Professor Viviane Namaste, Concordia University, Montréal, is the seventh lecturer in the RIKK – Institute for Gender, Equality and Difference & UNU-GEST – United Nations University Gender Equality Studies and Training Programme – 2018 spring term lecture series. Her lecture is titled: “Women’s Health Organizing: Lessons from Montréal’s Haitian Community in the 1980s”, and will take place on Thursday, 12 of April, from 12.00-13.00, in room 101 Oddi, University of Iceland.

In North America, the history of AIDS is often associated with gay male communities. This presentation explores the impact of AIDS in Montréal’s Haitian community, examining in particular the work of women in responding to the epidemic. By considering the response of Haitian women to AIDS, we can reflect critically on community mobilization and the important role of nurses in this regard.”

Viviane Namaste, is a Full Professor at the Simone de Beauvoir Institute, Concordia University, Montréal. She graduated from York University, earning an MA in Sociology and then completed her doctoral at Université du Québec à Montréal in Semiotics and Linguistics. Namaste’s research focuses on health, sex work, transsexuality, transgenderism, bisexuality, and swinger communities. The feminist journal, Hypatia, has called Namaste’s work, “extremely important” because she “excels at focusing readers’ attention on the most marginalized of transsexuals, at analyzing the ways in which different systems of oppression work together.”

The lecture is in English, open to everyone and admission is free.

The event is on Facebook!

The RIKK/UNU-GEST lecture series at the spring term 2018 are dedicated to the United Nation’s Universal Declaration of Human rights, but year 2018 marks its 70th anniversary. The declaration has emphasis on gender equality and women’s rights. The objective with the lecture series is to raise awareness of the value that human rights offer as a tool to tackle persistent gender disparities and address factors that perpetuate gender discrimination and inequality. The RIKK & UNU-GEST lecture series in the spring semester 2018 is held in collaboration with The National Museum of Iceland.