About us
Pathways People
Global Hub
Stephanie Barrientos gained her BA and PhD in Political Economy at the University of Kent. She was previously a Research Fellow at the Institute of Development Studies. She has researched and published widely on gender, global production, employment, decent work, international labour standards, corporate social responsibility, fair trade, and ethical trade. Stephanie has advised and provided training for a number of companies, NGOs and international organisations on issues concerning gender, agribusiness, ethical trade, decent work, and impact assessment. Stephanie led research on the Women's Voice in Policy Spaces Shaping the Global Economy project for Pathways.
Andrea Cornwall is Professor of Anthropology and Development in the School of Global Studies at the University of Sussex. A political anthropologist, she works on sexualities, new democratic spaces and gender. Publications include Gender Myths and Feminist Fables: The Struggle for Interpretive Power in Gender and Development (co-edited with Elizabeth Harrison and Ann Whitehead, Blackwell, 2008) and The Politics of Rights: Dilemmas for Feminist Praxis (co-edited with Maxine Molyneux, Routledge, 2008). She is Director of the Pathways programme. She has worked on the Feminisms and Women's Movement in Brazil and Conceptualising Empowerment in Global Spaces projects.
Rosalind Eyben has been a Fellow at the Institute of Development Studies since 2002, after a long and varied career as an international aid practitioner and policy analyst, including serving as DFID's first Chief Social Development Adviser. With a doctorate in social anthropology, her interests focus on power and relations in the international aid system. She convenes the global policy programme of Pathways. Her professional skills include workshop facilitation and mentoring for aid practitioners, and communicating with policy audiences, both in writing and presentations. She has worked on the Feminist Activists in Global Policy Organisations, Conceptualising Empowerment in Global Spaces and Mobilising Resources for Women's Organisations projects.
Susie Jolly is a Program Officer for the Ford Foundation in Beijing working on sexuality and reproductive health and rights issues. Prior to joining the Ford Foundation in 2010, Susie was convenor of the Sexuality and Development Programme at the Institute of Development Studies. She earlier served as a researcher on the IDS health team and later as communications officer in the IDS gender information unit. Susie has been an activist for many years. She has taken part in struggles for justice by LGBT, sex workers and people living with HIV/AIDS. She has joined efforts to challenge the "straitjacket" of gender and sexuality norms that disempower so many people.
Tessa Lewin is a Southern African social scientist, trainer, artist and animator, based in the UK. Tessa is particularly interested in the intersection between art and social science and tries to engage with issues of social justice. She has worked for the Rockefeller Foundation, Channel 4, and The Guardian on projects that combine art, research and advocacy. She previously ran the Digital Arts programme at Lighthouse in Brighton, and is currently managing the communications for Pathways. She is also currently directing a short animation for 'Ana el-Hekkaya' or 'I am the Story', a project which seeks to rework traditional folk stories to carry empowering representations of women, and serve as a means to promote, through popular culture, new understandings of empowerment.
Maitrayee Mukhopadhyay is the Area Leader for Social Development and Gender Equity for KIT Development Policy & Practice where she is responsible for programme development with a special focus on gender, citizenship and governance and rights-based approaches in development. Dr Mukhopadhyay is involved in building partnerships, capacity and agendas to undertake action research; carrying out advisory work in social development; conducting international and regional training programmes on gender and development; and writing books and papers in her field of expertise. She has worked on the Mobilising Resources for Women's Organisations project.
Latin America Hub
Sílvia de Aquino has a PhD in Sociology from UFBA, having worked as Associate Researcher at NEIM/UFBA since 1996. She is Associate Professor of Gender and Politics in the Department of Political Science and is involved in NEIM’s bachelor’s programme on Gender and Diversity. She has taken part in the Salvador Commission against Violence towards Women and in the Observatory for Monitoring the Maria da Penha Law. Her research interests include domestic violence, gender and public policy, and policies to combat violence against women (with a focus on Police Stations for Assaulted Women (DEAMs)).
Carla Gisele Batista is former
Secretary to the Articulation of
Brazilian Women (AMB), she
holds a BA in history, and is a
master’s degree candidate on the
graduate programme on
interdisciplinary studies of
Women, Gender, and Feminism,
working on issues around the
campaign for the legalisation of
abortion in Brazil, supervised by
Cecilia Sardenberg.
