Sexuality, Political Economy and the Law

Organizers

Svati P. Shah, Rahul Rao

This IRC will convene scholars working at the intersections of sexuality and gender studies, questions of political economy, and the law. This includes those whose research includes, but is not limited to: labor migration and sexuality, sex work, queer and trans* studies, land rights, refugees, histories of sexuality and empire, contemporary debates on surrogacy, anti-sodomy law, abortion, contraception and adoption, and transgender law. The scholars we are proposing here are either based in the Global South or based in the US and Europe with long standing research in the Global South. Our geographic focus is currently South Asia and southern Africa. We envision this IRC as contributing to new research that uses the history of trade and empire in the Indian Ocean region as a backdrop for contemporary work on sexuality and the law. This IRC would have connectivity with IRCs that are covering labor, gender, sexuality and postcolonialism, as well as those that convene scholars working in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. We are open to expanding geographic scope of the IRC to include other regions as well.