Call for papers on gender-responsive methodologies and gender research in the African context

UNU-GEST is organizing a panel on Nordic Africa Days 2016 which will be held in Uppsala, Sweden 23-24 September. The Nordic Africa Days (NAD) is the biannual conference of the Nordic Africa Institute organised for the past 15 years in the Nordic countries, with participants representing the state of the art in African Studies and Africa related knowledge production. The Nordic Africa Days 2016 has a thematic focus on gender relations in contemporary Africa.

The conference aims to be a forum for academic exchange and intellectual development, where contributions from a new generation of researchers are important and welcome. PhD candidates and other young scholars are strongly encouraged to participate. The conference also provides a venue for dialogue between Africa specialists within academic and policy arenas.

Panel title: Gender research and gender-responsive methodologies. 

Panel organisers: Erla Hlín Hjálmarsdóttir and Pétur Waldorff, UNU-GEST

E-mail of panel organisers: erlah@hi.is

Gender is a crosscutting issue in any contemporary social research. In this panel the question is posed: How do researchers include gender in their research and what research methodologies specifically take gender into account? How do we move from gender blind research methods to methods that are gender-responsive or gender-sensitive, methodologically taking into account, or giving special attention to gendered dynamics and various social and cultural gender norms or imbalances?

This panel offers a forum for proposing, discussing, and appraising various methodological issues, tools, techniques, and sources in gender research and gender-responsive methodologies applied in research on contemporary Africa. The forum is intended to engage these questions in a wider sense, encouraging the submission of abstracts that address issues related to all phases of research, including formulating research questions, concept formation, data collection, data analysis, and dissemination. We aim to take stock of current developments, continue existing debates, and open up spaces for possible new issues pertaining to gender-responsive research methodologies within and outside the sphere of gender research.

We particularly encourage panel paper submissions that focus on the following:

• Methodological innovations and their implications for research on gender in present-day Africa – for example: new quantitative and qualitative methods; new tools; social media; mixed methods; interdisciplinary research; transdisciplinarity; collection, analysis and the application of sex-disaggregated data.

• Methodological concerns, problems, practices and solutions in the analysis of key themes of gender research in Africa.

• How gender-responsive approaches inform research and the application of gender-responsive research methodologies for research in which gender is not the overarching theme.

 

Paper abstracts should include a description of the topic not exceeding 300 words, in Word format (not Pdf), name, affiliation and contact details of the author. Indicate in your submission for which panel you are submitting your proposal. A person can only propose one paper for the conference. Paper proposals should be submitted to nad2016@nai.uu.se no later than 3 May 2016. Authors will be notified on acceptance by early June.

Panel summary can also be found here. Please visit the conference website for general information and full list of panels for NAD 2016.

Conference Registration

The conference registration fee is EUR100 in general and EUR50 for registered students and participants with residence in Africa. Conference registration opens as of April 2016.

For questions please contact nad2016@nai.uu.se or visit http://www.nai.uu.se/nad-2016/

Telephone: 0046 (0)18 471 52 45