Scholars and practitioners alike have stressed that gender serves as a ‘symbolic glue’ for the mobilization of illiberal causes. Recent attacks on the “gender academy,” perpetrated in contexts of rising illiberalism, have taken a variety of forms, from the de-legitimation of gender programs to their outright closure, from the marginalization of scholars and researchers to their physical and psychological endangerment. As a crisis mitigation strategy, the Women and Gender in Global Affairs network at the Institute for the Study of Human Rights, working with other partners including CoreWoman, is exploring the development of an Early-Warning System to provide information, resources and support to gender scholars who may face illiberal attacks. After an initial preparatory phase, the project will involve a test pilot in 2 to 3 Latin America countries. Possible candidates include México, Brazil, Colombia, Peru, Nicaragua, Bolivia, and Venezuela. DSI student involvement will include a range of activities such as:

Activity I: Semi-structured interviews with a sample of scholars in the Latin American region to deepen the understanding of each country’s context and to arrive at a clear definition of the attacks to which the gender academy has been subject (cuts in funding, pressure leading to self-censorship, legal dispositions, closing or merging gender departments, etc.). Activity 2: Track trends in the traditional and social media to identify possible early signs of attacks on gender studies in the pilot countries, governments' laws, regulations, and dispositions that could promote attacks on gender studies in universities. Activity 3: Analyze the evolution of the curriculum in universities and published and working papers in the last several years (period TBD). Activity 4: Identifying and coding the documents with key pre-defined and emerging codes to prepare the data points for the algorithm. Activity 5: Create Intelligence (AI) algorithm to analyze data points embedded in “Big Data” available for each country that are pertinent to identifying emerging threats to the gender academy. Test, train with another sample, adjust. Activity 6: Write knowledge products, reports, blogs, papers, infographics together with the project leads. Products • Country study and comparative country analysis • Infographics and videos with leading experts explaining the results • Indicators and metrics for an Early Warning System • AI Algorithm tuned to automatically identify “red flags” defined by the Early Warning System. • A qualitative methodological approach to set this project at scale with other partner universities in Latin America and globally.

This project is eligible for a matching fund stipend from the Data Science Institute. This is not a guarantee of payment, and the total amount is subject to available funding.

Faculty Advisor

  • Professor: Yasmine, Ergas
  • Center/Lab: Institute for the Study of Human Rights
  • Women and Gender in Global Affairs (WGGA) is an interdisciplinary, international network of academic scholars, human rights advocates, and centers focused on women and gender in global affairs. WGGA’s goal is to foster the resilience of the gender academy by promoting stronger relationships across disciplinary and national partitions, providing a platform for information-sharing with respect to research and teaching, and, helping to nurture conversations that may eventually lead to collaborative projects.

Project Timeline

  • Earliest starting date: 10/16/2022
  • End date: 6/30/2023
  • Number of hours per week of research expected during Fall 2022: ~10

Candidate requirements

  • Skill sets: Language: Spanish and Portugese Leadership: Ability to work under pressure both individually and in a team Skills: SPSS, STATA, R, Tableau, Python, working on longitudinal data, methods for NLP/text/sentiment analysis, data analytics Area: previous experience in gender studies or strong passion for gender studies is a big plus
  • Student eligibility: freshman, sophomore, junior, senior, master’s
  • International students on F1 or J1 visa: eligible
  • Academic Credit Possible: No