Description:

Forty years after the publication of In a Different Voice, “the little book that started a revolution,” Gilligan returns to questions she first raised in the 1970s and 80s. Given the research that she and others have done in the intervening years, three things have now become clear: 1) the “different voice” (the voice of care ethics) although initially heard as a “feminine” voice, is in fact a human voice; 2) the voice it differs from is a patriarchal voice (bound to gender binaries and hierarchies), and 3) where patriarchy is in force or enforced, a human voice is a voice of resistance and care ethics is an ethic of liberation.  In her talk, Gilligan will discuss the research leading to these insights and to her focus on resistance and accommodation as key to understanding development in social and cultural contexts. She will also speak briefly about the Listening Guide method which she and her students developed.