authors
Find out more about the authors and contributors to Contestations. If you would like to contribute or be involved in anyway, we’d love to hear from you. Contact Us
Akosua Ampofo Adomako
Akosua Adomako Ampofo: Activist-scholar, Associate Professor, and Director, Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana. Akosua’s work focuses on race and identity politics; gender and violence; masculinities; and representations of women in popular music. A recent publication (with Michael P.K. Okyerefo and Michael Perverah, 2009) is “Phallic Competence: Fatherhood and the Making of Men in Ghana”; Culture, Societies and Masculinities. She is a member of several organisations including 'The Ghana Domestic Violence Coalition'; 'Sociologists for Women in Society'; and 'The Women’s Caucus of the African Studies Association'. Some of her favourite men include Morgan Freeman, Denzel Washington, Desmond Tutu and her husband and partner, Kwame Ampofo. (Some pretty cool women are Meryl Streep and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.) She finds strength in her Christian faith, family and sisterhood.
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Alan Greig
For over ten years, Alan Greig has worked as an international consultant with community-based organisations and activist formations in sub-Saharan Africa, South and South-East Asia and the USA on the links between personal and political violence. Much of this work has been concerned with issues of masculinity and male power, and how these shape the lives of both women and men. Alan has published widely on these issues, particularly in relation to policies and programming on sexual health and gender-based violence. Through strategic planning, curriculum development and programme evaluations, Alan has supported the design and strengthening of innovative gender work with men rooted in a commitment to gender justice as a central element of social justice.
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- Issue 3 - What do Men Want?
Barbara Klugman
Barbara Klugman (MA Social Anthropology; PhD Public Health) works with donors and their grantees to strengthen their social justice grantmaking strategies and institutionalise ways of learning and evaluating these over time. For ten years she ran the Women's Health Project in South Africa and subsequently the Ford Foundation's international sexual and reproductive rights initiatives until September 2009. She is an honorary Professor at the Wits School of Public Health, South Africa.
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Cassandra Balchin
Cassandra Balchin is a freelance researcher, writer and human rights advocacy trainer, specialising in the interconnections between gender, law and culture. She is a founder of the Muslim Women’s Network-UK, is on the International Advisory Group for Musawah: a global movement for equality & justice in the Muslim family, and has been part of the international network Women Living Under Muslim Laws for over 15 years. She has published on Muslim family laws, plural legal orders, and international development policy regarding gender and religion.
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Chimaraoke Izugbara
Chimaraoke O. Izugbara, a Nigerian anthropologist, is currently a Research Scientist at the African Population and Health Research Center, Nairobi, Kenya. An Honorary Associate Professor at the School of Public Health, University of Witwatersrand, South Africa, Dr. Izugbara’s research interests are in health, gender, and sexuality. He is also a lecturer-at-large at the Department of Sociology/ Anthropology, University of Uyo, Nigeria.
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Andrea Cornwall and Emily Esplen
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Emily Esplen
Emily Esplen leads the women's rights work at One World Action, a feminist NGO working with partners in Africa, Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe to promote women's participation and rights. She is an active steering committee member of the UK Gender and Development Network (GADN) and the Women in Development Europe (WIDE) Network. Prior to this, Emily was based at IDS as a researcher with BRIDGE. She has worked and written on a wide range of equity issues - particularly around bodily integrity and sexual and reproductive rights, gender and care work, and men's engagement in struggles for gender justice.
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Everjoice Win
Ms. Everjoice J. Win is Head of Women’s Rights, Action-Aid International (Zimbabwe). Ms Win leads the work on women’s rights, which includes providing overall strategic guidance and support on programmes and campaigns. She has also served as Commonwealth Advisor to the Commission on Gender Equality of South Africa and on the boards of several civil society and women’s rights organizations. She is a regular writer and contributor to newspapers, magazines and journals.
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- Issue 3 - Taneta navo!
Hania Sholkamy
Hania Sholkamy is an Egyptian anthropologist with a PhD from the London School of Economics and Political Sciences, University of London. She is currently assistant research professor at the Social Research Center of the AUC. Her research interests and publications are mainly in the fields of health, particularly reproductive health, gender, population and qualitative methods. She has co-edited two volumes, Categories and Contexts: Anthropological and Historical Studies in Critical Demography (OUP) with S. Szreter and A. Dharmalingam and Health and Identity in Egypt (AUC press) with F. Ghanam. She is the convenor of the Pathways of Women’s Empowerment Arab Hub.