Fernanda Capibaribe was media consultant on the “Changing Times, Changing Lives” research project. She has a BA and masters degree in communications with a specialisation in photography. She is an Assistant Professor of Photography at the UFAL–Universidade Federal de Alagoas.
Ana Alice A. Costa, Co-Convenor of the LA Hub, holds a PhD in Political Sociology from UNAM, the Autonomous University of Mexico. She has been active in the Brazilian and Mexican feminist movements since the late 1970s. A member of the Faculty of Philosophy and Human Sciences of the Federal University of Bahia (UFBA) in Salvador, Brazil, since 1982, she was one of the founders of UFBA’s Nucleus of Interdisciplinary Studies on Women (NEIM/UFBA), and Director 1999–2004. She is currently coordinator of the MA and PhD programmes on interdisciplinary studies on Women, Gender, and Feminism at NEIM/UFBA. She has been leading on the Building Constituencies for Political Reform project.
Silvia Lúcia Ferreira has a Doctorate in Nursing from the University of São Paulo (USP). She has 28 years experience in teaching, research and consultancy, and is co-founder and present Coordinator and Leader of GEM (Women Studies’ Group of the School of Nursing). She has also been a long-time researcher at NEIM, having acted as its Vice-Director and as Coordinator of the masters and PhD programmes on interdisciplinary studies on Women, Gender, and Feminism. She has served as President of the State Council for the Rights of Women (CDDM) for the State of Bahia. Her research interests include gender and health, women’s health, gender and public policy.
Márcia Gomes is Co-Coordinator of the OBSERVE–Observatory for Monitoring the Maria da Penha Law and has a masters and PhD in sociology from UFBA. She has been a research associate at NEIM since 1998.
Terezinha Abigail Gonçalves da Silva is a feminist economist with a masters degree in Agrarian Sciences, focusing on Rural Development, from the School of Agronomy at UFBA. She has been active for over 30 years in women’s movements in Brazil. She was a founding member of the Feminist Group Brasil Mulher (1979), and has been a Research Associate of NEIM/UFBA, since 2000, representing NEIM in the Salvador Women’s Forum and in the Feminist Network for Sexual and Reproductive Health Rights. She worked as Special Superintendent for Women’s Policies in Salvador, and is currently an advisor to the city council women. She has been working on the Empowering Domestic Work project.
Márcia dos Santos Macedo holds BAs in Social Work and Social Science, with a Masters and PhD in Sociology from UFBA. She is an adjunct professor of Feminist Theory on the newly created bachelors programme in Gender and Diversity at UFBA, teaching, as well, on the masters and PhD programmes on interdisciplinary studies on women, Gender, and Feminism. A long time researcher associated with NEIM/UFBA, taking part in several of its extension programmes, she is now its present Director. Her research work has focused on gender and work, and gender and the family, with a focus on women-headed households.
Renato Macedo has a BA in Economics, a masters in home economics, and a PhD in interdisciplinary studies on Women, Gender and Feminism (PPG–NEIM/UFBA). She participated in the Feminism and Women’s Movements in Brazil Project, developing her PhD dissertation under the supervision of Ana Alice Costa.
Patrícia Marques has a BA and a masters in nursing; is a doctorate candidate at UFBA’s School of Nursing, and an Assistant Professor of Nursing at Universidade Federal do Recôncavo Bahiano – UFRB. She participated in the “Feminisms and the Struggle for Reproductive Health and Reproductive Rights: the Brazilian Experience” research project, developing a PhD Dissertation in the School of Nursing under the supervision of Sílvia Lúcia Ferreira.
Carolina Santana was Field Coordinator for the “Changing Times: Changing Lives” research project (2007–2009). She has a bachelor’s degree in social sciences and is a master’s candidate in anthropology at UFBA.
Lea Menezes Santana, LA Hub Communications Officer, has a bachelor’s degree in Public Relations, and a post-graduate specialisation degree in Gender and Public Policies from NEIM/UFBA. She has been a member of the LA Hub and NEIM since 2007.
Candida Ribeiro Santos is a Field Researcher in OBSERVE. She is a PhD Candidate in the graduate programme on interdisciplinary studies on Women, Gender, and Feminism, developing her dissertation under the supervision of Cecilia Sardenberg.
