GENDER AND EVERYDAY LIFE
Co-ordinator: Dr CHAN Shun-hing
Cultural studies and Gender studies share a tradition of engaging with the community practices, the “common sense” and the modes of knowledge historically taken for granted in particular societies. This engagement is creative as well as critical; both fields also have a commitment to a politics of everyday life enabling new spaces of cultural activity to take shape between the academy and other communities. Today, however, both the notion and the nature of “everyday life” is everywhere subject to the pressures of rapid economic change, social transformation and cultural upheaval; what counts as common sense about gender is being redefined around us by new developments in technology, in the media and popular culture, in the divisions of labour, in family life, in the experience of “youth” and “ageing”, in sexual mores and in social as well as political modes of governance. Gender is “ordinary”, but what is ordinary in everyday life across East Asia today?
KFCRD RESEARCH ASSOCIATES:
- Dr. Annie Chan Hau-nung, Department of Politics and Sociology, Lingnan University. Research areas: 1. Female sexuality 2. Gender and the family 3. Gender and space
- Dr. Chung Hsiao-mei May, Dept. of Taiwanese Literature, National Cheng Kung University , Taiwan
- Dr. Ding Naifei, English, National Central U, Chong-li Taiwan. Research topic: Feminist Fictions and Domestic Works
- Dr. Sit Tsui, Dept. of Sociology, East China Normal University, Shanghai.
Area of Research Interest: cultural studies, translation, comparative literature, gender and development. Now I am conducting a research on everyday life of grassroots women in Shanghai.
- Prof. Yung Sai-shing, Chinese Studies, National University of Singapore
JUNIOR RESEARCH ASSOCIATES:
- Dr. CHENG Wai-pang, Damian
- Dr. LUK Kit Ling
- Mr. Isaac Leung
KFCRD PROJECTS under this theme include:
- Dr. CHAN Hau-nung Annie: Popular Culture, Gender Studies
- Dr. CHAN, Shun-hing: “The Discourse on Women's Everyday Life in Hong Kong in the Feminist Journal, Niuliu ”
Funded by LU Arts Programme Research Grant - Dr. DING, Naifei: “ Feminist Knots: Representing Sex and Domestic Work”
- Prof. John Nguyet ERNI: “Desires and Youth Cultures in East Asia”
- Dr. HUI, Po-Keung: “ The Making of Economic Man: Neo-Liberal Economic Ideology in Hong Kong since the 1970s”
- Dr. LAU, Kin-chi: “Dialogue with Gayatri Spivak”
Funded by LU Arts Programme Research Grant - Dr. LI, Siu-leung: Queering Chinese Opera
- Dr. William LEE, Keng-mun: Filial Piety and Elderly Care; Gender Differences in Informal Support and Elderly Care
- Prof. Meaghan MORRIS: A Critical Biography of Ernestine Hill (1899-1972)
Associated funding : “Outstanding Archival, Family History and Documentary Research”, LU Direct Research Grant
Ongoing Projects:
News
Peace and Women in the region China
By Christine Menz, PWAG Board Member, Switzerland
Peace, Women and the Everyday-academic conference in Hong Kong
From 26-27 May, 2007 an academic workshop on the topic “Peace, Women, and the Everyday: Across Borders, beyond War, and for Chang” took place at Lingnan University. The Workshop was organized by Professor Kin Chi Lau, PWAG board member and coordinator for Northeast Asia, and Dr. Chan Shun-hing form Hong Kong. Several professors and assistant professors attended the workshop and discussed about women, and human security and its significance in everyday life. The results were presented in form of strategic analyses of different case studies. All the speakers are researchers from universities in Peking, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Taiwan and the USA. The different contributions from the conference and further researches will result in an academical book.
On 26 May 2007, Paul S. Lam Conference Centre, LU
On 27 May 2007, Loft Stage- Independent Culture Unit, Diamond Hill
Colours of Peace- Book with the biographies of the 108 PeaceWomen from China, Taiwan, Hong Kong
An important highlight of the workshop was the presentation of the book with the life stories of the 108 PeaceWomen from China, Taiwan and Hong Kong. The book was presented for the first time in the public, several Peacewomen from the region were present at the ceremonial. The book with the English title “Colours of Peace” is written in Mandarin and contributes to making the PeaceWomen of the region known and visible.
The book is the result of tireless work of Kin Chi, the coordinators of the region and the support and work of many young volunteers. If you are interested in the book, please contact Kin Chi Lau: laukc@ln.edu.hk
Two documentaries about PeaceWomen and their projects in China
Making Possible the Impossible: Peace, Women, Nobel Prize
Kin Chi Lau is the initiator, together with her very engaged and active coordinators, responsible for China, Taiwan and Hong Kong, of a documentary film about the PWAG project and the PeaceWomen in this big region. The film with the title “Making Possible the Impossible: Peace, Women, Nobel Prize”, shows impressively how the project developed in the region and gives an insight into the different important events that were organized for promoting networking and visibility of the PeaceWomen in this region. Furthermore the film explains the importance and meaning of the project by portraying some of the 108 women.
Let the World See
Another documentary with the title “Let the World See” tells about the impressive and touching life stories of three very different women from China. The film has English subtitles and is very worthwhile watching!
Both films can be ordered from the secretariat.
I participated at the conference and the vernissage of the book and the films and talked about the meaning of peace, women and the everyday from the point of view of the worldwide project. I would like to thank the very active team in china for their big effort and tireless work. It is thanks to them that the project’s publicity and the recognition for the PeaceWomen and their work is constantly growing in China.