Rethinking Gender from the south

Abstract: This thesis is a theoretical exploration of “southern theorists”, with special focus on their contribution to re-thinking, challenging and expanding western conceptualizations of gender. The aim is to identify scholarship that promotes decolonizing and liberatory ways of constructing gender. Hegemonic knowledge production in social sciences and gender theorizations will be criticised with a special focus on Eurocentric knowledge and its consequences. The south as a location from where to think will not be reduced to concrete geographical locations, but will refer to epistemological locations as well. The focus will be on authors and historical analyses from Latin America and particularly Chile. Postcolonial understandings of gender constitutions developed by Latin American scholars will be of special interest. It will be argued that gender constitutions need to be theorized from anti-capitalist and anti-racist perspectives in order to serve liberatory and decolonizing purposes.