Cecilia M.B. Sardenberg,
Convenor of the LA Hub, is a
Brazilian feminist who holds a
PhD in Anthropology from
Boston University, and has over
30 years experience in teaching,
research, consultancy, and
participation in women’s
movements in Brazil. She was
one of the “founding mothers” of UFBA’s Nucleus of
Interdisciplinary Studies on
Women (NEIM/UFBA), and
served as its Director for
2004–2010. At present, she
serves as National Coordinator
to OBSERVE, the Observatory
for the Monitoring of Maria da
Penha Law. She is also involved in the research on Brazilian Feminisms in the United Nations Arenas, Changing Times, Changing Lives: Women's Empowerment through Generations in Bahia, Feminisms and the Struggle for Reproductive Health and Rights, and Feminisms and Women's Movements in Brazil
Maria de Lourdes Scheffler is Associate Researcher at NEIM/UFBA and coordinates our work on the Landless People’s Movement (MST) Women’s Camp. She is a PhD candidate in the graduate programme in social sciences, developing her dissertation on MST under the supervision of Cecilia Sardenberg.
Salete Maria Silva is a lawyer and PhD candidate in NEIM’s graduate programme on interdisciplinary studies on Women, Gender and Feminism. She participated in the Building Constituencies Sub-Programme and is writing her dissertation on the “Lipstick Lobby” under the supervision of Ana Alice Costa.
Gilberta Santos Soares is the
Director of the Brazilian feminist
NGO Cunhã. She was Executive
Secretary for Jornadas Brasileiras
pelo Aborto Legal e Seguro
(Brazilian campaign for safe and
legal abortion) from 2003–2007.
She has a BA in psychology, a
masters in sociology, and is a
doctorate candidate in NEIM’s
graduate programme on
interdisciplinary studies on
Women, Gender, and Feminism,
developing her dissertation
under the supervision of Cecilia
Sardenberg.
Márcia Tavares is Regional
Coordinator of OBSERVE–Observatory for Monitoring the
Maria da Penha Law, is a social
worker and has a doctorate
degree in sociology from UFBA.
She is an Adjunct Professor of
Social Work at Universidade
Católica de Salvador.
Simone Andrade Teixeira,
has a BA in nursing and a
doctorate in interdisciplinary
studies on Women, Gender, and
Feminism, from NEIM/UFBA.
She teaches reproductive health
at the Universidade Estadual do
Sudeste Baiano–UESB, and
participated in the “Feminisms
and the Struggle for Reproductive
Health and Reproductive Rights:
the Brazilian Experience” research project; she developed
her PhD dissertation under the
supervision of Sílvia Lúcia
Ferreira.
Middle East Hub
Mulki Al-Sharmani is an Assistant Professor at the Social Research Center of the American University in Cairo and is currently a Fellow at the University of Helsinki. Dr Al- Sharmani’s recent work has focused on personal status law and divorce law reform in Egypt. Dr Sharmani is also an affiliate faculty/researcher at the Forced Migration and Refugee Studies Program at AUC. She received her doctorate in cultural anthropology from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland (USA) in 2004.
Mona Ibrahim Aly is a writer and Associate Professor in the English Department at Cairo University. She leads the Ana el Hekkaya (formerly Qalet el-Rawiyeh) Storytelling project and serves as the editor-in-chief for Tiba, the theoretical magazine of the New Woman Foundation. She received her Masters and PhD degrees in American Literature.
Ragui Assaad is a Professor of Economics at the University of Minnesota. Within Pathways, he has provided data analysis on statistics about women, work and empowerment from the Egypt Labour Market Panel Survey. Dr Assaad’s research interests include the informal economy and labour policy and analysis in developing countries. He received a Doctorate in City and Regional Planning from Cornell University.
Mona Bakr joined the Social
Research Center in the
American University in Cairo in
2005 and has worked on the Egyptian Conditional Cash
Transfer Pilot in Ain Es-Sira
and the Pathways of Women’s
Empowerment Research Project
Consortium. She graduated in
1993 from the American
University in Cairo’s Economics
Department. She joined the
Anthropology Department in
1995 as a graduate student.
