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This project analyses the intersection of human rights and gender in two west African countries, Guinea Bissau and Senegal, by looking into the local resistances to sexual and reproductive rights. Through a consideration of the evolving cultural practices relative to sexuality, and the ideological refashioning of society, we consider activisms for gender equality, against gender based violence and promotion of rights to sexuality, we focus on how society engages with body politics. While there has been a multiplication of studies, in the last decades, around the way the social is produced through the regulation of sexuality, most studies present a fairly schematic conceptualisation of normativity. This project builds upon a previous knowledge on sociocultural dynamics and cultural values to consider the obstacles to the social change coded in the promotion of sexual and reproductive rights.
This project analyses the intersection of human rights and gender in two west African countries, Guinea Bissau and Senegal, by looking into the local resistances to sexual and reproductive rights. Through a consideration of the evolving cultural practices relative to sexuality, and the ideological refashioning of society, we consider activisms for gender equality, against gender based violence and promotion of rights to sexuality, we focus on how society engages with body politics. While there has been a multiplication of studies, in the last decades, around the way the social is produced through the regulation of sexuality, most studies present a fairly schematic conceptualisation of normativity. This project builds upon a previous knowledge on sociocultural dynamics and cultural values to consider the obstacles to the social change coded in the promotion of sexual and reproductive rights.
| Research Centre | Research Group | Role in Project | Begin Date | End Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CEI-Iscte | Societal and Development Challenges | Leader | 2018-09-03 | 2021-09-03 |
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| Name | Affiliation | Role in Project | Begin Date | End Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Clara Carvalho | Professora Associada (com Agregação) (DCPPP); Integrated Researcher (CEI-Iscte); | Principal Researcher | 2018-09-03 | 2021-09-03 |
| Ricardo Falcão | Associate Researcher (CEI-Iscte); | Principal Researcher | 2018-09-03 | 2021-09-03 |
| Blanca Sell Fernández | -- | Research Assistant | 2021-03-01 | 2021-09-03 |
| Isaiete Augusto Jabula | -- | Research Assistant | 2021-01-15 | 2021-09-03 |
| Reference/Code | Funding DOI | Funding Type | Funding Program | Funding Amount (Global) | Funding Amount (Local) | Begin Date | End Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PTDC/SOC-ANT/31675/2017 | -- | Award | FCT - PTDC - Portugal | 234.689,77 | 234.689,77 | 2018-09-03 | 2021-09-03 |
| Year | Publication Type | Full Reference |
|---|---|---|
| 2025 | Entries/Forewords/Afterwords | Carvalho, C., Falcão, Ricardo & Jabula, I. (2025). Introdução: Direitos e Saúde Sexual e Reprodutiva na África Ocidental – Contextos, Desafios e Transformações no Senegal, Guiné-Bissau e Cabo Verde. Cadernos de Estudos Africanos. 7-11 |
| 2023 | Scientific journal paper | Falcão, R. (2023). From social peace to code of silence: The social ethics of sutura in Senegal. Cadernos de Estudos Africanos. 46, 13-37 |
| 2023 | Scientific journal paper | Carvalho, C. (2023). O papel da sociedade civil na implementação dos direitos sexuais e reprodutivos na Guiné-Bissau. Cadernos de Estudos Africanos. 46, 65-92 |
| 2023 | Scientific journal editor | Carvalho, C., Falcão, Ricardo & Jabula, I. (2023). Cadernos Estudos Africanos. |
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| Year | Output Type | Name | Description | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | Conference | FGM in Portugal | Presentation in III International Forum on FGM/C in the Gambia, Banjul, 5-6 February | Clara Carvalho |
| 2018 | Conference | Troublesome technologies: Manual vacuum aspiration and misoprostol in Francophone Africa | Siri Suh is a medical sociologist working as an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Brandeis University. She holds a B.A in Sociology from the University of California at Berkeley and Ph.D in Sociomedical Sciences from Columbia University. Her research is mainly focused on global maternal and reproductive health, population and development, and feminist and postcolonial studies of science, medicine, and technology. Siri Suh’s work mainly revolves around post-abortion care and reproductive rights and transnational reproductive governance in Senegal, as well as on persistent reproductive health disparities in West Africa. | Clara Carvalho, Ricardo Falcão, Blanca Sell Fernández, Isaiete Augusto Jabula, Siri Suh |
