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#WomenofSU: Dr Azille Coetzee

#WomenofSU: Dr Azille Coetzee

Corporate Communication / Korporatiewe Kommunikasie [Alec Basson]
28 August 2019

​Addressing gender inequality and decolonisation is a key part of the work that Dr Azille Coetzee, a postdoctoral fellow at the SARChI Chair in Gender Politics in the Department of Political Science, has been doing for the last few years.

As part of SU's Women's Month Campaign, Coetzee tells us how she uses her research to break gender hierarchies and help heal society.

Can you tell us more about your research?

In my research, I explore the role and place of gender in the logic of colonialism and I investigate the potential of (African) feminist thought to act as a decolonising force. We understand the role of race in the project of colonisation and decolonisation quite well by now, but we are only just starting to understand where gender comes in. It is becoming increasingly clear from postcolonial and decolonial feminist scholarship that race and gender are mutually constitutive categories, and that colonisation is an inherently patriarchal project. If we take this seriously, then gender liberation becomes key to the project of decolonisation. In my work, I look for the ways in which feminist thought helps to identify and dismantle colonial structures and hierarchies in South African society. In the process, I also bring African and Western feminist thought in dialogue and continuously try to identify the erasures committed by mainstream Western feminist thought.

Why or how did you become interested in this specific area of research?

Feminist philosophy provides powerful tools through which to critique Western thought. By the time I reached my doctoral studies, I was ready to start applying this critical framework to the enduring colonial paradigm that still structures social and political life in South Africa in very concrete ways. At the time I was living in the Netherlands, which heightened my awareness of the persistent colonial hierarchies that govern global politics, at the dire expense of societies like our own.

Why do you think this is such an important area of research for South African women?

In South Africa, we tend to think in terms of a hierarchy of struggles. Mainstream political discourse tells us in many implicit and explicit ways that we first have to tackle and solve the problem of race in this country before we can get to problems like gender inequality and sexual violence. In my research, I try to show from many different angles how the enduring problem of racial inequality in South Africa is deeply connected to the pernicious gender hierarchies that shape our society. My research is therefore important to South African women to the extent that I try to show how our feminist struggles are central rather than peripheral to the project of decolonisation and the healing of our society.

What would you consider the greatest impact of your research on women in the country?

Because I work in philosophy, my contribution is on theoretical and symbolic levels. I try to contribute to a deeper understanding of how power and oppression function.

Do you have any message for the next generation of women researchers?

I think it is important that we are bold and creative in our approaches, that we take care to not merely repeat and reinstate old patriarchal (colonial) ways of thinking and doing, but to use our research as a way of bringing about something new and different.