Prof.
University of the Western Cape

tshefer@uwc.ac.za

Tamara Shefer is professor of Women’s and Gender Studies and Deputy Dean of Teaching and Learning in the Faculty of Arts at the University of the Western Cape. She has foregrounded youth, gender and sexualities in her scholarship, including a focus on HIV/AIDS, gender-based violence, masculinities, memory and post- apartheid, gender and care, and social justice in higher education. She has published widely in these areas including the editions From boys to men (2007 with Ratele et al., UCT Press) and The Gender of Psychology (2006, with Boonzaier & Kiguwa, UCT Press); Discourses on Difference, Discourse on Oppression (2002, Duncan et al., CASAS) and Contemporary Issues in Human Development (1997, de la Rey et al, ITP/Oxford University Press; more recently: Books and/or babies: pregnancy and young parenting in schools (2012, HSRC Press, with R. Morrell and D. Bhana) and Care In Context: Transnational Gender Perspectives (2014, HSRC Press, with V. Reddy, S. Meyer & T. Meyiwa). She currently serves on the editorial board of three journals, on the board of SWEAT, a national NGO organizing sexworkers, is a member of a range of advisory boards of research institutes/centres/projects at UWC and a member of the international reference group of the centre of excellence GEXcell  International Collegium for Advanced Transdisciplinary Gender Studies in Sweden, located at Orebro, Linkoping and Karlstad Universities. She is also on the transitional executive committee of the International Research Association of Advanced Gender Studies (RINGS). Her current research projects include a 3-year NRF-Finnish Academy international research project entitled ‘Engaging South African and Finnish youth towards new traditions of non-violence, equality and social well-being’ on which she is lead researcher with Prof Jeff Hearn of Hanken University and co-PI Prof Kopano Ratele (UNISA//MRC).