The
Sexuality, Gender and Rights Institute
exploring
theory and practice
The
Sexuality, Gender and Rights Institute is a week long residential course that
focuses on a conceptual study of sexuality. It examines the links between
sexuality, rights, gender, and health and their interface with socio-cultural
and legal issues. Participants will critically analyze policy, research and
program interventions using a rights-based approach.
Course
Content
Sexuality is a complex
field of study that spans multiple disciplines and areas of work. Accordingly,
the course content of the Sexuality, Gender and Rights Institute will focus on a
conceptual and theoretical study of sexuality drawing from different social
science disciplines and the intersections between them. Faculty from the global
South, Europe, and the U.S.A. will teach the course, using
different pedagogical methods including classroom instruction, group work, case
studies, simulation exercises, fiction and films.
Organizer
Founded in the year
2000 in India, CREA is a not-for-profit
organization that aims at empowering women to articulate, demand and access
their human rights by enhancing women’s leadership and building networks at the
local, regional, and international levels through training, advocacy, and
research. CREA works on issues of sexuality, sexual and reproductive rights,
violence against women, human rights and social justice.
Background
The
Sexuality, Gender and Rights Institute is based on the Sexuality and Rights
Institute that CREA and TARSHI (Talking about Reproductive and Sexual Health
Issues) have conducted for five years in India. For more information, visit
www.sexualityinstitute.org. Geetanjali Misra is co-Director of the Sexuality and
Rights Institute in India. Participating faculty Alice M.
Miller, JD and Carole S. Vance, Ph.D., MPH were among the convening faculty of
the Sexuality and Rights Institute in India and have contributed greatly to
the conception and development of both Institutes. Meena Seshu, Pramada Menon
and Shohini Ghosh, Ph.D. have taught at previous Institutes in
India.
Participants
Individuals working on
issues of sexuality, rights, health or gender are eligible to apply. Twenty-five
participants will be selected based on their application forms. Participants are
required to stay for the duration of the course. (See attached application
form)
Costs
Tuition, boarding and
lodging costs will be covered for all participants. Participants are expected to
contribute $150 towards the course and cover their own travel expenses. The
Institute is supported by the Ford Foundation and an anonymous donor.
Venue
The
Sexuality, Gender and Rights Institute will be held at Mohonk Mountain House in
New Paltz, New York, U.S.A. (www.mohonk.com). Participants will stay in
double rooms. Mohonk is close to New
York City and easily accessible by bus, train, and
car.
Participating
Faculty
Stefan Dudink,
Ph.D. teaches gay and lesbian studies at Radboud University Nijmegen, the
Netherlands, and is a research fellow
of the Dutch Organisation for Scientific Research. His current research focuses
on the political history of sexuality and gender in the Netherlands
around 1800. He has published on sexuality in political theory, on queer theory,
and on the history of masculinity. Recently he co-edited Masculinities in
Politics and War: Gendering Modern History (2004).
Shohini Ghosh,
Ph.D. is Associate Professor, Video and Television Production at the AJK
Mass Communication Research Centre, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi and is a documentary filmmaker who co-founded
Mediastorm Collective,
India’s first all
women documentary production collective. Her work focuses on gender, sexuality,
media, and representation. She directed Tales of the Nightfairies (2002) a film
about sex workers’ struggle for rights in Calcutta.
Pramada Menon is
a co-Founder and Director Programs of CREA. Pramada has worked in the
development sector in India for over two decades as a
women’s rights activist. Her work has focused on issues of sexuality and sexual
rights, livelihoods, gender and development, violence against women and
organizational development. She is on the Board of Directors of several
non-profit organizations in India including Dastkar, TARSHI,
Janani and the North East Network and is on the Advisory Council of the Global
Fund for Women.
Alice M. Miller,
JD is the co-Director of the Human Rights Concentration at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, and currently an
Assistant Professor of Clinical Public Health at the School of Public Health. Her work spans advocacy and
scholarship on sexuality and rights, as well as engaging with research and
activism in other areas of human rights in the US and globally, especially in
work on gender, criminal justice, the intersections of rights and humanitarian
policy and law, and health and rights generally.
Geetanjali Misra
is a co-Founder and Executive Director of CREA. She has worked at the activist,
grant making and policy levels on issues of sexuality, reproductive health,
gender, human rights and violence against women. She is a co-Founder of Sakhi
for South Asian women in New
York, a non-profit organization committed to ending
violence against women of South Asian origin. She is on the Board of Directors
of Reproductive Health Matters, President of the Association for Women’s Rights
in Development (AWID), and recently co-edited Sexuality, Gender and Rights:
Exploring Theory and Practice in South and South East
Asia (2005).
Alejandra Sarda
is a clinical psychologist by training with post-graduate studies in Gender and
Human Rights. She has been active in the women’s, feminist, LGBT and sexual
rights movements at local, regional and international levels, including as
IGLHRC’s Latin American and Caribbean Program Coordinator (1999-2006). Based in
Buenos Aires,
Argentina, she is
currently developing two new projects: Mulabi – Latin American Space for
Sexualities and Rights; and Translingua, a Feminist and Multigendered
Translation Business.
Meena Seshu is
the general secretary of SANGRAM, an organization that works to build the
capacities of sex workers and people living with HIV and AIDS and enable them to
assert and defend their rights. SANGRAM’s Centre for Advocacy on Stigma and
Marginalisation (CASAM) advocates for the reduction of stigma, violence and
harassment of marginalized communities especially those who have challenged
dominant norms. In 2002, Meena was awarded the Human Rights Defender Award from
Human Rights Watch in recognition of her outstanding work.
Svati P. Shah,
Ph.D. is currently an Assistant Professor/Faculty Fellow in New York University's Gender and Sexuality Studies
Program. She completed her Ph.D. in Columbia University's joint anthropology and public
health program. Her dissertation research focused on migration and sex work
among day wage workers in the city of Mumbai. She has published in a range of
scholarly and progressive journals and periodicals, including Gender and
History, Cultural Dynamics, Rethinking Marxism, and SAMAR: South Asian Magazine for Action and Reflection.
Carole S. Vance,
Ph.D., M.P.H. founded and directs the Program for the Study of Sexuality,
Gender, Health and Human Rights at Columbia University, New
York, which explores ways of integrating the new
scholarship on sexuality with ongoing advocacy and activism on gender, health,
and human rights. She is also the Co-Director of the Summer Institute on
Sexuality and Culture, University of Amsterdam. Vance has written widely about
sexual theory; science, sexuality, gender, and health; and policy controversies
about sexual expression and imagery. She is editing a collection on trafficking
and policy and is the editor of Pleasure and Danger: Exploring Female
Sexuality.
Applications are due on or
before December 1, 2006.
116 E. 16th
St., 7th Fl., New York, NY
10003, U.S.A., Phone: 1-212-599-1071
E-mail: mailcrea@verizon.net; Website: www.creaworld.org