Heide, van der, Iris
(2019)
Gender Sensitivity Narratives and Gendered Refugee Dichotomies in Secular Modernity.
Master thesis, Master Religion Conflict and Globalisation.
Abstract
Literature reveals that women are granted refugee status relatively more often than men. However, women have simultaneously been pointed towards as particularly disadvantaged within migration matters by academics, politicians and NGOs. Consequently, gender sensitivity narratives solely focus on migrant women’s suffering. Stereotypical representation and harmful practices are indicated as their main issues, and the ways in which these issues are addressed provide insights in underlying gendered and cultural-religious assumptions. In order to critically analyze gender sensitivity narratives on migration in the Netherlands, this thesis studies the influence of the gendered “good/bad” refugee dichotomy on such assumptions by means of critical discourse analysis of the sixth Dutch reporting procedure to CEDAW.
It is argued that gender sensitivity narratives are constructed on the interface of discussing representations and reinforcing particular representations itself. This is the case because the narratives construct a discursive division between “gender at home” as full of emancipation, progress and human rights and “gender abroad” as an issue of cultural problems and backwardness. Through this construction, rescue narratives in which migrant women are represented as victims of their culture are reinforced. This rescue narrative is highly related to cultural-religious assumptions and the assumed link between women’s rights and secularism, or Secular Modernity. Moreover, the “victim frame” is in line with gendered assumptions about “good/bad” refugees. All in all, gender sensitivity narratives are not completely sensitive but rather are informed by and reinforce secular assumptions about gender and cultural-religious stereotypes that form the “good/bad” refugee dichotomy.
Keywords: gender, migration, gender sensitivity, secularism, CEDAW, the Netherlands
| Type: |
Thesis
(Master)
|
| Supervisors (RUG): |
| Supervisor | E-mail | Tutor organization | Tutor email |
|---|
| Bartelink, B.E. | B.E.Bartelink@rug.nl | | | | Knibbe, K.E. | K.E.Knibbe@rug.nl | | |
|
| Degree programme: |
Master Religion Conflict and Globalisation |
| Academic year: |
2018- 2019 |
| Date of delivery: |
11 Oct 2019 |
| Last modified: |
11 Oct 2019 07:47 |
| URI: |
https://rcs.studenttheses.ub.rug.nl/id/eprint/517 |
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