MA IN GENDER, GLOBALISATION AND RIGHTS

Modules and Structure

Teaching and learning sessions in all modules are organised around weekly seminars in which active student participation is required. Most modules are assessed by continual assessment and/or final essay. In addition to traditional inputs from lecturers, sessions involve regular use of multimedia sources and occasional guest speakers and field trips.

Semester One

All students take the following core modules:

Applied Gender Analysis (5 ECTS)
A comprehensive review of feminist approaches to knowledge, the links between theory and practice and gender analyses, particularly as applied in disciplinary and policy areas relevant to the MA programme themes.

Feminist Theorising and and Epistemologies (5 ECTS)
A critical survey of influential feminist ideas and schools of thought that seek to explain the sources and modes of gender-based oppression, explore women's agency and resistance in this context, and posit ways of transforming gender-based inequalities and exclusions.

Research Methods (5 ECTS)
Aims to strengthen basic skills of students to prepare them for a more in depth grounding in research methods. The topics to be covered include definitions of research and sound research, argument and logic, sources of information, tools for information searches, research skills and presentation of analysis. The module will be conduced in workshop format with emphasis on practical exercises.  

Gender Perspectives on Globalisation (10 ECTS)
Critically examines the gender dimensions of contemporary thinking and practice around globalisation: economic, political, cultural, etc. Indicative topics include: feminist critiques of mainstream development, macroeconomic and trade paradigms; women in ethical globalisation and global governance; gender analyses of Western hegemony and South-North relations in globalisation.

Women's Human Rights: Issues, Debates and Practice (10 ECTS)
Considers the theoretical, political, legal, institutional and other dimensions of feminist interventions to ensure that mainstream human rights discourse and frameworks take account of women's experiences and gender analyses. A variety of issues ranging from extreme poverty and harmful traditional practices, to trafficking, migration, HIV/AIDS and violence against women, are considered from women's human rights perspectives.

Semester Two

Students will take a Placement Module and two other modules (5 ECTS each) from the list below:

Placement Module (15 ECTS)
Placements will be for 8 weeks over February and March. Placements aim to give students valuable professional work experience opportunities in environments where they can apply knowledge acquired in the context of the MA and develop practical skills and so enhance employment prospects upon graduation. The process to allocate placements will entail individual consultation meetings with the Placement Module Coordinator throughout November and in some cases may include an application process involving representatives of the host organisation. Clear terms of reference regarding roles and responsibilities of the student, the host organization and GWS faculty will be developed for each placement.

Gender and Health Crises (5 ECTS)
Considers current global health crises created by the worldwide drive to privatize healthcare, the rise of disease pandemics, particularly HIV/AIDS, as well as other complex emergencies. Students consider the deeply gendered dynamics, impacts and human rights dimensions of such crises, and explore the interconnections between sex, biology and gender for sexuality and reproductive health. They explore the different solutions available vis-a-vis policy (e.g. health promotion), human rights standards, and cultural practice and the roles therein of public, private and civil society actors, locally and globally.

Gender, Development and Human Rights (5 ECTS)
Examines longstanding tensions and emerging areas of overlap between traditionally separate domains of development and human rights from feminist perspectives. Focusing on women's experiences and gender analyses of specific development issues (e.g. access to adequate water, food, shelter, land use, healthcare etc), students explore the limits and transformative potential of different concepts and frameworks that link development and human rights including: the right to development, the indivisibility of rights, human development, economic, social and cultural rights, reconciling capabilities, basic needs and rights-based approaches to development and so on.

Historical Perspectives (5 ECTS)
This Module aims to raise critical awareness of how to define and explore historical questions, how and where to find information and how to construct new interpretations of remembered, silenced and forgotten historical effort. Topics will include women’s pre-franchise electoral participation, their involvement in working class political effort and representations, formal campaigning for political rights, imperial political spaces, independence and revolutionary participation, citizenship in post-enfranchisement societies, etc. Students will have the opportunity to consult a range of primary sources.

Women, Conflict and Human Security (5 ECTS)
Examines the gender dimensions of war, conflict and transitions from conflict, especially conflicts played out amidst civilian populations with particular consequences for women. Explores the limits of traditional approaches to post-conflict justice and the role of gender-conscious, bottom-up approaches to human rights in these contexts. It also considers how other forms of emergency or catastrophe, which often accompany or follow conflicts, erode human security and rights, especially in women's lives (e.g. community security, environmental security, food and water security, personal security, health security, political security, etc).

Women in Irish Agriculture and Rural Development (5 ECTS)
This module focuses on the role of women in commodity agriculture and rural entrepreneurship. Emphasis is on three main areas: women's roles in family farming; women's roles in agricultural organisations; women's roles in diversification of the rural economy. Theories of agency and empowerment will be used to analyse women's changing roles in the context of different policy and socio-economic contexts. Students will be guided to implement a Gender Analysis Framework (GAF) assignment over the three-day module, with supportive interactions from their lecturer and representatives from key agri-food agencies and interest groups. The module will be comprised of (i) taught lectures; (ii) guest speakers from the Department of Agriculture Fisheries and Food; interest groups such as the Irish Farmers' Association and Macra na Feirme; and agri-food agencies such as Teagasc and the IOFGA and (iii) interactive exercises including implementing a GAF assignment, 'mock interviews'; an 'audience reaction panel'; data analysis and problem solving exercises.

Women's Agency and Power (5 ECTS)
Critically examines the norms, conditions and strategies that underpin women's agency, empowerment and equality in different spheres - from personal, family, community and working life to local, national and global policy-making and governance. Particular attention is paid to the ways in which the private/public divide fosters roles and identities inimical to women's agency. In the context of specific political and policy challenges, students apply critical gender analyses to widely-used and emerging discourses and their role in promoting or hindering women's empowerment such as gender mainstreaming, rights-based development, civic participation, equality and the rule of law, and so on.

Finally, all students must take the Dissertation module.

Dissertation module (30 ECTS)
All students undertake a dissertation research project (minor thesis) under the supervision of their advisor. The disseration module will include workshops on qualitative and quantitative research methods.

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