University of Western Cape UWC Department of Women’s and Gender Studies
UWC Department of Women’s and Gender Studies – See Details Below:
The Women’s & Gender Studies (WGS) Department is an interdisciplinary department that emerged out of gender and anti apartheid activism at UWC in the 1980s and early 1990s. A postgraduate programme offering honours and masters degrees was established in 1995 by a cohort of feminist scholars in diverse disciplines, an undergraduate programme and doctoral degree was introduced in 2000 and the programme instituted as a Department in 2009.
Teaching, Learning and Research in the Department foregrounds questions of social justice and processes of societal and institutional transformation, as well as critical scrutiny of the way that dominant and “alternative” knowledges and practices acquire authority and public visibility. Our focus on systemic and structural expressions of power is undertaken through combining interdisciplinary research employing a feminist intersectional approach with teaching and learning employing innovative and critical pedagogies for social justice. We position our scholarship within the socio-political, cultural and economic context of national and global change and through teaching and learning that contributes to the development of critically engaged and active citizens. Central to our work is the development of theory, knowledge and expertise for those already working in organizations directed toward gender transformation and sexual rights, as well as for those intending to work in such fields when they finish their degrees.