MA Gender Studies and Law

The aim of this course is to offer a historical and critical survey of contemporary gender theory in order to explore the challenge of gender studies for interdisciplinary and cross-cultural research. It will further examine the interface between gender theory and a variety of other theoretical perspectives applied to the study of Asia, Africa and the Middle East, including postcolonialism, critical theory, postmodernism and poststructuralism.

Dissertations are wide-ranging in terms of disciplines and topics, including the fields of gender & development, feminist legal theory, area studies, cultural studies, queer studies, literature, film and media studies, politics, anthropology, history, theory as well as diaspora and migration studies.

The module introduces students to the interdisciplinary field of gender studies, the politics of knowledge production and the institutional requirements for the submission of a dissertation in gender studies. The first part of the module is organised around a series of introductory seminars followed by, in the second part, student presentations to assist the development of a proposal for the dissertation. A dissertation proposal is to be submitted at the end of the module. The module is attentive to the skills and knowledge required to write within gender studies, gender and sexuality and/or gender studies and law. The module includes an introduction to qualitative methods and feminist research methods.

The purpose of this module is to provide students wishing to study law at postgraduate level in the University of London with an introduction to law, legal method and associated skills and techniques. It is designed primarily for those who do not already possess a law degree but may also be of interest to those who feel they want to get used to studying law in a UK institution.

The objective of this course is to enable students to become well versed in the field of feminist legal theory and the study of gender and sexaulity in relation to law, with specific attention to the relevance and meaning within non-Western states.

The purpose of this module is to familiarise students with the main analytic debates in the field of gender and development. Four institutional domains (households, family and kinship, the market, the community and the state) through which gender relations are both defined and transformed receive separate attention.

This interdisciplinary module approaches gender and sexual dynamics in the modern Middle East through the lens of political unrest, protest, and revolution. Through a study of critical moments in Middle Eastern history characterised by rupture, flux, and upheaval, students will explore how norms of gender and sexuality in the region emerge, develop, sediment, evolve, and get disrupted.

Migration and diaspora are - like gender – not descriptive, objective categories, but analytical tools to name positions of power. In this course we discuss what gendering, diaspora and migration can imply as analytical (not descriptive) categories and how they are constructed interdependently by power relations. We will engage with a range of approaches to gender, migrations and diasporas and will address the social and political dimensions of migration and diasporas as well as politics related to constructions of non/belonging, cultural productions and imaginations.

This module offers an introduction to law on armed conflict, including collective security, the use of force, international humanitarian law and counter-terrorism. These are studied alongside legal reforms in response to contemporary understandings of the relationship between war and gender.

This course is intended to provide both an introduction to queer theory, as well as to engage with the question of its relevance in contemporary Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. This course will use struggles for sexual self-determination as a prism through which to consider broader questions about the constitution of modernity, the proliferation of identities, rights and claims for justice, the consolidation and deconstruction of postcolonial national identities, the aspirations and anxieties of postcolonial elites, etc. These questions will be studied contextually, with topics in many weeks focusing on a single area case study, or a comparison of two or more country-contexts.

This module bridges theory and practice in the fields of migration, diaspora and humanitarian practice. It is born from the belief that knowledge and practice produced by grassroots organisations, activists, practitioners and artists should be intertwined with academic knowledge and validated as part of a real decolonising effort. This course at SOAS is uniquely positioned to bridge theory and practice and offers students a fantastic opportunity to not only learn in London but engaging with one of the most diverse and vibrant cities in the world. “SOAS in London, London in SOAS” is the core idea behind this course.

Students on this module study the post-conflict legal mechanisms governing peacekeeping, peacebuilding, peace agreements, transitional justice and women, peace and security from a gender perspective. Students explore the role of transnational feminist protest, law reform and activism to examine the legal regulation of post-conflict communities and the shift from war to peace.

This module explores Gender as a category of historical analysis based on an exploration of case studies from the histories of Asia, Africa and the Middle East. It will analyse gender in relation to other concepts, such as class, race, ethnicity, empire, coloniality, sexuality, etc., and explore how these categories shaped the historical experiences of individuals with various gender identities on the one hand and the histories of empires and nations on the other hand.

The objective of this module is to enable students to apply knowledge of feminist legal theory and the study of gender and sexuality to a series of legal problems. The module will provide an in-depth study of one, two or three issues relevant to gender and sexuality law reform primarily in the Global South.