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Barbara E. Ward Commemorative Lecture
Ritual Redemption in London’s Economy of Love
by
Dr. Sondra Hausner
University Lecturer in the Study of Religion
St Peter’s College, University of Oxford
Wednesday 19th May, 2010 at 5 p.m.
St Antony’s College, Nissan Lecture Theatre, followed by a reception

RSVP Tel: 01865 271529 or e-mail: igs@qeh.ox.ac.uk  
Invitation

Obi Igwara Nationalism Lecture, January 27th 2010 at the LSE
CROSSING BOUNDARIES
Anthropologists may cross boundaries of nation, ethnicity, class and culture, both far from and within presumed familiar territory. The lecture draws on individual cross-cultural encounters and anthropologists’ transformative experiences of fieldwork in Africa.

Lunchtime Meeting Wednesday 27 January
Dr Maria Jaschok will speak on 'Chinese Hui Muslim women - Local Perspectives on Religious Rights and Moral Compromises' - For more information see flyer.

25th Commemorative Lecture
Professor Haleh Afshar University of York
"Peace and Reconstruction in the Middle East: A Critical Moment for Women"
Date: Wednesday, May 27th, 2009.
Time: 5 p,m,
Venue: St. Anne's College
Followed by reception

12 November 2008 Taylorian Institute, Oxford

IGS convenes MEMORIAL LECTURE in honor of the life and work of PROFESSOR ELISABETH CROLL [1944-2007]

Lisa Croll: Sinologist, teacher and mentor, Vice-principal of SOAS, University of London, International consultant and policy advisor (development, poverty alleviation, and the rights of women and children), Chair of UN Council, Tokyo; awarded CMG in 2007.

In a series of special events convened by IGS in its 25th Anniversary Year, Professor Elisabeth Croll, one of the four founder members of IGS (then CCCRW), was honoured in a special lecture given by her colleague and friend, Professor Deniz Kandiyoti, SOAS (University of London).

Held at the Taylorian Institute, the event was attended by a large and appreciative audience consisting of Lisa’s family, colleagues, friends and former students. In the year of IGS celebrations, members and friends of the Centre turned out in large numbers to express their support for the Centre’s current campaign to set up a Lecturership in Gender & Development which is to be named after Lisa Croll.

Maria Jaschok, the director of IGS, gave a brief introduction to the occasion:

‘It is giving me great pleasure to welcome you to the Elisabeth Croll Memorial Lecture – and in particular to welcome friends, colleagues and new acquaintances on this very special occasion. I am standing in front of you on behalf of members of the International Gender Studies Centre, IGS, and also on behalf of the Department of International Development, where IGS is located, and where Professor Elisabeth Croll, or Lisa, as we called her, was once an affiliated Research Fellow.

This is truly an evening of mixed emotions – it is now just over a year that Elisabeth Croll died; but as we are commemorating the life and work of a great anthropologist, Chinese scholar, teacher and development consultant, we are doing so in what is now the 25th year of the Centre. Lisa would have agreed that is a cause for celebration. During her time in Oxford, Lisa had been closely involved in the weekly seminars on the ‘Anthropology of Women’ out of which grew the Centre for Cross Cultural Research on Women (formally set up in 1983). Lisa was one of the four original members of the Centre. These weekly seminars inspired her, as it did so many others, to engage more closely with the emerging discourses of women and gender studies, relating- what she learnt -to her area of specialization, China.

Speaking as a student of contemporary China (I was doing my MA in Chinese Sociology and Anthropology at SOAS when Lisa was a Research Fellow there), she had an immense impact on our understanding of Chinese society, she was to us truly a pioneer.

First, As an ‘advocate of women's and girls’ rights, across China but also Asia as a whole.’ It was her personal exposure to the lives of rural women and vulnerable children, in particular girl children, in China’s marginalized and remote areas that infused her work with the passion and with the conviction that she must put her scholarship to use, she harboured no doubt on that point. She was certain that any discovery of inequalities, injustices and cruelties demanded, not excused, her intervention as ethical researcher, wherever she encountered it. That she could bring about policy changes in conjunction with government leaderships and NGOs was a matter of pride to her. She was one of the few scholars invited to advise the Chinese Government on social policies and gender discrimination and she worked with the All-China Women’s Federation on what she felt most strongly about, the cause of unwanted, abandoned discriminated girl children.

