16
OCT
Thursday, 4:00pm - 5:30pm
S EMINAR R OOM A , CIW B UILDING
Australian Centre on China in the World,
Building 188, Fellows Lane
(between Law School and South Oval)
Tamara Jacka and Sally Sargeson
Tamara Jacka and Sally Sargeson are members of the Department of Political and
Social Change in the College of Asia and the Pacific, ANU, who share a research interest
in socio-political change and gender relations in contemporary China.
Representing Women in Chinese Village
Self-Government: a New Perspective on
Gender, Representation and Democracy
Recently, there has been much debate among feminists about how to achieve women’s substantive
representation (the representation of women’s interests in government). To date, however, this debate has been conducted almost solely in the context of democratic political systems and in relation
to national parliaments. This paper brings a new
perspective to the debate by focusing on grassroots
rural government in China – an authoritarian state,
which, however, implements ‘self-government’ at
the village level.
Research School of Asia & the Pacific
16 October 2014, 4:oopm - 5:30pm ( T H U R S D AY )
S EMINAR R OOM A , CIW B UILDING
Australian Centre on China in the World, Building 188, Fellows Lane, ANU
Tamara Jacka and Sally Sargeson
Representing Women in Chinese Village Self-Government:
a New Perspective on Gender, Representation and Democracy
The ANU China Seminar Series is a fortnightly seminar at which invited guests present their latest research
on China and the Sinophone world. It aims at a broad
audience. Speakers come from across the full range
of disciplines and include senior scholars from within
and outside ANU, younger academics, post-doctoral
research fellows, and advanced graduate students. The
seminar series provides an arena in which to discuss
China in its widest sense, to acquaint people with a
range of China-related research that might otherwise
lie outside their scope of contact, and to offer a social
setting for discussion of matters of mutual interest.
Graduate and Honours students are encouraged to attend in order to familiarise themselves with advanced
academic debate and to meet ANU’s academic community. Seminars are generally held on alternate Thursdays during the semester, from 4:00 pm to 5:30 pm.
A FTER THE S EMINAR
To allow for informal discussion, the seminar will
be followed by a dinner with the guest speaker at 6.15 pm. All are welcome, though those who
attend will need to pay for their own food and
drinks. As reservations must be made, please
RSVP by noon of the day before the seminar to
[email protected].
The China Seminar Series is sponsored by the China
Institute, with the Australian Centre on China in the
World and the College of Asia & the Pacific.
Recently, there has been much debate among feminists about how to achieve
women’s substantive representation (the representation of women’s interests
in government). To date, however, this debate has been conducted almost
solely in the context of democratic political systems and in relation to national parliaments. This paper brings a new perspective to the debate by
focusing on grassroots rural government in China – an authoritarian state,
which, however, implements ‘self-government’ at the village level. The paper
draws on recent, qualitative fieldwork in several villages in Zhejiang and Yunnan. We went into this fieldwork with an understanding based on deliberative and feminist theories of substantive representation, that women’s substantive representation, democracy and gender equality are integrally linked,
and an expectation that village self-government might make a much-needed
contribution to the achievement of all three. However, we ran into trouble
with this normative and analytical framework. First, there were marked variations in villagers’ institutions, practices and understandings of ‘representation.’ In some contexts, villagers expected members of village government to
represent them; in others, they did not. Second, while we found that higher-quality democracy was associated with stronger substantive representation of women villagers, democracy was not a prerequisite for substantive
representation. Third, beyond the obvious correlation between stronger substantive representation of women and reduced gender inequality in political
participation, we found little evidence that women’s substantive representation leads to less gender inequality in other spheres of life. In this paper,
we explore the contours of our analytical ‘trouble.’ In the process, we aim
to contribute to debates about gender and village self-government in China,
and, simultaneously, suggest fruitful directions for theorists interested in the
relationship between gender, representation and democracy.
Tamara Jacka and
Sally Sargeson are
members of the Department of Political and
Social Change in the
College of Asia and the
Pacific, ANU, who share
a research interest in socio-political change and
gender relations in contemporary China. Their most recent publications include: Sally Sargeson ‘Violence as development: land expropriation and China’s urbanization’ and Tamara Jacka ‘Chinese discourses on rurality, gender
and development: a feminist critique,’ both in the Journal of Peasant Studies
40:6 (2013); Tamara Jacka, Andrew Kipnis and Sally Sargeson, 2013, Contemporary China: Society and Social Change (Cambridge University Press); and Tamara Jacka and Sally Sargeson (eds), 2011, Women, Gender and Rural Development
in China (Edward Elgar).
Convenors: Mark Strange ([email protected].
au), Elisa Nesossi ([email protected]), and Ying
Qian ([email protected]).
For further details of the series:
http://chinainstitute.anu.edu.au
Research School of Asia & the Pacific