Decolonizing Gender: Applying the Relational Framework to Gender Structures in the Dominican Republic and [South] Korea

• In Event: Rethinking Theories of Gender, Race, and Sexuality from Anti-, De-, and Postcolonial Perspectives

Abstract

Sociologists have theorized gender primarily as an institution or a social structure (Martin 2004; Risman 2004). While these frameworks have illuminated gender’s patterned inequalities, they risk universalizing colonial and Western gender norms when applied globally. This paper asks: How can an alternative approach facilitate an analysis of gender that centers postcolonial, Indigenous, and intersectional positionalities? What are the limitations of theorizing gender as an institution or structure for understanding how gender operates across global contexts?
Advancing a relational framework proposed by decolonial theorists (Lugones 2010; Connell 2018), we reconceptualize gender as a relational social structure that emerges through dynamic configurations among bodies, spirituality, kinship, state institutions, colonial histories, and geopolitical forces. Drawing on secondary analyses of Dominican Afro-diasporic spiritual practices and Korean historical and contemporary gender formations—including shamanism, neo-Confucian reforms, colonial reinterpretations, and modern state regulation—we adopt a Southern standpoint to provincialize Western gender theory. Our analyses suggest that gender is not a uniform global structure but a relational formation that travels unevenly across social domains and histories. Reconceptualizing gender relationally is crucial for building a more global sociology that does not reproduce colonial epistemologies in its core categories.

Authors

• Isabella Carolina Rivera Volquez, University of California-Los Angeles

• Dasom Nah Gonzalez, University of California-Los Angeles