Biography

Andrea Cornwall is a political anthropologist who specializes in the anthropology of democracy, citizen participation, participatory research, gender and sexuality. She has worked on topics ranging from understanding women's perspectives on family planning, fertility and sexually transmitted infection in Nigeria and Zimbabwe, public engagement in UK regeneration programs, the quality of democratic deliberation in new democratic spaces in Brazil, the use and abuse of participatory appraisal in Kenya, domestic workers' rights activism in Brazil and sex workers' rights activism in India.

 

Role

Andrea Cornwall is Professor of Anthropology and Development in the School of Global Studies. 

Research

 

Current research interests include:

• the politics of the body, with a particular interest in mobilization on sexual and reproductive rights;
• new democratic institutions and the potential and practice of radical democracy in non-western settings;
• states of citizenship - understanding everyday practices of citizenship in different kinds of states;
• rethinking 'gender' in development, including in relation to work with/on men and masculinities;
• development's colonial continuities.

In my work on development, I've published articles on development buzzwords, deliberative democracy, participation, citizen involvement in health policy, men and masculinities, gender and development, gender and participatory development, and sexuality and development. 

Articles drawing on my anthropological research include 'Taking Chances, Making Choices: The Tactical Dimensions of “Reproductive Strategies" in Southwestern Nigeria' (Medical Anthropology, 2007),  'Of choice, chance and contingency: Career strategies and tactics for survival among Yoruba women traders' (Social Anthropology, 2007), 'Spending Power: Love, Money and the Reconfiguration of Gender Relations in Ado-Odo, SW Nigeria' (American Ethnologist, 2002). 

I've also written articles for various online news sites and blogs on a range of issues including democracy, empowerment and participatory governance. 

Recent books include Negotiating Empowerment (co-edited with Jenny Edwards, IDS Bulletin, 2010), Democratizing Engagement: What the UK Can Learn from International Experience (Demos, 2009), Development with a Body: Sexuality, Human Rights and Development (co-edited with Sonia Correa and Susie Jolly, Zed Books, 2008), The Politics of Rights: Dilemmas for Feminist Praxis (co-edited with Maxine Molyneux, Routledge, 2008), Gender Myths and Feminist Fables: Struggles for Interpretive Power in Gender and Development (co-edited with Elizabeth Harrison and Ann Whitehead, Blackwell, 2008). 

I'm also co-author of a truer-than-fiction account of life inside an aid bureaucracy The Beast of Bureaucracy: Tales from Valhalla.

Teaching

I welcome applications for DPhil study from students with interests in the following areas/topics:

• the politics and ethnography of struggles around sexual rights and gender expression in non-western contexts;
• ethnographic studies of masculinities in relation to politics and the economy, i.e. masculinities in the formal political arena, men's engagement with efforts to transform gendered inequities in the labour market and so on;
• what feminists can learn from sex workers about men, money and empowerment;
• what contemporary feminist theory might have to offer gender and development thinking and practice;
• what effects heteronormativity and the (re)-enforcement of the gender binary in gender and development policy and practice has on women's, men's and trans people's experiences of development intervention.  

Selected publications

2011

Men and Development: Politicising Masculinities (edited with A. Greig, J. Edstrom) London: Zed Books

Revolutionizing Development: Reflections on the Work of Robert Chambers (edited with Scoones, Ian, Prof) London: Earthscan

The Participation Reader London: Zed Books

2010

Deconstructing Development Discourse: Buzzwords and Fuzzwords (edited with D. Eade) Rugby: Practical Action Publishing

Introduction: Negotiating Empowerment (with Edwards, Jenny, Mrs) in IDS Bulletin Volume 41 pp. 1-9

Introduction: Women's empowerment: Contentions and contestations (with Anyidoho, N.A.) in Development Volume 53 pp. 144-149

Revealed cities: A photovoice project with domestic workers in Salvador, Brazil (with Capibaribe, F., Gonçalves, T.) in Development Volume 53 pp. Pages 299-300

Taking a seat on Brazil's health councils (with Coelho, P., Shankland, Alex, Dr) openDemocracy, London

The use and abuse of participatory rural appraisal: reflections from practice (with Pratt, G.) in Agriculture and Human Values Volume 28 pp. 263-272

2009

Sexuality and the development industry (with Jolly, Susan, Ms) in Development Volume 52 pp. Pages 5-12

