‘Experiences from a feminist political ecologist inside the FAO Office for Africa’

The International Institute of Social Studies (ISS) will host this second seminar co-organized with the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS). 

In this lecture, ISS PhD alumna, Dr Clara Mi Young Park will speak to the tensions, strategies and alliance making that are involved in her work as a gender specialist in a technical UN organization in Africa. In particular she will discuss the everyday challenges of seeking transformative and meaningful social change in support of Africa's agenda and priorities for sustainable development while working in a technically oriented context and field. 

The seminar will be chaired by Dr Asha Achuthan from TISS.

It will take place at 13:30 CET and 17:00 India

About the speaker and chair

Dr Clara Mi Young Park is the regional Senior Gender Officer with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) Office for Africa. Before moving to Accra, she served as regional Gender Office for the Near East and North Africa based in Cairo and in Bangkok, as the regional Gender, Rural and Social Development Officer. 

With over a decade working with the UN, she started her career with civil society organizations working on gender equality and human rights and social development. With FAO, she has worked on agricultural and land policy, gender equality and social equity, natural resource governance and agrarian and environmental change in developing and transition countries. 

Clara holds a PhD in Development Studies from the International Institute of Social Studies in The Hague. With an interest in feminist political ecology, she has authored numerous technical publications, articles in peer-reviewed academic journals and book chapters. Her recent publications include co-authoring a background paper for the 2019 report of the Global Commission on Adaptationn, titled, 'Gender-transformative climate change adaptation: Advancing social equity', a co-authored chapter in the edited book 'Negotiating Gender Expertise in Environment and Development', and a guest edited volume on 'Gender and Generations in Southeast Asia Agrarian and Environmental Transformations'.

Dr Asha Achuthan presently teaches at the Advanced Centre for Women's Studies, TISS, and is currently Chair, Women and Gender Development Cell. She was initially trained in medicine from Calcutta University and went on to work on an Mphil in Women's Studies from Jadavpur University, and thereafter completed her PhD in Cultural Studies from Centre for the Study of Culture and Society, Bangalore.

Her current work explores the contexts of gender and biomedicine, with a focus on feminist epistemological critiques of the same. She has published in the areas of gender diversity in science institutions, feminist standpoint methodologies, interdisciplinarity in higher education, sexuality and the nation. 

Asha was recently Charles Wallace Visiting Fellow at the King's India Institute, London, UK, working on research related to the status of the dai or midwife in colonial contexts. She is presently writing up a book manuscript on this work.

Asha recently concluded a multi-sited study on the appearance and journey of gender-sexuality as a metaphor in medical text and practice, that also explored changing terms of legibility and entry of persons of gender-marginal lives and experiences into contemporary healthcare spaces in India.

Asha is member, Indian Association of Women's Studies.