Rama Salla Dieng, PhD, is a Senegalese writer, academic and activist. She is currently a Lecturer in Africa and International Development at the Centre of African Studies, University of Edinburgh. Her PhD thesis provided a feminist political economy analysis of selected agricultural investments and their socio-economic outcomes in Northern Senegal during what has been dubbed “the land rush” between 2008 and 2017. Between 2010 and 2015, she worked successively as a Research Assistant then a Research Fellow in the Policy Research Division the African Institute for Economic Development and Planning (IDEP) based in Senegal. Rama is also a feminist activist who has collaborated with several feminist organisations on agrarian change, gender and development, and social reproduction. Rama has published a novel La Dernière Lettre with Présence Africaine in 2008, and has contributed to an Edited volume by Gender Links on Polygamy: At the heart of the Matter (2009), and an edited volume on Democracy and Development: Perspectives of Young African Researchers (2013) published by l'Harmattan.Andrea O’Reilly, PhD, is Professor in the School of Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies at York University. O’Reilly is founder and director of the Motherhood Initiative for Research and Community Involvement, founder and editor-in-chief of the Journal of the Motherhood Initiative, and founder and publisher of Demeter Press. She is co-editor/editor 21 books including Feminist Perspectives on Young Mothers and Young Mothering (2019) and the Routledge Companion on Motherhood (2019) and is author of three monographs including Matricentric Feminism: Theory, Activism, and Practice (2016). She is editor of the first Encyclopedia (3 Volumes, 705 entries) on Motherhood (2010). She is a recipient of the CAUT Sarah Shorten Award for outstanding achievements in the promotion of the advancement of women in Canadian universities and colleges, is twice the recipient of York University’s “Professor of the Year Award” for teaching excellence and in 2014 was the first inductee into the Museum of Motherhood Hall of Fame.
