The Fertility and Reproduction Studies Group at the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, Oxford University has a call for papers:

Patriarchy?  Call for Papers

 ‘Patriarchy’ entered the English language as a familiar term of reference for family and wider political arrangements at least as early as the 17^th century. At the family level it indicates very generally the presiding power of a father or his male descendant, largely to the exclusion of women. Many important aspects of generational relations are commonly entailed by patriarchy. Similarly, at the level of wider society or government, the term conveys the idea of men holding power at the expense of women. Evidently all sorts of family and social systems may be roped together under this notion, from ramified patrilineal networks to ordinary nuclear households, and from dynastic autocracies to the proverbial glass ceiling of the modern corporate sphere. The phenomena referred to are important, and controversial, but there is no agreed framework for comparing them.

The seminar will focus on the concept’s primary reference to the domain of family, kin and reproduction. How structures and dynamics of power within family systems may influence social and political power beyond the domestic sphere is then clearly of interest. We welcome papers from researchers in a range of disciplines employing ethnographic, historical, demographic and other case study evidence which can help to clarify key problems of definition and comparative method. The seminars are held in Hilary term, on Mondays in the period 15 January to 5 March, 2018. Titles and 200-word abstracts should be submitted by 1 December, 2018. As in several previous seminars, consideration will be given to publication, for example in the FRSG series (see https://www.FRSG.org/).

The seminar provides the opportunity to explore a range of topics. Possible examples include:

• Implications of patriarchy for access to family and reproductive health care
• Symbolic constructions of patriarchy, e.g. involving moral, medical and political representations of the body and how they are used in family, ritual and other relationships
• Significance of patriarchy in the context of current medical interventions (IVF and infertility, pregnancy testing, HIV)
• Utilisation of patriarchal ideology at the family and community level by overarching political and religious systems (e.g. slavery, dictatorships, socialist and market-based economies)
• Comparative studies of contrasting patriarchal systems and which bring out elements of continuity and change
• Relations between behaviour and patriarchal norms (e.g. combined qualitative and quantitative evidence of divergence from norms; customary arrangements for observing, yet getting around, patriarchy)
• Patriarchy and intersectionality, especially the interactions between generational and gendered power

The interest is thus not in patriarchy as only an idealised system, but what feedbacks and variations give it the flexibility to survive.

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