140246 SE VM2 - VM7 - Gender, Economics & Postcolonial Critique (engl.) (2014S)

Viewing Economics through the lens of gender studies and postcolonial critique questions many premises on which the discipline of Economics is built. This course combines close readings of some basic concepts in Economics and puts them up for debate. The debates are fueled by questions posed by scholars and critics who approach Economics from perspectives of feminist (gender studies) and postcolonial critique. Although key assumptions within Economics have been questioned and "unraveled" from many different positions already, this course sharpens the focus on transdisciplinary interrogations of Economics where gender and postcolonial critique intersect.

Postcolonial critique is a set of diverse and interconnected theoretical approaches. Combining social and cultural studies approaches, postcolonial critique seeks to uncover exclusionary structures, identify moments and spaces of agency and resistance, and to contextualize power structures and the production of knowledge in and beyond colonial and imperial endeavors. Through its keen awareness for history and geography and a substantial interest in examining the potential of subjectivity and agency, postcolonial perspectives compliment (and complicate) gender studies and feminist approaches. Contemporary postcolonial and feminist scholarship share a vested interest in analyzing the pluralities/multiplicities of overlapping and interconnected forms of dominance and oppression and in dismantling exclusionary and discriminatory structures and practices. Feminist perspectives within postcolonial critique (and vice versa) therefore provide us with a way of articulating complexities and challenging Eurocentric practices and theories linked to past and present forms of domination, exploitation, invisibility, exclusion and violence.

Transdisciplinary texts that draw on Economics, gender studies and postcolonial critique serve as a basis for employing methods of gender-specific, feminist and postcolonial critique and economics to the course participants' current research interests.