Second. As ‘a scholar of women's lives and social development in China’, she was among the first to contribute to our understanding of the complexity entailed in processes of political, social and thus gender change. Feminism and Socialism in China which came out in 1981 was the first academic introduction to the Chinese women’s movement. Quite extraordinary to think that then Chinese Studies only rarely covered Contemporary China, let alone women and gender studies. Lisa’s long list of publications helped to change our intellectual landscape, widening the discursive space in which we learnt about the Politics of Marriage in Contemporary China (1981), Food in the Domestic Economy in China (1983), Women and Rural Development in China (1985). Endangered Daughters: Discrimination and Development in Asia (2000) China’s New Consumers: Social Development and Domestic Demand (2006)
We all have our favourite among the many publications, mine will always be From Heaven to Earth: Images and Experiences of Development in China, where Lisa links the peasants' experience of revolution and reform with their [highly gendered] conceptualisations of time and change. It is nuanced, imaginative and beuatifully written.

She was, to use Harriet Evans’ description, an ‘unconventional’ academic with an unconventional career trajectory – someone who had to fight for recognition of her work in the field of anthropology and development – only relatively late in her life, in the 1990s, was she able to enjoy security of tenured position (at SOAS) . Once installed, she was rapidly promoted, culminating in a professorship in international development. She was then also appointed vice-principal of SOAS – a position she much enjoyed.

In all of her busy work as academic and development consultant, she never lost touch with our Centre – always taking a sympathetic interest in our plans and projects. As late as September 2007, she agreed to be our keynote speaker for an international workshop we convened on Faith-Based Development in Oxford – she was adamant to the last that she would make it Oxford, if not as a speaker than at least as a listener. That never happened.

In the 25th Year of our Centre, she would have been happy to join our celebrations. Instead, one year after her death, we celebrate her spirit and her conviction that scholarship must matter, that it must make a difference where change is needed. And – just dreaming aloud - we would like nothing better to raise the funds for a Lecturership in Gender & Development that would be dedicated to her, named after her!

On 7 May 2008, Prof. Bridget O'Laughlin, Institute of Social Studies, The Hague, delivered the Audrey Richards Commemorative Lecture at St. Anne's College.

SUMMARY OF PAPER ATTACHED HERE
NOT TO BE CITED WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE AUTHOR!

On 23 May 2007, Dr Mukulika Banerjee, Reader in Social Anthropology, University College London, delivered the Barbara E. Ward Commemorative lecture at St Antony's College (Nissan Lecture Theatre) at 4 pm.

PAPER ATTACHED HERE
NOT TO BE CITED WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE AUTHOR
Dr Banerjee's contact email address: mukulika.banerjee@ucl.ac.uk

On 8 February 2007, IGS together with Berghahn Books celebrated the life and the work of Shirley Ardener, with the launch of a book dedicated to her: Identity and Networks Fashioning Gender and Ethnicity across Cultures

On 31 May 2006, Prof. Helena Wulff of the University of Stockholm delivered the Kaberry Commemorative lecture at St Anthony's College (Nissan Lecture Theatre) at 5 PM. 

On 24 November, 2005, the IGS hosted a book launch celebrating the release of four books written or edited by various centre members: Anne Coles, Shirley Ardener, Fiona Moore and Lidia Sciama, as well as the Centre’s move to new premises.

Click here for a short report on the event, written by Shirley Ardener, in PDF format

IGS hosted a workshop on this topic on March 31st and April 1st 2006, the workshop, the fourth in the series, again being co-convened by Anne Coles and Meike Fechter.

Click here for a short report with abstracts.

On November 4th and 5th 2004 the University of Sussex hosted the third in our series of workshops on skilled migrants working temporarily overseas. It was co-convened by Anne Coles (Oxford) and Meike Fechter (Sussex).

Click here for a report and abstracts.

On 21 November, 2003, the IGS hosted a workshop on the theme of "Globally Mobile Professional Families: Distance, Time, Age and Gender." The workshop was convened by Anne Coles and featured contributions from eleven Centre members and affiliates.

Click here for a short web report on the workshop
Click here to download the full report in PDF format

On November 6th, 2002, the IGS hosted a workshop on Gender, Transience and Identity, featuring contributions from Anne Coles, Emefa Amoako, Nancy Barbosa, Marian van Bakel and Fiona Moore.

Click here for a report on the workshop by Anne Coles
Click here for a report on the workshop by Dr Noorul Ainur

The IGS Visiting Fellows conducted a workshop on Migration and Integration on 25 October 2002, featuring contributions from Marian van Bakel, Dr Noorul Ainur, Dr Hilde Leiden and Terhas Hagos.

Click here for a report on the workshop by the Visiting Fellows

On May 30th, the IGS hosted the launch of the latest volume in our Cross-Cultural Perspectives on Women series, Women and Credit: Researching the Past, Refiguring the Future, edited by Beverley Lemire, Ruth Pearson and Gail Campbell. The launch took place at Queen Elizabeth House, accompanied by snacks, drinks and presentations.

On the 28th of May, 2002, the IGS hosted "Knowing Fields, Fields of Knowing," a workshop for young researchers which presented work in progress, with a particular focus on gender in research.

Report on the Workshop