Author Archives: Robert Wyrod

About Robert Wyrod

Robert Wyrod is an assistant professor in the Department of Women and Gender Studies and the International Affairs Program at the University of Colorado, Boulder. His forthcoming book, AIDS and Masculinity in the African City: Privilege, Inequality, and Modern Manhood (California, 2016), is an ethnographic examination of how the prolonged AIDS epidemic has affected conceptions of masculinity in urban Uganda. His current research explores how the immense growth in Chinese development aid to sub-Saharan Africa is affecting gender relations and the lives of African women.

When Rights Come Home: The Intimate Politics of Women’s Rights in Urban Uganda

Introduction The relationship between human rights and African states is a complex one. For many states, the dictates of neoliberal economic reforms have provided a rationale for a retreat from any commitment to a broad conception of human rights encompassing economic and social justice. As James Ferguson has argued, neoliberal policies have typically “hollowed out” African states and legitimized an outsourcing of government responsibilities to nongovernmental organizations and the private sector.1 Many African states have therefore combined a limited commitment to individual civil and political Continue reading → Continue reading →