Applications are now open for The Institute for Economic Justice’s (IEJ) Feminist Economics Summer School 2024 – The Institute for Economic Justice’s (IEJ) fourth annual Feminist Economics Summer School (FESS) will take place from 23 to 27 September 2024, in-person in Kampala, Uganda, in partnership with the Makerere Institute for Social Research (MISR) and Akina Mama wa Afrika (AMwA). Its primary aim is to equip activists, researchers, policymakers, and practitioners with theoretical, practical, and methodological tools for feminist understandings of the political economy and analysis of economic policy. The theme for 2024 will be – Feminist Analysis and Interventions: Understanding the Social and Economic Crisis in East Africa. This is the first year the Summer School will be held outside of Southern Africa.
About FESS
The Summer School project is part of a longer-term process to strengthen the application of feminist economics theories and methodologies within the teaching of economics, research, policy-making, and public discourse in Africa and the Global South more broadly. The school’s approach draws from feminist political economy (FPE) as a theoretical and methodological lens. The fourth instalment of FESS aims to facilitate a rigorous analysis of multiple issues facing the East African region, such as militarised social reproduction in countries like Sudan and Ethiopia along with broader socio-economic concerns such as access to reproductive health, land rights, and agrarian struggles in Uganda and Kenya. These thematic explorations aim to equip participants with a systematic approach to understanding how austerity, poverty, and state policies impact social reproduction, women’s bodies, and economic outcomes.
FESS 2024 aims to illustrate how neoliberal policies exacerbate land dispossession and restrict access to reproductive and sexual health services, challenging the traditional Western narratives that attribute regional problems solely to corruption or governance failures. This holistic curriculum aims to provide participants with a comprehensive view of the crises in the region, emphasising the structural underpinnings of colonial legacies, global financial practices, and illicit financial flows that perpetuate these issues. The School shall focus on six main themes:
- Social reproduction and care work
- Access to land, nature and the commons
- Climate change and governance
- Migrant labour and decent work
- Social protection and austerity
- Militarisation and gendered war economies
Applications for FESS
The IEJ, AMwA and MISR invite scholars, activists, and economic policy practitioners to apply to the 2024 Feminist Economics Summer School. We invite applications from activists, researchers, and economic policy practitioners based in Africa with priority given to East Africa.
Eligibility criteria:
Eligible candidates should hold an economics, environmental sciences, social sciences, or politics degree or be an economist or feminist practitioner. Candidates from across Africa are encouraged to apply although priority will be given to candidates based in East Africa. Applications are also welcomed from activists working for feminist and women’s rights organisations in the region who might not hold the requisite qualifications but have years of experience in the field. We particularly encourage applications from women from underrepresented communities (including ethnic, racial, sexual orientation, disability, origin, religion, employment status, and so on).
The application should include:
- A 500-word abstract outlining a potential research or advocacy project (which may be an essay, journal article, policy proposal, popular material, advocacy strategy, book chapter, and educational material) on any of the topics mentioned earlier. The abstract should reflect an area of work and/or research interest and should have a place-specific focus on a country/region. We aim to ensure the participation of non-academics and early-stage researchers and shall provide various kinds of support to shortlisted candidates, including technical support in developing the abstract, post-FESS support and feedback on the project and financial assistance to cover costs of attending the School.
- A 1-page Curriculum Vitae
- A brief half-page biography of the applicant
Applications should be submitted by midnight (EAT) on Sunday, 18 August 2024 here.
Queries should be sent to [email protected], but no applications sent via email will be accepted, nor replied to.
About the partners
The Institute of Economic Justice (IEJ)
The Institute for Economic Justice (IEJ) is an activist economic policy think tank in South Africa. It provides policymakers and progressive social forces in South Africa and Africa with access to rigorous economic analysis, and policy options, as a basis for concrete interventions. These interventions aim to advance social justice and reduce inequality, promote equitable economic development that realises socio-economic rights, and foster a thriving, democratic, environmentally sustainable, and inclusive economy that places the needs of the majority at the centre. In doing so, it recognises the need to change the landscape of economic knowledge production, challenge economic orthodoxies, and position excluded voices at the heart of economic decision-making.
Akina Mama wa Africa (AMwA)
Akina Mama wa Afrika (AMwA) is a feminist Pan-African leadership development organization founded in 1985 by a group of African women living in the diaspora who remained keenly aware of their African roots and the need to organize autonomously. AMwA later relocated her headquarters to Kampala, Uganda in 1996. AMwA’s work is rooted in feminist principles and beliefs guided by the Charter of Feminist Principles for African Feminists, which defines the leadership development program and movement-building activities. She envisions a dignified and equitable feminist society for African women, girls, and gender-expansive persons. AMwA’s mission is to build feminist leadership and collective power to deconstruct intersectional systems of oppression to advance gender and social justice. Thematic focus areas include Women’s Political Leadership, Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights, and Economic Justice and Climate Action. The organization’s work is advanced through feminist and transformational leadership development, feminist research and knowledge building, policy influencing and movement building, and arts and creatives.
Makerere Institute of Social Research (MISR)
Makerere Institute of Social Research (MISR) is a centre for critical scholarship and research that was established in 1948 in Uganda and was transformed from being a centre for commissioned research detached from the university into a doctoral and research unit of the university in 2010-2012. Committed to endogenous knowledge creation and to generating a pool of high-quality and strategic thinkers for the country and the region who can think the world from various disciplinary and geographical locations, MISR currently offers a full-time Interdisciplinary MPhil/PhD in Social Studies as its flagship program.
For more Information: Visit the website for The Institute for Economic Justice’s (IEJ) Feminist Economics Summer School 2024
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