Lenka Benova, currently a doctoral student in Demography at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, is a researcher on the health and nutrition component of the Conditional Cash Transfer Programme at the Social Research Center of the American University in Cairo. She has worked with Doctors without Borders in Nigeria and Sudan.
Heba Gowayed is a researcher on the Conditional Cash Transfer Programme at the Social Research Center of the American University in Cairo. Having received her Bachelors degree in Political Science from the American University in Cairo, Heba is interested in issues of gender, particularly as they relate to conceptions of social justice, citizenship, poverty alleviation and social policy design.
Kristina Hallez served as the
Communications Officer for
Pathways at the Social Research
Center at the American
University in Cairo. She
graduated from Wesleyan
University with a Bachelors
degree in psychology and began
work at the SRC in 2007.
Kristina worked to set up the
Changing Focus photography
competition dedicated to
capturing and discussing
representations of gender and
empowerment.
Mohamed Hassan is Programme Manager of the Conditional Cash Transfer Programme at the Social Research Center of the American University in Cairo. He is responsible for field logistics and operations as well as data collection and analysis.
Islah Jad is the Director and founding member of the Women’s Studies Institute at Birzeit University. Dr Jad is an expert on gender issues, and she advised a number of departments of the Palestinian Authority on the issue of women’s involvement and gender awareness. She is also a research theme convenor on the Building Constituencies theme for Pathways. She received her PhD from the University of London.
Penny Johnson is an Associate Researcher at the Institute of Women’s Studies at Birzeit University and co-editor of the Institute’s Annual Review of Women’s Studies. She is a member of the Arab Families Working Group and her research interests focus on women’s narratives of the Palestinian present, gender, and the second Palestinian intifada, violence, kinship and Palestinian household and family dynamics.
Eileen Kuttab is an
Assistant Professor of Sociology
at the Institute of Women’s
Studies at Birzeit University. She
is a member of the Arab
Families Working Group. Her
research interests include
feminism and nationalism and
the role of women in the
Palestinian intifada.
Aitemad Muhanna is an independent researcher from Palestine. Her areas of research interest include gender and poverty and women’s agency in Palestine. She received her PhD from Swansea University in Wales.
Hania Sholkamy is the primary investigator for the conditional cash transfer project being carried out in Egypt and serves as an Assistant Professor at the Social Research Center of the American University in Cairo. Her research interests and publications focus on reproductive health, social protection and citizenship, gender, population and qualitative methods. She received her PhD in Anthropology from the London School of Economics and Political Sciences, University of London.
Gunilla Soliman coordinates funding and grant transactions, manages finances, and maintains records for projects in the Social Research Center, including Pathways. Her participation in Pathways is especially unique because she is involved with donor relations. Gunilla is of Swedish and German heritage, but has made Egypt her primary home since 1975.
Mariz Tadros is a Research Fellow at the Institute for Development Studies, University of Sussex. She has worked as an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the American University in Cairo and as a journalist for Al-Ahram newspaper. Her research interests include gender and development, civil society and sectarian violence in the Middle East.
South Asia Hub
Naysan Adlparvar is a political ethnographer and development consultant. He worked for three years as a development practitioner in Afghanistan on gender, participatory poverty assessments, poverty reduction and related advocacy programming with NGOs and the United Nations. He has also worked in India on educational issues. Naysan is presently undertaking his DPhil at the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex researching ethnic and religious identity and local-level social change processes in Afghanistan.
Firdous Azim is a Professor of English, specialising in post-colonial and feminist literary criticism. She has researched and published widely in these fields. Currently, she is Chairperson of the Department of English and Humanities at BRAC University located in Dhaka, Bangladesh. She is one of the lead researchers in the Pathways programme, where her special interest is in exploring the cultural history of women in Bangladesh. Firdous is a member of the Editorial Board of Feminist Review and Inter-Asia Cultural Studies. She is also an active member of the women’s movement, Naripokkho.
Iqbal Ehsan has completed his MSS in Anthropology at Jahangirnagar University, Bangladesh. His areas of interest include gender issues, sociocultural change, social inequality, social behaviour, media, education and religion. He is currently involved in the Pathways research on the Cultural History of Women in Bangladesh.
