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Dr. Shireen Hassim

Shireen Hassim

Canada 150 Research Chair in Gender and African Politics

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Shireen Hassim is a Professor in the Institute of African Studies.

Through her work as a Canada 150 Research Chair, Hassim applies an interdisciplinary
lens to the study of governance and governmentality and ways that gender and
sexualities are constituted in Africa.

Hassim is an internationally renowned expert in feminist theory, politics, social
movements and collective action. Her research facilitates new ways of thinking about
linkages between North and South in late capitalism, and disrupts conventional
geographical boundaries in scholarship.

Hassim is the convenor of the “Knowing Africa Seminar Series”, which foregrounds
important new books on Africa and by Africans. Now in its third year, the Series
brings together scholars across the globe in conversation on cutting-edge themes
in African Studies.

She is the author and editor of several books, including No Shortcuts to Power: African
Women in Politics
and Policy Making and Go Home or Die Here: Violence, Xenophobia,
and the Reinvention of Difference in South Africa
.

Most recently, in 2020, Hassim published Voices of Liberation, a biography on
prominent anti-apartheid activist Fatima Meer.

The book brings together a detailed recounting of the trailblazing South African
intellectual’s life and impact, penned by Hassim, alongside an extensive selection
of Meer’s own illuminary writings on politics, race and gender.