2008

Deliberating Democracy: Scenes from a Brazilian Municipal Health Council in Politics & Society Volume 36 pp. 508-531

Democratising engagement : what the UK can learn from international experience London: Demos, 87 pp. ISBN 9781841801988

Development with a body: sexuality, human rights and development (edited with Correa, S., Jolly, Susan, Ms) London, NewYork: Zed Books, 257 pp. ISBN 9781842778906

Engaging citizens: Lessons from building Brazil's national health system (with Shankland, Alex, Dr) in Social Science and Medicine Volume 66 pp. 2173-2184

Gender Myths and Feminist Fables: The Struggle for Interpretive Power in Gender and Development (edited with Harrison, Elizabeth, Dr, Whitehead, Ann, Prof) Malden, MA: Blackwell, 173 pp. ISBN 9781405169370

Introduction: Putting unsafe abortion on the development agenda (with Lynch, A., Standing, H.) in IDS Bulletin Volume 39 pp. 1-9

Introduction: Reclaiming feminism: Gender and neoliberalism (with Gideon, J., Wilson, K.) in IDS Bulletin Volume 39 pp. Pages 1-9

Rethinking 'citizenship' in the postcolony (with Robins, S., von Lieres, B.) in Third World Quarterly Volume 29 pp. 1069-1086

The Politics of Rights: Dilemmas for Feminist Praxis (edited with Molyneux, M.) London: Routledge, 174 pp. ISBN 9780415437721

Unpacking 'Participation': models, meanings and practices in Community Development Journal Volume 43 pp. 269-283

2007

Gender Myths and Feminist Fables: The Struggle for Interpretive Power in Gender and Development (with Harrison, Elizabeth, Dr, Whitehead, Ann, Prof) in Development and Change (Edited Special Edition) Volume 38 pp. 1-20

Of choice, chance and contingency: `Career strategies¿ and tactics for survival among Yoruba women traders in Social Anthropology Volume 15 pp. 27-46

Taking Chances, Making Choices: The Tactical Dimensions of "Reproductive Strategies" in Southwestern Nigeriia in Medical Anthropology Volume 26 pp. 229-254

2006

Participation in historical perspective in Journal of Comparative and Commonwealth Politics Volume 44(1) pp. 62-83

2005

Democratizing Democracy: Feminist Perspectives (with Goetz, Anne-Marie, Dr) in Democratization Volume 12 pp. 783-800

What do buzzwords do for development policy: a critical look at "participation", "poverty reduction" and "empowerment" (with Brock, K., Brocken, Ian, Mr) in Third World Quarterly Volume 26(7) pp. 1043-1060

2004

Readings in Gender in Africa (edited with Cornwall, Andrea, Prof, J. Currey) Indiana Universith Press

2003

To be a man is more than a day's work: Shifting ideals of manliness in Ado-Odo, S W Nigeria Lindsay, L and Miescher, S, ed., in Men and Masculinities in Modern Africa Heinemann

Whose voices? Whose choices? Reflections on gender and participatory development in World Development Volume 31(8) pp. 1325-1342

2002

Spending power: love, money and the reconfiguration of gender relations in Ado-Odo, southwestern Nigeria in American Ethnologist Volume 29 pp. 963-980

2001

Wayward women and useless men: changing gender relations in Ado-Odo, S W Nigeria Hodgson, D and McCurdy, S, ed., in Wicked Women and the Reconfiguration of Gender in Africa Heinemann

2000

Beneficiary consumer citizen: perspectives on participation for poverty reduction Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency SIDA studies no 2: Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency SIDA studies no 2 ISBN 9158689192

Missing men? Reflections on men masculinities and gender in GAD in IDS Bulletin IDS Bulletin Volume 31 pp. 18-27 ISBN 0265 5012

1998

Gender participation and the politics of difference (with I. Guijt, M. Kaul Shah) Irene Guijt (Editor), Meera Kaul Shah (Editor), ed., in The Myth of Community: Gender Issues in Participatory Development ITDG Publishing; illustrated edition edition (1 Jan 1998) pp. 46-57 ISBN 1 85339 421 1

1997

Men masculinity and 'gender in development' in Gender and Development Gender and Development Volume 5 pp. 8- 13 ISBN 1355 2074