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- Issue 1 - Response from Hania Sholkamy
- Issue 1 - Islam and Feminism
Heba Raouf
Heba Raouf has taught political theory at Cairo University since 1987 and at the American University in Cairo since 2006. Her articles and publications in Arabic include Women and Politics: An Islamic Perspective (International Institute of Islamic Thought) and "The Political Imagination of Islamists: A Conceptual Analysis" in : Islamists and Democrats (Al-Ahram Center for Strategic Studies) as well as chapters in English in Globalization, Gender and Religion (Palgrave) and Islam in Transition (Oxford University Press). She is a contributor to Islam Online and the Middle East and North Africa convener for the Building Global Democracy Programme.
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Islah Jad
Islah Jad is a Ph.D holder from SOAS (School of African and Asian Studies), University of London, she lectures on gender and politics in the Women’s Studies Institute and Cultural Studies Department at Birzeit University. Recent publications include: 'The ‘NGOisation’ of the Arab Women’s Movement', in Andrea Cornwall, Elizabeth Harrison and Ann Whitehead (eds.) Feminisms in Development: Contradictions, Contestations and Challenges, Zed Books. London (2007) and 'Islamic Jihad', in Cheryl A. Rubenberg (ed.) Encyclopedia of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Lynne Rienner Publishers, Boulder (2010).
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Jenny Edwards
Programme Officer for Pathways of Women's Empowerment
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- Issue 2 -
- Issue 2 - Articles in Issue 2
- Issue 1 - Recent Publications
- Issue 1 - Articles in Issue 1
- Issue 3 - What do Men have to do with Women's Empowerment?
- Issue 3 -
- Issue 4 - Recent Publications
Laura Turquet
Laura Turquet is currently working for UNIFEM in New York, managing their biennial flagship publication, Progress of the World’s Women, the next edition of which will focus on women’s access to justice. Previously, she has worked on women’s rights policy and advocacy for ActionAid UK, research communication for the UK Institute of Development Studies and campaigns on women’s representation for the Fawcett Society. Laura has written and edited a number of policy focused reports including on women’s rights and the Millennium Development Goals, gender ratios in India and violence against women in South Africa.
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- Issue 3 - Should we say thank you?
Margot Badran
Margot Badran, a historian, is a senior scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and Senior Fellow at the Prince Alwaleed ibn Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University, and 2010 Reza and Georgeanna Clifford Khatib Visiting Chair in Comparative Religion at St. Joseph’s College, Brooklyn. Widely published on feminisms in Muslim societies her most recent book is 'Feminism in Islam: Secular and Religious Convergences'.
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Mariz Tadros
Mariz Tadros is a Research Fellow at the Institute of Development Studies (IDS), and a participant in the Pathways of Women’s Empowerment Research Programme Consortium, working closely in collaboration with the Middle Eastern regional hub. Prior to joining IDS, she was an assistant professor of political science at the American University in Cairo and worked for many years as a journalist for Al-Ahram Weekly newspaper. Recent publications include the Egypt country report for Freedom House’ Women’s Rights in the Middle East and North Africa (2010) and 'The Non-Muslim Other in Muslim Family Legislation' in Hawwa, 7.2 (Winter edition 2009).
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Mulki Al-Sharmani
Mulki Al-Sharmani is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the Social Research Center, at the American University in Cairo. She is also adjunct teaching faculty at the Institute for Gender and Women Studies, and the Center for Migration and Refugee Studies at the same university.
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Petra Boynton
Petra Boynton is a social psychologist, researcher, author and broadcaster. She lectures in international health services research at the University College London. She has a PhD in Applied Human Psychology from Aston University, and her research has covered topics within the area of sexual health, including the effects of pornography, women involved in street prostitution and policy and practice in sex education. She has published over 40 peer reviewed papers, articles and reports in journals including: The Lancet, British Medical Journal, Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine and Sex and Marital Therapy.
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Pinar Ilkkaracan
Pinar Ilkkaracan is trained both as a psychotherapist and political scientist. She has worked as an activist and researcher on sexual and reproductive health and rights for 20 years. She is the co-founder of various NGOs and networks, including the international Coalition for Sexual and Bodily Rights in Muslim Societies (CSBR) and Women for Women’s Human Rights (WWHR) in Turkey. She is the editor of Deconstructing Sexuality in the Middle East and Women and Sexuality in Muslim Societies, and the author of numerous articles on women’s human rights, law reform, violence against women, sexual violence, sex workers, sexuality and sexual rights. In 2007, she received the prestigious International Gruber Award for Women’s Rights.
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Rosalind Eyben
Rosalind Eyben is a Research Fellow at the Institute of Development Studies (IDS), working on power and relations in the international aid system. She convenes the global policy programme of the Pathways of Women’s Empowerment Consortium. She has published extensively on aid relations, including 'Relationships for Aid' (2006) and is currently working with a network of practitioners seeking to influence donors to use a broader range of conceptual and methodological tools for impact assessment.
