The CSWS Women of Color Project presents a discussion of Beauty Diplomacy: Embodying an Emerging Nation (Stanford University Press, Globalization in Everyday Life Series, 2020) by Oluwakemi “Kemi” Balogun, 3-5 p.m. Friday, March 5, 2021. Registration is required for this event.

Balogun is an associate professor of women’s, gender, and sexuality studies. She is affiliated with African studies, global studies, and indigenous, race and ethnic studies at University of Oregon. According to the publisher, “Beauty Diplomacy takes us inside the world of Nigerian beauty contests to see how they are transformed into contested vehicles for promoting complex ideas about gender and power, ethnicity and belonging, and a rapidly changing articulation of Nigerian nationhood. Drawing on four case studies of beauty pageants, this book examines how Nigeria's changing position in the global political economy and existing cultural tensions inform varied forms of embodied nationalism, where contestants are expected to integrate recognizable elements of Nigerian cultural identity while also conveying a narrative of a newly-emerging, globally-relevant Nigeria.”

Guest panelists for the discussion include: L. Ayu Saraswati, associate professor and chair of women’s studies at the University of Hawai’i and author of Seeing Beauty, Sensing Race in Transnational Indonesia (NYU Press, 2013), which won the 2013 National Women’s Studies Association Gloria Anzaldúa book prize; and Erin Beck, associate professor of political science at University of Oregon and author of How Development Projects Persist: Everyday Negotiations with Guatemalan NGOs (Duke University Press, 2017), which won the American Sociological Association Sociology of Development’s 2018 best book award. Hosted by Sangita Gopal, WOC convener and associate professor of cinema studies, University of Oregon, and sponsored by the Center for the Study of Women in Society.

Register in advance for this meeting: https://uoregon.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJAkdOitpz4oHNZZpGQYGlG9n60qv2SL8ZQj. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.