The conference will be held from 24th of October – 26th of October 2019, University of Helsinki, Finland.
- Call for papers for all workshops: https://www.helsinki.fi/en/conferences/gender-studies-2019-conference/call-for-papers
- After selecting the appropriate workshop, you can submit your paper proposal using an e-form: https://elomake.helsinki.fi/lomakkeet/97441/lomake.html
- The submitted paper proposals will be sent to the workshop organizers, who will select the papers to be presented in the workshops. Depending on the number of submissions, decisions of acceptance will be made towards the end of May
- Deadline: 30th of April
There are two workshops the organizers would like to highlight:
Organisers: Hedda Lippus& Liiri Oja
Description: Our workshop facilitates an interdisciplinary exploration of violence in sexual and reproductive health care contexts through two underexplored themes.
First, we are interested in research which instead of focusing on one single reproductive or sexual rights issue explores larger health, gender & violence narratives that impact the rules governing women’s sexuality and their bodies that in turn give way to obstetric and reproductive violence. How do harmful narratives become the building blocks of cultures of violence? What are the acceptable scripts for women: how portraying women as dangerous, misbehaving and with poor judgment makes medical paternalism acceptable, forced treatments excusable, violence inevitable? Further, how to create spaces of meaningful listening & transformative narratives in contexts of violence?
Secondly, we hope to attract researchers who explore questions about knowledge production and methodology: what kind of human rights & public health research is needed to eliminate violence against women and girls? What are the weaknesses/strengths of the measuring tools currently used? Can countries be compared? How do politics impact data? How to measure reproductive violence without re-victimisation? How to carry out research in contexts of resistance and misogyny? Our workshop is open to all disciplines and backgrounds: we invite papers but also creative submissions that surprise us in their form. With our experience in the art of facilitation we aim to be unscholarly, disruptive, or mad (H. Charlesworth), unlock the potential in all projects and create some trouble on behalf of women (N. Ephron).
About the workshop organisers:
Hedda Lippus, MD is a public health specialist with a medical degree from Tartu University and is currently in the final stages of her PhD that focuses on gender-based violence. Hedda was a Fulbright scholar in 2017/2018 at Emory University where she now also holds an adjunct professor position. She has participated in conducting a nation-wide women’s health survey, published both internationally and in Estonia, and designed-taught countless workshops on reproductive and sexual health.
Liiri Oja, PhD is a human rights lawyer and an expert of reproductive and sexual rights. Liiri has worked at the Estonian Parliament and as a Constitutional Law lecturer. During her doctoral studies at the European University Institute she worked at Harvad, Cambridge and Sussex universities and volunteered at the Madrid-based NGO Women’s Link Worldwide. Liiri is an educator and teacher at heart: she has taught secondary school students to debate, law students to understand legal analysis and midwives to use human rights-based frameworks. She applies her art school background to communicate sometimes-complicated legal ideas through easy visuals.
Organisers: Noemí Pérez Vásquez & Liiri Oja
Description: Many (feminist) scholars have actively critiqued the lack of gender lens in transitional justice processes. Further, R. Vijeyarasa wrote in 2009, how reproductive rights and reproduction in general do not receive enough attention in post-conflict development agendas.
Our workshop is fuelled by the same concern: where are reproductive rights, involving forced pregnancy, abortion, contraception, sexuality education, and reproductive violence in transitional justice conversations?
We approach this question broadly, as we understand reproductive rights not just through lists of violations or services & specific entitlements, but through power relationships and gender narratives. Therefore, we aim to bring together different transitional justice experiences-examples, and analyse, how specific (contested) constructions of truth, violence, silencing and victimhood have shaped the reproduction and health narratives currently present in such societies. Furthermore, we would like to investigate how cultures of silencing and shame intersecting with legacies of colonialism, dictatorships and mass atrocities impact definitions of violence, women’s reproductive and sexual rights.
We invite participants to make observations about the strength of feminist movements in countries that have applied transitional justice mechanisms, and to investigate how cultures & religions have shaped women’s experiences during and after a conflict, occupation or large scale of violence. What has happened to women’s bodies? Which roles are assigned to/enforced on women? We explore disconnects between legislation, implementation of law, and women’s lived experiences.
We hope to attract participants working on transitional justice from different angles across disciplines (from human rights to collective memory studies; from the “usual suspects” such as Colombia to “unexpected” examples such as Estonia). With an interactive format we offer a space for collaborative working & creativity.
About the workshop organisers:
Noemí Pérez Vásquez is currently finishing her PhD at SOAS University of London. Her thesis builds on her fieldwork in Timor-Leste exploring the differences of access to transitional justice between women and men: whether transitional justice facilitates women’s rights protection, and whether the proactive participation of international actors has been determinant in the protection of women’s rights. Noemíhas worked with the United Nations on issues of the justice sector, human rights, women and children, including for the OHCHR, UNDP, UNMISS, UNICEF as well as for the International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute (IBAHRI). She was a Visiting Researcher at the Universidade Nacional Timor Lorosa’e, in Dili, Timor-Leste from 2016 to 2017. She has lived in several countries and is fluent in English, Spanish, French, Italian and Portuguese.
Liiri Oja, PhD is a human rights lawyer and an expert of reproductive and sexual rights. Liiri has worked at the Estonian Parliament and as a Constitutional Law lecturer. During her doctoral studies at the European University Institute she worked at Harvad, Cambridge and Sussex universities and volunteered at the Madrid-based NGO Women’s Link Worldwide. Liiri is an educator and teacher at heart: she has taught secondary school students to debate, law students to understand legal analysis and midwives to use human rights-based frameworks. She applies her art school background to communicate sometimes-complicated legal ideas through easy visuals.
0 Comments