Perween Hasan is Vice- Chancellor (designate) of the Central Women’s University, Dhaka and is a Professor in the Department of Islamic History and Culture, University of Dhaka (currently on leave). She is involved in the cultural history project of the Pathways programme. She taught courses on history, world civilizations, art and architectural history, religion and women. Her book: Sultans and Mosques: Early Muslim Architecture in Bangladesh was published in 2007 (I.B.Tauris, London). Prior to her career as an art historian, she was a teacher of English Literature, and her interest in women and cross cultural issues brings her to Pathways. She is Vice President of the Asiatic Society.
Naomi Hossain is a political sociologist and a Research Fellow in the Participation, Power and Social Change Team at the Institute of Development Studies. She previously led the Governance Research Group at BRAC's Research and Evaluation Division in Dhaka, and has conducted extensive research on issues relating to gender and the politics of poverty, including political attitudes to poverty, the governance of service delivery, and the politics of mass education. Current interests include work on the social impacts of economic crisis. She has been working on the National Discourses on Women's Empowerment: Enabling or Constraining Women's Choices project.
Samia Huq has a PhD in Anthropology from Brandeis University and is Assistant Professor at the BRAC Development Institute (BDI), BRAC University. As part of her PhD research, Samia has conducted intensive fieldwork amongst women’s religious reading and discussion circles in Dhaka. With a broad interest in issues around religion and globalisation, religious movements and their relationship to debates around modernity and secularism, she is currently involved in research and a book project exploring the emergence of the 21st century Bangladeshi woman between religion, tradition, secularism and modernity.
Neelam Hussain is a feminist
and a human rights activist based in
Pakistan. She is a founder member
and Coordinator of Simorgh
Women’s Resource and Publication
Centre, Lahore. Neelam has
specialised in English Literature
and has edited and written for a
number of books including
children’s stories and English
translations of two novels by
women writers. Other than
research undertaken for Pathways
under the Changing Narratives of
Sexuality Theme, she is currently
involved with research on forced
marriage and women’s inheritance
rights. Neelam is a member of
Women’s Action Forum.
Naila Kabeer is a Professor at the Department of Development Studies at the School for Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), UK. Prior to this, she worked for a number of years as a Fellow at IDS, working in areas of poverty, social exclusion and gender in relation to labour markets and livelihood strategies in the context of globalisation. Naila is a social economist working on the social and economic interactions between households, communities and the wider economy. She has substantial experience of training and advisory work with governments, bilateral and multilateral agencies and NGOs. She has been active in developing frameworks and methodologies for integrating gender concerns into policy and planning. She is currently engaged in research on social protection strategies and struggles for citizenship among workers in the informal economy. She has been leading on the Paid Work and Women's Empowerment and Gendered Impacts of BRAC and WFW Microfinance Programming on Hazara Women in Kabul, Afghanistan research.
Ayesha Khan is a social science researcher who has been working in Pakistan for the last twenty years. Her areas of focus are poverty, gender, reproductive health, and refugee issues. Recently she has participated in a number of field-based research projects exploring the theme of empowerment, particularly with regard to its linkages with paid work for women in different local contexts, and its linkages with women’s experience of induced abortion in Pakistan.
Saba Gul Khattak is currently a Member of the Social Sector, Planning Commission of Pakistan and holds a PhD in political science. Her work focuses on governance and rights-based public policy issues from feminist perspectives. Her recent publications focused on Pakistani women’s political and economic rights, child labour and protection, and issues of violence, development and peace. She serves on the governing bodies of public sector universities, NGOs and is also a member of the editorial boards of Signs: journal of women in culture and society and theoretical perspectives.
Sahida Islam Khondaker works as a researcher for Pathways. Before joining the programme she worked as an Intern at the Centre for Policy Dialogue, a well-known policy think tank in Bangladesh. She is part of the Changing Narratives of Sexuality team and was involved with the research on Women and Religion and Women and Media. Currently she is working on the Cultural History research. She is also part of a new project, Stories for Change. Sahida’s research interest is in culture, sexuality and religion.
