2008-09 RGPP fellows announced
Two new race, gender, and public policy fellows will join the Humphrey Institute this fall. Please welcome Sonia dos Santos and Teresa Terrell.
Sonia dos Santos is an African-Brazilian woman completing her Ph.D. in the African Diaspora Program in Anthropology at the University of Texas at Austin. Her dissertation is titled “Brazilian Black Women’s NGOS and Their Struggles around Issues of Sexual and Reproductive Health: Experiences, Resistance, and Politics.” She focuses in particular on state practices of massive sterilization of black women. In addition to working as an academic in Brazil before she began her dissertation, dos Santos worked as a staff member and activist with Criola, an NGO of Brazilian black women. She will teach a spring 2009 course about “Sexual and Reproductive Health Policies and Race, Gender, Class, and Sexuality: Looking at Black Women’s Experiences,” comparing the United States and Brazil. She plans to revise her dissertation into a book to be published in both English and Portuguese.
Teresa Terrell is an African-American woman who earned a Ph.D. in sociology from Vanderbilt University. She also holds an M.S.W. in social work from the University of Alabama. Terrell worked as a social worker for many years before teaching sociology at Athens State University in Alabama. Her dissertation is titled “Community Participation in Birmingham, Alabama: How Leadership, Social Networks, Framing, and Participatory Democracy Shape Inner-City Civic Participation.” She will teach a spring 2009 course about “Civic Participation in Urban Poor Neighborhoods: Theory, Strategies, and Structures.” Her research compares the varying degrees of political participation in urban neighborhoods. Terrell studies black women’s activism and their work as community leaders, rather than dismissing all low-income neighborhoods as deficient in social capital. She plans to apply her model to the University's efforts in North Minneapolis.
