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Periodical article | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | Gender Objectified: Revealing Bodies in Bamana Sculpture |
Author: | Van Dyke, Kristina |
Year: | 2002 |
Periodical: | Mande Studies |
Volume: | 4 |
Pages: | 101-119 |
Language: | English |
Geographic term: | Mali |
Subjects: | gender relations Bambara patriarchy sculpture Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups) Architecture and the Arts Women's Issues Cultural Roles Ethnic and Race Relations |
External link: | https://www.jstor.org/stable/44093487 |
Abstract: | Elizabeth Grosz (1995) defines 'patriarchy' as follows: 'For patriarchs, difference is understood in terms of inequality, distinction, or opposition, a sexual difference modeled on negative, binary, or oppositional structures within which only one of the two terms has any autonomy; the other is defined only by the negation of the first'. This negatively defined notion of sexual difference is operative in Bamana culture, though in quite specific ways. The author attends to this cultural specificity by developing an understanding of the particular logic of Bamana patriarchy and considering how gender and art operate within and support this structure. She asks how artistic practices participate in social struggles and what meanings are produced, how and for whom. After exploring a key moment in gender construction and its parallels with knowledge structures in Bamana culture, she examines objects from the Bamana 'Jo' (an initiation society) and related 'Gwan' (a fertility association) of southern Mali to provide an example of how art can work to conceal the traces of gender production, naturalizing the resultant constructs and the patriarchal system in which they operate. Bibliogr., notes, ref. [ASC Leiden abstract] |