SOCIOLOGY 309: GENDER AND SOCIO-ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT IN THE AMERICAS

email: mpfk@opr.princeton.edu

SYLLABUS

This course examines gender as an integral component of socio-economic development. Our main focus will be on selected areas of Latin America and the United States but we will include a few important contributions with data from other parts of the world. Gender will be conceptualized as a relational concept pertinent to the understanding of men’s as well as women’s role in development. Special attention will be afforded to processes of industrial restructuring that have increased the participation of women in the formal labor force aiding the transformation of definitions of manhood and womanhood. In addition to a review of theories of development, we will explore feminist currents of thought. An understanding of the relationship between gender inequality and social order will be a central object of inquiry. Among the topics for discussion is the relationship between households, agriculture and industrial change.

September 15, 17

Introduction. The sociological vision: methods and approach.- Gender: The missing link in theories of development.- Gender in a historical perspective.- Conceptual problems.- Changes in the concept of development since the 1950s.- Development as ideology and practice.- The role of national states.- Colonialism.- From nationalism to economic globalization.- Review of the literature.

• Boserup, Ester. 1970. Women’s role in Economic Development. New York: Allen and Unwin.

September 22, 24, 29

Gender and Development: Some Key Concepts. Gender as process.- Economic, political and ideological aspects of gender.- Structures of power and domination: gender, class, race and ethnicity.- The debate on production and reproduction.- Patriarchy.- Historical roots of the division between the "public" and the "private." Labor market segregation on the basis of gender.- Wage differentials between men and women.

• Beneria, Lourdes and Gita Sen. 1986. “Accumulation, Reproduction, and Women’s Role in Economic Development: Boserup Revisited.” In: Leacock, Eleanor and Helen I. Safa (Editors) Women's Work. South Hadley, MA: Bergin and Garvey Publishers:141-157.
• Fernández Kelly, M.Patricia. 1994. "Making Sense of Gender in the World Economy: Focus on Latin America," Organization 1(2): 249-275.

October 1, 6

Gender in a Critical Light. Feminism and socio-economic development.- Social order and gender hierarchy: the unspoken dilemmas.- Patriarchy revisited.- Wage differentials between men and women: how far have we come?.- Social change and changing gender ideologies.- Collective mobilization, class, and gender identities.

• Weiner, Annette B. 1986. “Forgotten Wealth: Cloth and Women’s Production in the Pacific.” In: Leacock, Eleanor and Helen I. Safa (Editors) Women's Work. South Hadley, MA: Bergin and Garvey Publishers: 96-110.
• Ward Gailey, Christine. 1987. Kinship to Kingship: Gender Hierarchy and State Formation in the Tongan Islands. Austin: University of Texas Press.
• Fernández Kelly, M. Patricia and Anna M. García. 1992. "Power Surrendered, Power Restored: The Politics of Work and Family Among Hispanic Garment Workers in California and Florida." In Tilly, Louise A. And Patricia Gurin, editors, Women, Politics and Change. New York: Russell Sage Foundation Press.

October 8, 13

Theories of Socio-economic Development. Liberal and radical approaches.- Neo-classical economics and modernization.- Culture and national character.- Marxist and Neo-Marxist interpretations.- Development and underdevelopment.- Dependency.- Import Substitution Industrialization.- The New International Division of Labor.- Post-Industrialism.- The World System Perspective.- Contributions of the New Economic Sociology.

• Portes, Alejandro. 1994. "Sociology and Development in the 1990s: Critical Challenges and Empirical Trends." In Comparative National Development: Sociological Perspectives for the New Global Order (A. Douglas Kincaid and Alejandro Portes, Editors). Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
• Gereffi, Gary. 1994. "Rethinking Development theory: Insights from East Asia and Latin America." In Comparative national Development: Sociological Perspectives for the New Global Order (A. Douglas Kincaid and Alejandro Portes, Editors). Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
• Castells, Manuel and Roberto Laserna. 1994. “The New Dependency: Technological Change and Socioeconomic Restructuring in Latin America.” In Comparative National Development: Sociological Perspectives for the New Global Order (A. Douglas Kincaid and Alejandro Portes, Editors). Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.

October 15, 20, 22

Working Women in the United States: A Historical Overview. Notes on the pre-industrial era.- Women and industrialization. Domestic labor and the transition to factory production.- Migrants and immigrants.- Women and the labor movement.- The family wage and protective legislation. Feminist thought in the nineteenth century.

