Dr Colette Harris
| Job Title | Contact | Location |
|---|---|---|
| Senior Lecturer in Development Studies |
Colette dot Harris at uea dot ac dot uk
Tel: +44 (0)1603 59 2336 |
Arts 2.72 |
Biography
I am a development social scientist who studies populations at grass roots level and their relationship with the state. I work on issues of violence and conflict, governance, post colonial state building, Muslim societies, sexualities, (reproductive) health, migration, and community development/transformative education - all explored through a gendered lens – that is to say, explored through ways in which gender identities and a masculinist focus affect these issues. I have carried out research in Central Asia as well as Latin America but I currently focus mainly on West and East Africa.
Past geographical areas of research have included Ecuador (developing transformative education methodologies for extension work with plantain farmers on the coast) and Tajikistan, where I spent about half the year for some six years during and after the civil war exploring issues around gendered power relations. Out of this research came several monographs and many articles. I also helped establish, Ghamkhori, a development NGO that is still functioning in the south of the republic.
I am currently engaged on several conflict-related research projects in Africa. One is in regard to the conflict in northern Uganda. I am part of a team of researchers looking at masculinity issues in the return from the camps as part of MICROCON – an EU funded project led by IDS.
I am further working on post conflict transformation in Kaduna, Nigeria, on the issue of citizenship and violence (for the DFID-funded citizenship development research centre at IDS) and on the issue of religion and violence (funded by an AHRC/ESRC grant from the Religion and Society Programme). Here the main emphasis is on carrying out transformative learning processes with groups of young Muslim and Christian men and women in an endeavour to improve the situation and reduce the likelihood of future conflict. Click here for more information on this project
Career
PhD student: Matthew Maycock – Topic: Masculinities in connection with the Maoist insurgency in Nepal.
CV and Experience
Key Research Interests
Research Groups: Gender and Development; Politics, Governance and the State
Research Project Page: Kaduna State, Nigeria
Selected Recent Publications
Books - Monographs
Muslim Youth: Tensions and Transitions in Tajikistan, Westview Case Studies in Anthropology, Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2006.
Control and Subversion: Gender Relations in Tajikistan, London and Sterling, VA/Ann Arbor, MI: Pluto Press and Michigan University Press, 2004.
Book Chapters
‘How deconstructing gender identities could contribute to the solution of difficult development problems: case studies on poverty and the transmission of HIV/AIDS’ in Consolata Kabonesa (ed) Constructing and Deconstructing Gender Identities: Cross Cultural Dynamics, Kampala: Makerere University, 2010.
‘A transformative approach to extension: innovative technology transfer methodologies for plantain (matooke) on the Ecuadorian coast (with Carmen Suarez) in Margaret Najjingo Mangheni (ed) Experiences, Innovations and Issues in Agricultural Extension in Uganda, Lessons and Prospects, Kampala: Fountain Publishers, 2007, 67-84.
‘Tackling Sexual Distress: Two Case Studies from the Central Asian Republic of Tajikistan’ in Diana Gibson and Anita Hardon, eds. Rethinking masculinities, Violence and AIDS. Amsterdam: Het Spinhuis, 2005, 175-200.
‘Aflatoxins in Peanuts, the health risk versus the economic costs: The Case of the Senegalese Peanut Basin’ in Nite Tanzam (ed) Gender in Agriculture and Technology, Kampala: Makerere University, 2005, 78-87.
`Muslim Views on Population: the case of Tajikistan', in J. Meuleman (ed) Islam in the Era of Globalization. Muslim Attitudes towards Modernity and Identity. London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2002, 211-222.
'Reproductive Health Services in Refugee Situations: Lessons beyond the International Conference on Population and Development, with Ines Smyth in Soraya Tremayne (ed) Managing Reproductive Life: Cross-Cultural Themes in Fertility and Sexuality. Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2001, 235-250
'The changing identity of women in Tajikistan in the post-Soviet period', in Feride Acar and Ayse Ayata (eds.) Gender and Identity Construction: Women of Central Asia, the Caucasus and Turkey. Leiden: E.J. Brill (2000), 203-225.
'Health Education for Women as Liberatory Process?: an Example from Tajikistan' in Haleh Afshar and Stephanie Barrientos (eds.) Globalisation and Fragmentation. London: Macmillan (1999), 196-214.
Articles, Refereed
'State business: gender, sex and marriage in Tajikistan', Central Asian Survey 30 (1), 97-111 (April 2011)
‘Peanut Aflatoxin Levels on Farms and in Markets of Uganda’, with A. N. Kaaya and W. Eigel, Peanut Science, 33(1), 68-75.
‘Desire Versus Horniness: Sexual Relations in the Collectivist Society of Tajikistan’, Social Analysis, 2005: 49(3), 78-95.
Online publications
'Managing Masculinity in Ecuador’, ID21 insights #64 on HIV/AIDS (November 2006)
Research Reports, Bulletin articles and Working Papers
'What Can Applying a Gender Lens Contribute to Conflict Studies? A review of selected MICROCON working papers'. MICROCON Research Working Paper 41, Brighton: MICROCON (2011)
'Transformative education in violent contexts: working with Muslim and Christian youth in Kaduna, Nigeria', Jenny V. Pearce and Rosemary McGee (eds) IDS Bulletin, Researching Violence, 40-3 (May 2009).
‘Pedagogy for Development: some reflections on method’, IDS Working Paper no. 289, 2007
‘Doing development with men: some reflections on a case study from Mali’, Rosalind Eyben, Colette Harris, and Jethro Pettit (eds) IDS Bulletin, 37-6, November 2006.
‘Understanding the routes in and out of political violence: an assessment of the linkages between identity politics, exclusion, inequality and political violence in EMAD countries’ with Robin Luckham and Joy Moncrieffe, Report prepared for DFID, August 2006.