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Shivananda Khan
Shivananda Khan, OBE, is the Founder and Chief Executive of Naz Foundation International (www.nfi.net). The foundation focuses on male-male sexualities and HIV across South Asia, providing technical and institutional support to MSM groups to develop their own HIV and sexual health services, while also engaging in advocacy and policy work to promote increased investment and to address discrimination and criminalisation and promote good practice. NFI has assisted in developing four national MSM and HIV organisations in the region and some 60 local MSM community based HIV service providers. Shivananda is also Chair of the Asia Pacific Coalition on Male Sexual Health and in 2005 was awarded the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for his services in HIV prevention and care with males who have sex with males.
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Sonia Correa
Sonia Corrêa is a research associate at ABIA and the co-coordinator (with Richard Parker) of Sexuality Policy Watch, a global forum devoted to the analysis of sexuality and policy issues at the global level. She is also a DAWN affiliate, having been the network coordinator for sexual and reproductive health between 1992 and 2009. She is also a board member of the Commission on Citizenship and Reproduction, a Brazilian forum engaged in the promotion of public debates on issues of sexuality, reproduction and rights. Since the United Nations International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo in 1994, she has been involved in lobbying and advising on United Nations processes around gender, sexuality and reproductive health.
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Susie Jolly
Susie Jolly convenes the IDS Sexuality and Development Programme, organising exchanges between sexual rights activists internationally, and encouraging international development organisations to listen to their insights. Her research focuses on sex, pleasure and poverty. Recent publications include: Jolly, S. (2007) 'Why the Development Industry Should Get Over its Obsession with Bad Sex and Start to Think About Pleasure', IDS Working Paper 283, Brighton: IDS; and Cornwall, A, Correa, S. and Jolly, S. (2008) Development with a Body: Sexuality, Human Rights and Development, London: Zed Books.
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- Issue 2 - Sexual Pleasure Empowers Women!
Sylvia Tamale
Sylvia Tamale is a feminist Associate Professor of Law at Makerere University. In 2003 she was voted “Worst Woman of the Year” by the conservative public in Uganda who considered her vocal stance on women’s rights and sexual minorities as being “too much” or “too radical”. Sylvia refers to that title as her badge of honour that she wears with a lot pride.
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Wendy Harcourt
Wendy Harcourt is a feminist researcher and activist working at the Society for International Development (www.sidint.net) in Rome, Italy as senior advisor and chief editor of the quarterly journal 'Development'. Since 1988 she has built up the journal to be one of the most honest and critical quarterly publications on development. Born in Australia she now lives in Italy and is actively engaged in global feminist politics in particular with Women in Development Europe (www.wide-network.org). Her work and commitment to global gender justice has taken her around the world teaming up with UN policy makers, research institutes, women's rights activists and social justice movements. She has written extensively on globalisation and development from a gender perspective. Her latest book 'Body Politics in Development' (Zed Books 2009) won the FWSA Book Prize for 2010. She has edited three collections for Zed Books: 'Feminist Perspectives on Sustainable Development' (1994); 'Power, Reproduction and Gender' (1997); 'Women@Internet' (1999); and with Arturo Escobar 'Women and Politics of Place' (2005) by Kumarian Press.
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William Easterly
William Easterly is Professor of Economics at New York University, and Co-director of its Development Research Institute, which won the 2009 BBVA Frontiers of Knowledge in Development Cooperation Award. He is the author of two books: The White Man’s Burden: Why the West’s Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Harm and So Little Good (2006) and The Elusive Quest for Growth: Economists’ Adventures and Misadventures in the Tropics (2001) and more than 60 peer-reviewed academic articles.
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- Issue 4 - Technocrats vs Rights
Li Yinhe
Li Yinhe is a sociologist and activist for LGBT rights in China. She has a PhD in Sociology from the University of Pittsburgh. She has previously worked as an editor for Guangming Daily and in 1992 became a professor at the Institute of Sociology at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Her main academic interests are sexual norms in contemporary China, homosexuality and women's studies. Her recent publications include: 'Twenty Essays on Sex and Love', 2008, Tianjin People's Press (ed.), and 'Collected Works of Li Yinhe', 2009, Inner Mongolia University Press.
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Ziba Mir-Hosseini
Ziba Mir-Hosseini is a freelance legal anthropologist, based at SOAS, University of London. She is also Hauser Global Law Visiting Professor at New York University. Author of several books on family law, gender, and reformist thinking in Islam, she co-directed two award-winning documentary films on gender issues in Iran.
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