• Minge, Wanda. 1986. “The Industrial Revolution and the European Family: “childhood” as a Market for Family Labor.” In: Leacock, Eleanor and Helen I. Safa (Editors) Women's Work. South Hadley, MA: Bergin and Garvey Publishers: 13-24.
• Tilly, Louise and Joan W. Scott. 1989. Women, Work, and Family. New York: Routledge.
• Mullings, Leith. 1986. “Uneven Development: Class, Race, and Gender in the United States Before 1900.” In: Leacock, Eleanor and Helen I. Safa (Editors) Women's Work. South Hadley, MA: Bergin and Garvey Publishers: 41-57.
• Smith-Rosenberg, Caroll. 1975. "The Female World of Love and Ritual: Relations Between Women in Nineteenth Century America." SIGNS, A Journal of Women in Culture and Society, Volume 1, Number 1(Autumn):1-29.

November 3, 5

Women and Development in Latin America. Industrial and agricultural change in the twentieth century.- Peasants, immigrants and proletarians.- Ethnicity in the Latin American context.- Urbanization.- Formal and informal employment.- The role of the state.- Myths and facts about Latin American women: "machismo" and "marianismo" revisited.

• Nash, June and Helen Safa. 1986. Women and Change in Latin America. South Hadley, MA: Bergin and Garvey Publishers, Inc.
• Evans, Peter B. 1994. “Predatory, Developmental, and Other Apparatuses: A Comparative Political Economy Perspective on the Third World State.” In Comparative National Development: Sociological Perspectives for the New Global Order (A. Douglas Kincaid and Alejandro Portes, Editors). Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
• Roberts, Bryan R. 1994. "Urbanization, Development, and the Household." In Comparative National Development: Sociological Perspectives for the New Global Order (A. Douglas Kincaid and Alejandro Portes, Editors). Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.

November 10, 12

Gender, Personal Identity and Domestic Production. The nuclear family as a normative concept.- The household as an empirical category.- Effects of development on families and households.- Family strategies and class structure.- Women, consumption and development.- Gender and the welfare state.

• Wolf, Diane L. 1992. Factory Daughters: Gender, Household Dynamics, and Rural Industrialization In Java. Berkeley: University of California Press.
• Scheper-Hughes, Nancy. 1992. Death Without Weeping: The Violence of Everyday Life in Brazil. Berkeley: University of California Press.

November 24, December 1

Gender and Economic Internationalization. The rise of the global economy.- Computer technology and the reorganization of production.- Men, women and multinational corporations.- Export-led industrialization in Latin America and the Caribbean.- International migration.- Gender and the informal economy.- Transnational labor markets.

• Haggard, Stephan. 1989. "The Political Economy of Foreign Direct Investment in Latin America." Latin American Research Review, Volume XXIV, Number 1: 184-208.
• Portes, Alejandro. 1989. "Latin American Urbanization in the Years of the Crisis." Latin American Research Review, Volume XXIV, Number 3: 7-44.

December 3, 8

Industrial Restructuring and the Global Economy. Capital disinvestment and the transition from a manufacturing to a service economy in the United States.- The rise of the global city.- Class recomposition.- Subcontracting and the informal economy.- Exploitation versus redundancy in a restructured labor market.- Immigrants and citizens in the new economy.-

• Fernández Kelly, M.Patricia and Saskia Sassen. 1994. "Recasting Women in the Global Economy: Internationalization and Changing Definitions of Gender." In Women in the Development Process: From Structural Subordination to Empowerment, (Christine Bose and Edna Acosta Belén, Editors). Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
• Arizpe, Lourdes and Josefina Aranda. 1986. “Women Workers in the Strawberry Agribusiness in Mexico.” In: Leacock, Eleanor and Helen I. Safa (Editors) Women's Work. South Hadley, MA: Bergin and Garvey Publishers: 174-193.
• Wilson, William J. 1991. "Studying Inner-City Social Dislocations." American Sociological Review, Volume 56, Number 1(February):1-14.
• Fernández Kelly, M. Patricia. 1994. "Towanda's Triumph: Social and Cultural Capital in the Urban Ghetto. In The Economic Sociology of Immigration: Essays in Ethnicity, Migration and Entrepreneurship (Alejandro Portes, Editor). New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
• Fernández Kelly, M.Patricia and Richard Schauffler.1995. "Divided Fates: Immigrant Children in a Restructured Economy." International Migration Review.

Attendance is mandatory as we will use our time together to sharpen analytical skills and cover topics that may not be explicitly discussed in the readings. Unjustified absences will surely result in the reduction of the final grade.

• Take-Home Exams: 50 points.

There will be two open-book, take-home exams. Each exam will include five questions worth 10 points each. the questions will be of a comparative nature. Each question can be answered in 2 to 3 pages at most. The purpose of the exams is to give you an opportunity to show that you have read and understood the required materials. You will have no problem in answering the questions as long as you attend the lectures and are acquainted with the assigned materials. You are responsible for approximately 260 pages of reading every week.

The grading criteria per question in each exam are as follows:

(a) evidence of comprehension of assigned materials.

(b) clarity of expression and logical coherence.

(b) evidence of analytical and comparative ability.