Simeen Mahmud studied statistics at Dhaka University and medical demography at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. She was Research Director in the Population Studies Division at the Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies and is currently Lead Researcher on Women and Work with the Pathways Programme. Her current research focuses primarily on women’s work, pathways of women’s empowerment, NGO contributions to deepening democracy and mobilisation for citizenship and rights. She is a member of the Bangladesh Health Watch group.
Amena Mohsin is a Professor at the Department of International Relations, University of Dhaka. She has a PhD from Cambridge University, UK and has conducted post-doctoral research on gender and militarisation, at ISS, The Hague, Netherlands. Her areas of interest include minorities, gender, politics and security issues. She has published extensively in national and international journals and books. Amena is currently heading AIBS (The American Institute of Bangladesh Studies).
Sohela Nazneen has a PhD in Development Studies from IDS, Sussex. She is an Associate Professor at the University of Dhaka, Bangladesh and a Research Fellow for Pathways based at BDI. Her research focuses on institutional analysis of gender, specifically gender and accountability structures and gender analysis of NGO management practices. Her ongoing work includes feminist movement building in transitional contexts, impact of changes in aid structures on women’s rights organisations and women’s participation in Islamic movements.
Aanmona Priyadarshini was engaged with the research on Media and Women under the Changing Narratives of Sexuality theme and was the principal researcher on the Cultural Production of Minority Media research. She worked intensively in Rangamati and Dhaka while doing her MSS thesis on Population Policy. Her areas of research interest include gender, sexuality, health, body politics, power relations, representation and ethnicity. She has received a Fulbright Scholarship for a second Masters in the US, and is currently studying at Loyola University, Chicago.
Samia Afroz Rahim is a researcher and Communications Officer for the Pathways South Asia Hub. She has been engaged with the Religion, Media and Cultural History of Bengali Women research. She has also facilitated three Digital Story-Telling workshops in Bangladesh. Samia’s interests lie in examining hierarchies of power – particularly of gender, class and sexuality – in relation to changing times and politics. She is also exploring the use of technology in documenting personal stories and its potential in generating new knowledge and bringing about social change.
Maheen Sultan coordinates the Pathways South Asia hub based at BRAC Development Institute, BRAC University, Bangladesh. She is a development practitioner, a women’s rights activist and researcher. She has worked on issues of social development, poverty, community participation and gender equality in various capacities. She was part of the team that set up the women’s empowerment research programme in BRAC University and is a member of Naripokkho, a Bangladeshi women’s activist organisation. Her current research interests include women’s organising and movements and women’s work and mobilising.
Sakiba Tasneem is a Research Associate at the BRAC Development Institute (BDI). She supports the Pathways programme by designing and conducting both quantitative and qualitative research, cleaning and analysing the quantitative data and producing reports. Before joining BDI in February, 2009, Sakiba had been working in the BRAC Research and Evaluation Division (RED) for three years. Sakiba has a Masters in Economics from University of Dhaka. Her research interests include women’s empowerment, child labour, extreme poverty, gender and health, poverty and the health service.
West Africa Hub
Hussainatu Jummai Abdullah, a sociologist, is an independent scholar and consultant. Her areas of research include women’s labour rights, democratisation, religion and post-conflict reconstruction processes in Sierra Leone. She has undertaken consultancy services for the Swedish NGO Foundation, Ford Foundation, UNICEF, African Union, and the Nelson Mandela Foundation, among others.
Akosua Adomako Ampofo is Associate Professor, and Director, Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana. Her work focuses on race and identity politics; gender and violence; masculinities; and representations of women in popular music. 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. She finds strength in Christian faith, family and sisterhood.
Akofa Anyidoho is the
Programme Administrator and
Communication Officer for
Pathways West Africa at
CEGENSA. She has been active
in online communications
reaching out to new audiences
through visual and multimedia
aids. The Pathways West Africa
blog has been a resource for
audiences interested in
following the work of Pathways
researchers and news about
women in Ghana. Akofa is
interested in creative writing,
newsletter/magazine
publications, blogging and
photography.
Nana Akua Anyidoho is a researcher at the Institute of Statistical, Social and Economic Research (ISSER) at the University of Ghana. She has a PhD in Human Development and Social Policy from Northwestern University. As a researcher, Nana Akua is interested in how ordinary people interact with policy – how they interpret, resist, adopt and adapt policy. Her work on the Pathways project has focused on policy discourses and practices on women’s empowerment in Ghana.
