2.8 Global and Decolonial Constructivisms, Technology and Environment — Gender Studies

Quick notes — start here

Ask who defines the problem and whose knowledge counts.
Technology can reproduce existing exclusion.
Environmental burdens depend on work, assets and location.
Assess actual outcomes instead of assuming neutrality.
Formal definition: Decolonial gender analysis examines how histories of domination shape categories, knowledge and institutions; technological and environmental analysis asks how new systems reproduce or change gender relations.

Simple example: A digital credit application trained on records that underrepresent women may reject applicants with irregular or undocumented income. A flood-warning programme delivered only by mobile phone may also miss people without access to a device. In each hypothetical example, a seemingly neutral technology carries prior inequalities into a new setting.

Remember this sentence: Gender-sensitive development requires scrutiny of both the knowledge used to design interventions and the material consequences of their implementation.

Check yourself: Who could be excluded by a technically successful digital service, and what evidence would reveal that exclusion?

Detailed bullet notes and references

Plain-English explanation: Ask who defines the problem, whose knowledge counts, who controls the technology or resource, and who bears the cost. These questions connect gender construction to material institutions without assuming that all local traditions are fair or that all external ideas are harmful.

Critical point: Distinguish demonstrated bias from a possible risk. Audit outcomes by relevant groups and involve affected users. Decolonial analysis should recover local agency while remaining critical of inequalities within communities.

Memory cue: VOICE: Values, Ownership, Inclusion, Costs, Evidence. This is a study aid, not a scholarly framework.

💡

Key critique: mainstream (Western, white, middle-class) theory treats its own categories as universal — Mohanty, "Under Western Eyes" (1988).

Global and decolonial constructivisms

Chandra Talpade Mohanty, "Under Western Eyes" (1988): Western feminism often constructs a monolithic, victimised "Third World woman," erasing local agency and diversity. Summary in two lines: Western feminist writing homogenises women of the global South; local context and agency must be centred.
Decolonial feminism: gender constructs must be understood within specific colonial histories; colonialism imposed or reshaped local gender systems (many pre-colonial societies had different, sometimes more fluid, gender arrangements before colonial imposition of rigid European gender binaries and legal codes).

Technology

Reproductive technologies, social media and AI reshape how gender is performed, surveilled and contested (cyberfeminism; online gender-based harassment — links to Chapter 8).

Environment

Ecofeminism preview (full treatment in Chapter 3): the social construction of "nature" as feminine/passive and "culture" as masculine/active is itself a gendered construct with real consequences for environmental policy and women's disproportionate vulnerability to climate impacts.

🧪 Worked example — the "oppressed Third World woman" image

Situation: international media often present Pakistani women only as victims, ignoring women who are doctors, judges, farmers, activists or heads of households.
Mohanty's critique: this constructs a single, homogeneous "Third World woman" and erases local agency and diversity.
Decolonial angle: rigid gender and legal categories can be colonial imports — e.g., the Criminal Tribes Act (1871) targeted hijras and reshaped how they were treated.
Best response: listen to local movements, use context-specific evidence, and avoid "saviour narratives".

📝 Extra notes

Postcolonial vs decolonial: postcolonial critiques Western representation; decolonial (Lugones, Oyěwùmí) argues gender itself was restructured by colonialism.
Technology link: online spaces enable activism (Aurat March hashtags) and new harms (harassment, image abuse) — links to Chapter 8.

20-mark answer expansion — 2.8

Thesis: Gender construction also operates through colonial histories, global production, digital platforms and environmental conditions.
- Body 1: Use Mohanty's postcolonial critique to question one homogeneous picture of 'Third World women'.
- Body 2: Explain how global media circulation reinforces or contests occupational stereotypes.
- Body 3: Link gendered resource access to climate vulnerability without treating women as naturally closer to nature.
- Body 4: Distinguish technology as an opportunity from unequal devices, digital literacy and online harassment.
Explain this Pakistani case: Differentiate a rural woman lacking smartphone access from an urban freelancer.
Critique: Avoid assuming that a single global narrative applies to people across class, ethnicity and place.
Question connection: 2025 Q6; 2026 Q5; 2026 Q8(a). Model framework: 2.PYQ — Social construction, sex, masculinity & queer theory (2016–2026).
Exam-ready finish: build a relevant 2–3-line introduction, develop the bullets as short causal paragraphs, add the case and critique, then give a conclusion responding to the command word.

✅ How to score

Use Mohanty's article title, year (1988) and the phrase "homogenising the Third World woman".
Add one Pakistan example of local agency (e.g., women's movements such as WAF).

⚠️ Common mistakes

Treating Western feminism as uniform.
Dismissing all Western scholarship instead of criticising its universal claims.

❓ Active recall

Summarise Mohanty's critique in two lines.
How can colonialism have reshaped gender categories?

Exam-ready answer — Global and Decolonial Constructivisms, Technology and Environment

Decolonial approaches connect gender with histories of domination and unequal authority over knowledge. They question whose concepts define social progress and whether diverse experiences are represented through a single outside perspective.

Technology and environmental governance provide important contemporary applications. A digital system may appear neutral because it applies the same procedure to everyone, yet its data or eligibility rules can reflect earlier inequalities. Similarly, environmental damage affects people differently because they have different responsibilities, resources and decision-making power.

Local knowledge can expose needs missed by standard indicators. Community members may identify travel barriers, unpaid tasks or language problems that a centrally designed programme overlooks. Including those perspectives can improve the questions asked and the design of services.

However, local knowledge is not automatically unanimous or beyond criticism. Inequalities within communities also influence whose voice is heard. A rigorous approach combines participation with evidence and evaluates actual distributions of benefit and harm.

The central issue is whether people affected by decisions can help shape them and hold institutions accountable.

Example and application

A digital credit application trained on records that underrepresent women may reject applicants with irregular or undocumented income. A flood-warning programme delivered only by mobile phone may also miss people without access to a device. In each hypothetical example, a seemingly neutral technology carries prior inequalities into a new setting.

Conclusion

Gender-sensitive development requires scrutiny of both the knowledge used to design interventions and the material consequences of their implementation.