| 2018 | Conference | Gender violence in Guinea-Bissau: dissonances between representations, practices and policies | 6th Webinar of the SEXRWA Series with Dr. Sílvia Roque | Clara Carvalho, Ricardo Falcão, Blanca Sell Fernández, Isaiete Augusto Jabula |
| 2019 | Conference | Sexual and Reproductive Rights in Guinea Bissau and Senegal | Presentation Panel 1, II International Conference Activisms in Africa, co-hosted by CESAC | Clara Carvalho, Ricardo Falcão |
| 2019 | Conference | “Building the “public good” in Guinea-Bissau and Angola through social protection programs” | presentation panel Anth03, European Conference of African Studies, Edinburgh, June 11-14 | Clara Carvalho, Varanda, Jorge |
| 2021 | Conference | Fleecing Senegalese Women: The Normalization of Female Suffering Through Language and Religion, and Who Should Lead the Fight for Gender Equity in Africa. | In her presentation, Dr Marame Guèye, whose research primarily focuses on marriage, poligamy, wifing, gender relations and social norms, points out how the distortion of language and of the Islamic texts contributes to the reinforcement and naturalisation of women’s suffering. From a feminist point of view Dr. Marame Guèye studies the ways in which oral performances and verbal art are used as instruments of resistance by Senegalese women in order to make their voices heard. Equally, Dr. Guèye also notes that Wolof traditions and their main linguistic notions have become a sort of ‘lingua franca’ in Senegal, making “Goor Dongue”’ a film that resonates with Senegalese culture as a whole, in spite of the country’s abundant ethnic diversity. | Clara Carvalho, Ricardo Falcão, Blanca Sell Fernández, Isaiete Augusto Jabula, Marame Guéye |
| 2021 | Conference | The Politics of Research on Sex: Reflections on Field Work in Senegal | During her online presentation, while giving us a rapid and rich outline of her work, Dr. Foley took us alongside as she reflected on her findings and personal journey, in the more than two decades she has been researching and carrying out fieldwork in Senegal. | Clara Carvalho, Ricardo Falcão, Blanca Sell Fernández, Isaiete Augusto Jabula, Ellen Folley |
| 2021 | Conference | Quietly Opting Out: Widows & Other Troublemakers in Rural Guinea Bissau | This talk explores how gender categories are meaningfully troubled in unexpected ways when women operate outside of normative conjugal pathways. Focusing on the increasing presence of widows' houses across Jola villages in Guinea-Bissau. Joanna Davidson will ask why the inhabitants of these houses are neither named nor recognized as a social category, suggesting that widows pose such a problem to the patriarchal status quo of Jola society as to prohibit their very mention. By opting out of marital conformity, the presence of Jola widows haunts the institution of marriage because it provokes the dangerous suggestion that women might very well manage a life outside of it. | Clara Carvalho, Ricardo Falcão, Blanca Sell Fernández, Isaiete Augusto Jabula, Joanna Davidson |
| 2021 | Conference | God, Hear our Prayers: Gender, Islam, and Human Rights in Genital Cutting Debates in Guinea-Bissau and Portugal | This talk explores the complex and ever-unfolding debate over initiation rituals, genital cutting, and human rights among Mandinga peoples in Guinea-Bissau and Guinean Muslim immigrants in Portugal. Drawing on her transnational, multi-temporal fieldwork spanning more than two decades, Michelle Johnson highlights local perspectives, global critiques, and the effects of Western media images on practitioners as they remake themselves and their ritual practices on and beyond the continent. She attempts to re-focus the debate from exclusively women to gender more broadly, and from physical health to the less obvious dimension of spiritual well-being. More specifically, she argues that human rights perspectives on genital cutting must also acknowledge men’s views, the practice of male circumcision, and the place of religion. | Clara Carvalho, Ricardo Falcão, Blanca Sell Fernández, Isaiete Augusto Jabula, Michelle Johnson |
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With the objective to increase the research activity directed towards the achievement of the United Nations 2030 Sustainable Development Goals, the possibility of associating scientific projects with the Sustainable Development Goals is now available in Ciência_Iscte. These are the Sustainable Development Goals identified for this project. For more detailed information on the Sustainable Development Goals, click here.
