World and Queer Anthropologies and the Question of Legal Reform

22.05.2023 14:30 - 15:30English

Queer theory, sexuality and gender in the Global South

Photo: Vinayak Das, Bengaluru Pride 2009 (flickr)

The past decade has seen a steep rise in research on LGBTQI+ sexuality and gender identity throughout the world. Much of this work, especially that produced in Africa and South Asia, used field research methods, but often without the benefit of reflecting on the history of those methods and the knowledge they do and do not produce.

Reviewing scholarship in queer and transgender studies from Africa and South Asia in particular, a set of priorities emerge that are specific to the histories of these regions. These include critiques of recent changes in the law, as well as uses of the law by states to assert nationalist aims through the appearance of tolerance, as in India, or its opposite, as in Uganda.

In this talk, Svati Shah will discuss how queer theory has opened up space in academic research to think expansively about sexuality and gender in the Global South. They will also discuss implications of field-level interventions that merge critiques from both Queer Anthropology and from World Anthropologies.

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Bergen Global
Jekteviksbakken 31, Bergen

22.05.2023
14:30 - 15:30
English
Add to calendar 22.05.2023, 22.05.2023
Svati P. Shah
Associate Professor, University of Massachusetts

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Svati P. Shah

Associate Professor, University of Massachusetts

Svati Shah is an associate professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. They are an anthropologist and queer feminist scholar who works on questions of sexuality, gender, migration, and caste capitalism in India. Dr Shah earned their doctorate in Columbia University’s joint program in Anthropology and Public Health and, previously, a master’s in public health from Emory University. They are an undergraduate alum of the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill’s Department of Anthropology.

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Bergen Global is a joint initiative between the University of Bergen and Chr. Michelsen Institute that addresses global challenges.