Friday 27th June, 20.30
Akshay Khanna works on the intersections of anthropology, activism and development praxis and is a founder member of Prism, a Delhi-based queer activist collective, and has worked as a human rights lawyer, focusing on issues arising out of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, and contributed to drafting the law against domestic violence in India.
Akshay’s research focuses on law and epidemiology as two arenas where queer activists in India make claims to recognition and justice. Over the years Akshay has worked as a consultant to various development actors in issues ranging from sexuality, gender, health care practices, intellectual property law, reproductive technologies and human rights.
Akshay joined the Power Participation and Social Change team as a Research Fellow at the Institute of Development Studies in September 2010.
Salla Sariola is a senior research fellow at the Global Health Bioethics Network funded by the Wellcome Trust’s Strategic Award. Her long term research interests concern organisation and conduct of clinical research in developing country settings and emerging economies.
Her research interests also include gender, sexuality and marginality. Using feminist and queer theory frameworks, her bookGender and Sexuality in India: selling sex in Chennai is an ethnography of sex workers in Tamil Nadu, south India. It analyses sex workers’ experiences in relation to global health policies regarding HIV, identity and agency, and asks in what ways marginalised women and men are able to negotiate the violence that they come across in their everyday lives.