity are embedded in these spheres. Students will build essential skills in critical thinking, argumentation, and academic writing. Readings will span ethnographic studies, theoretical essays, and multimedia sources such as films and advertisements, offering diverse examples of how anthropologists study gender.