2008
WGD Discussion Group Spring 2008
Human security and Changes in Peacekeeping approaches
Dr. Laura Zanotti, Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science
The full title of Professor Zanotti's presentation is Human security and Changes in Peacekeeping approaches in the new millennium. Vulnerability and the inclusion of gender. Professor Zanotti has received her PhD. from Florida International University. Dr. Zanottis research interests include critical political and international relations theory and international organization, security, peacekeeping, and democratization. Zanottis research focus reflects her previous nine years work experience with the United Nations (as Deputy to the Head of the UN Liaison Office in Zagreb and as a Political Affairs Advisor in Haiti and Croatia). At Virginia Tech, Dr. Zanotti has taught undergraduate courses in International Relations and National Security. Zanotti is currently working on a new book that explores, through a Foucauldian framework, United Nations peacekeeping in the context of the post-Cold War international security regime. For a full bibliography check http://www.psci.vt.edu/main/faculty/zanotti.html
Friday, February 15, 2008 1 p.m., Office of International Research, Education, and Development, Conference Room A
Interactive Seminar: Gender Research from Collaborative Research Support Programs (Innovation Labs)
Dr. Maria Elisa Christie, Women and Gender in International Development Program Director and Dr. Keith M. Moore, Associate Director, SANREM Innovation Lab
Dr. Maria Elisa Christie, Women and Gender in International Development Program Director and Dr. Keith M. Moore, Associate Director, SANREM Innovation Lab, both from the Office of International Research, Education and Development (OIRED), will present gender research from Collaborative Research Support Programs (Innovation Labs). This event will be an interactive seminar and discussion on the role of women in agriculture and natural resource management in developing countries. Virginia Tech works with other U.S. universities, as well as researchers and farmers in Africa, Asia, and Latin America supporting sustainable agriculture, integrated pest management, and natural resource management. (See SANREM and IPM Innovation Labs on the OIRED website -- http://www.oired.vt.edu/).
In addition to the slide show and posters, there will be an opportunity for questions and answers. Light refreshments will be served. This event in the WGD discussion group series also forms part of the Womens Month Celebration. (For more information on Womens Month, see the Womens Center website at: http://www.womenscenter.vt.edu/.)
Thursday, March 13, 2008, 3:30 - 5:30 p.m., Office of International Research, Education, and Development, Conference Room A
New Directions in the Feminization of Agriculture in Poor Countries
Professor Wilma Dunaway, Ph.D.
Professor Dunaway is a well respected and recognized scholar of African-American slavery, Appalachian studies, and world systems analysis. Dunaway received her Ph.D. from the University of Tennessee. Her work focuses on those who have been silenced due to race, class, and gender. Dunaways research interests include international political economy, world-systems analysis, racial and ethnic conflict, comparative slavery studies, Native American studies, Appalachian Studies, radical feminist perspectives on womens work, and qualitative research methodologies. At Virginia Tech, Professor Dunaway teaches Women Environment and Development in a Global Perspective; Global Change, Local Impacts; Comparative Social Movements; and Theories of Development and Globalization. In 2005, she received the College of Architecture and Urban Studies College Teaching Excellence Award. Dr. Dunaway has received many other awards and distinctions, including the Joseph Campbell Prize in Ethnography. The Joseph Campbell Prize is among the most significant honors for scholars of interdisciplinary ethnographic research. Her latest book is called Women, Work and Family in the Antebellum Mountain South. (Cambridge University Press March, 2008). For more information on her other books, visit http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/vtpubs/mountain_slavery/index.htm
Friday, April 25, 2008, 1 p.m., Office of International Research, Education, and Development, Conference Room A
WGD Discussion Series Fall 2008
Corn Mills for Kenya: Women's work and technology in a Kenyan village
International Women in Need (IWiN), Virginia Tech Student Organization
This year IWiN will focus its fundraising and educational efforts on a campaign called CORN MILLS FOR KENYA to raise money so that the Koriko Women's Group of Ngeta Village can purchase a power mill for grinding maize (corn) and millet, which are the staple foods in the community. IWiN will discuss and explore the various gender and development challenges that the Koriko Moyie Women's Group faces on a daily basis.
Thursday, October 23, 2008, 12:00 to 1:00 pm, at the Office of International Research, Education, and Development, Conference Room A
Market access and gender roles Jatun Mayu watershed communities (Tiraque, Bolivia)
Nadezda Amaya, graduate student in Agricultural Economics
The starting point of the current study is the widely-held assumption that considers Andean societies to be strongly male-dominated and relegates the role of women to reproductive responsibilities only. This study considers the roles, responsibilities, actions and decision-making of small farmers and merchants in rural Bolivia, and the household dynamics and gendered social networks that facilitate or impede access to local and regional markets.
Thursday, November 20, 2008, 12:00 to 1:00 pm, Office of International Research, Education, and Development, Conference Room A
Women and Gender in International Development in Africa
Kellyn Montgomery, graduate student in Geography, and Laura Zseleczky, senior in Sociology and Women's Studies
During the summer of 2008, these students traveled to two different regions of Africa to pursue their fields of interest and learn more about the issues affecting women in these areas. Kellyn Montgomery conducted her research in Uganda to determine what problems women famers face in the rural Sub-County of Busukuma, in adopting the farming practices recommended by the Integrated Pest Management Collaborative Research Support Program (IPM Innovation Lab) for improving tomato production. Laura Zseleczky traveled to South Africa for five weeks in May and June 2008 to volunteer at a daycare center in Langa, one of Cape Town's surrounding townships. During her stay, she observed the everyday activities of women and children living in the townships and the inequalities they face.
Thursday, September 25, 2008, 12:00 to 1:00 pm, Office of International Research, Education, and Development, Conference Room A