Awo Asiedu is a senior lecturer in the Department of Theatre Arts and currently the Acting Director of the School of Performing Arts at the University of Ghana. Her research interests are in the areas of contemporary African theatre and performance, the sociology of theatre, theatre for purposes other than entertainment and women and popular culture. She is a member of the International Federation of Theatre Research and was recently elected onto its Executive Committee.
Yaba Badoe is a Ghanaian-British documentary filmmaker and writer. A graduate of King’s College Cambridge, she worked as a civil servant in Ghana before becoming a General Trainee with the BBC. She has taught in Spain and Jamaica and has worked as a producer and director for the main terrestrial channels in Britain. Her TV credits include: ‘Black and White’ for BBC1, ‘I Want Your Sex’, for Channel 4; and a six-part series, ‘VSO’, for ITV. She produced and directed the film 'Honorable Women' for Pathways West Africa.
Bibi Bakare-Yusuf is an Independent scholar, founder and publisher of Cassava Republic Press. Her company is focused on publishing the best in contemporary African writing, especially works by women authors. Cassava Republic Press is driven by the dream to re-develop a reading (and writing) culture in Nigeria, as part of the bigger project of re-imagining Nigeria’s future and being part of an African cultural and intellectual renaissance. She has a PhD in gender studies from the University of Warwick. Her area of research interests are: African women’s corporeal styling, love and sexuality in the African world and feminist phenomenology. She has published many papers in refereed journals, and regularly presents papers at academic conferences. She sits on the editorial board of a number of influential journals and is a lifelong and committed feminist.
Akosua K. Darkwah teaches Sociology at the University of Ghana, Legon. She chairs the Research and Documentation Committee of the Centre for Gender Studies and Advocacy and is a member of the Sexual Assault Committee of the Centre. She is also a Steering Committee Member of the Network for Women’s Rights in Ghana. Her research interests include gender, globalisation and the nature of work, as well as sexuality, in the African context.
Aisha Fofana-Ibrahim is a feminist scholar and advocate and is currently the Acting Director of The Gender Research and Documentation Center (GRADOC) and lecturer, Language Studies Department at Fourah Bay College, University of Sierra Leone. Her research interests include women in/on war, women in African literatures, gender and citizenship and gender and sexuality. Her most recent publication is ‘Gender Transformations in War and Peace: The Sierra Leonean Experience’ in Gendering Global Transformations: Gender, Culture, Race, and Identity, edited by Chima J. Korieh and Philomina E. Okeke-Ihejirika, 2008, Routledge.
Jamesina King has an LLM from Georgetown University Law Center,Washington DC and is a Leadership Advocacy for Women in Africa and Cheveney Fellow. A lawyer and women’s rights activist, she is currently a Commissioner in the Human Rights Commission of Sierra Leone. Her research interests are legal reforms to advance women’s rights, advocacy for women’s economic empowerment and political participation.
Takyiwaa Manuh, Hub Convenor, is a former Professor of African Studies at the University of Ghana and now works as an independent consultant. Her research interests are in the areas of gender, the state and development, contemporary African migrations, and higher education. She is active in the women’s movement in Ghana and serves on the boards of several national, continental and international organisations.
Charmaine Pereira is a feminist scholar-activist who has worked extensively on the themes of sexuality; feminist thought and practice; gender and university education; and civil society and the state. Based in Abuja, she co-ordinates the Initiative for Women’s Studies in Nigeria (IWSN), which strengthens capacity for teaching and research in gender and women’s studies. As IWSN National Co-ordinator, she oversees action research programmes on the politics of sexual harassment and sexual violence in universities; gender justice and women’s citizenship; and women’s empowerment. She is the author of Gender in the Making of the Nigerian University System (James Currey/Partnership for Higher Education in Africa, 2007).
Dzodzi Tsikata is the Head of the Centre for Gender Studies and Advocacy (CEGENSA) and a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Statistical, Social and Economic Research (ISSER) at the University of Ghana. Her research interests are in the areas of gender and livelihoods, gender and development policy and practice, and land and resource tenures. She is a founding member and past convenor of the Network for Women’s Rights in Ghana (NETRIGHT) on whose steering committee she currently serves.
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