Laura Parisi

Joined UVic Gender Studies in 2005

I am a Political Scientist trained in feminist International Relations with expertise in international human rights, development, political economy and research methods.  I am a former Chair of the Department of Gender Studies (2017-2020, 2022) I am cross-appointed in the Department of Political Science at UVic and a member of the Global Development Studies Minor program committee. I am currently the President of the Canadian Association for the Study of International Development (CASID) (2021-2022), and a past section Chair of the Feminist Theory and Gender Studies Section of the International Studies Section (2014).   I have also served as gender, human rights and development advisor/consultant to the federal government and a variety of NGOs/CSOs in the sector.

I am currently a gender advisor and collaborator with World Fisheries Trust and Royal Roads University on Global Affairs Canada funded project that focuses on women’s empowerment in sustainable small-scale pond aquaculture in Bolivia. Of particular research interest is understanding how women’s economic empowerment impacts gender relations in households.

Another SSHRC sponsored research projects involves community-based partners in Victoria (VIDEA), Uganda, Zambia, and Tanzania and focuses on how women’s human rights and development organizations are responding to changes in international development aid landscape.  As a related side-project, I am also analyzing how a basket fair trade cooperative impacts gender equality and women’s empowerment in Senanga, Zambia.

A previous SSHRC sponsored research project looks at how women’s human rights and development NGOs interpret and apply the concept of gender mainstreaming.

Research Interests

• Human Rights
• International/Global Development 
• International Political/Global Economy and Law 
• Global Governance 
• Transnational Activism 
• Research Methodologies

Faces of UVic Research: Laura Parisi

Courses Designed and Taught

GNDR 202 Globalization and Resistance

GNDR 207 Gender, Globalization, and the Love Industry
                Podcast about topics covered in the class: Chocolate, Flowers, Diamonds & Disappointment

GNDR 305 Gender and International Human Rights

GNDR 306 Gender and International Development

GNDR 307 Sexuality and the Body in International Development

Selected Publications (ORCID) 

“Feminist Approaches to Human Rights” in Human Rights: Theory and Practice, 4^th edition, edited by Michael Goodhart (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022) 

"Canada's New Feminist International Assistance Policy: Business as Usual?" Foreign Policy Analysis, Vol. 16, 2020 pp. 163-180.

Co-editor of Special Cluster, “Transgressing Borders/Boundaries: Gendering Space and Space.” Atlantis: Critical Studies in Gender, Culture & Social Justice, Vol. 37, 2015, No.1, pp. 39-105.  (5 articles). Co-edited with Jennifer L. Johnson.  Available at: http://journals.msvu.ca/index.php/atlantis/issue/view/284

“Gender Mainstreaming Human Rights: A Progressive Path for Gender Equality?” in Human Rights: The Hard Questions, edited by Cindy Holder and David Reidy. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), pp. 436-457.

“Gender Mainstreaming Strategies in International Governance”  in Feminist Strategies in International Governance, edited by Gülay Caglar, Elisabeth Prügl and Susanne Zwingel. (London and New York: Routledge, 2013), pp. 37-56. Co-authored with Jacqui True.

“Innovating International Relations Pedagogy: Critical Feminist Engagements.” International Feminist Journal of Politics, 15.3 2013: 412-425.

“Connecting the Local with the Global: Transnational Feminism and Civic Engagement,” Feminist Teacher, Vol. 22, No. 3, 2013, pp. 214-232. With Lynn Thornton.

“Transnational” in Rethinking Women’s and Gender Studies, edited by Catherine M. Orr, Ann Braithwaite, and Diane Lichtenstein.(London and New York: Routledge, 2012), pp. 310-327.

“Reclaiming Spaces of Resistance: Women’s Human Rights and Global Restructuring” in Gender and Global Restructuring: Sightings, Sites and Resistances, 2nd ed., edited by Marianne H. Marchand and Anne Sisson Runyan, eds. (London and New York: Routledge, 2011), pp. 201-22.

Affiliations

Advisor and former member of the Board of Directors, Victoria International Development and Education Association (VIDEA). Victoria, BC.