Changing Narratives of Sexuality

Charmaine Pereira is a feminist scholar-activist who has worked extensively on the themes of feminist thought and practice, sexuality, gender and university education, and civil society and the state. Based in Abuja, she coordinates the Initiative for Women’s Studies in Nigeria (IWSN), which strengthens capacity for teaching and research in gender and women’s studies. As IWSN national coordinator, Pereira has developed and led programmes on the politics of sexual harassment and sexual violence in universities, gender justice and women’s citizenship, and women’s empowerment. She is the author of Gender in the Making of the Nigerian University System (2007) and co-editor of Jacketed Women: Qualitative Research Methodologies on Sexualities and Gender in Africa (2013).

• Introduction: Changing Narratives of Sexuality - Charmaine PereiraPart I: Negotiating Desire?1. Rewriting Desire as Empowerment in the Women and Memory Forum's Storytelling Project - Mona I. Ali2. Islam in Urban Bangladesh: Changing Worldviews and Reconfigured Sexuality - Samia Huq3. Loving and Fearing: Township Girls' Agency amidst Sexual Risk - Deevia BhanaPart II: Body Politics and Sexualities4. Reporting Anita: Nudity in Nigerian Newspapers - Charmaine Pereira and Bibi Bakare-Yusuf5.Ageing Women and the Culture of Eternal Youth: Personal and Theoretical Reflections from a Feminist over Sixty in Brazil - Cecilia M. B. Sardenberg6. Unmarried in Palestine: Embodiment and (Dis)Empowerment in the Lives of Single Palestinian Women - Penny JohnsonPart III: Changing Institutions?7. Narratives of Egyptian Marriages - Mulki Al-Sharmani8. Gender and Sexuality Activism in Beijing: Negotiating International Influences and National and Local Processes - Susie Jolly

This is a refreshingly authentic collection, by and about inspiring women, from diverse contexts and cultures of the world. Accounts of sexualities, political repressions and women's agencies are woven together to provoke, fascinate, challenge and stimulate. This is a most welcome, timely and valuable publication, which deserves a wide readership - not least among policy makers. Kudos to all its contributors.