Speakers

Dr. Halimah DeShong is a Senior Lecturer and Head of the IGDS:NBU. She is an experienced feminist researcher, published in the areas of gendered and gender-based violence, feminist methodologies, anti-colonial feminisms, qualitative interviewing and analysis. She is the co-editor (with Professor Kamala Kempadoo) of Methodologies in Caribbean Research on Gender & Sexuality (2020) and is currently completing another book length manuscript on violence, the coloniality of gender and change. Her scholarly work appears in a wide range of peer-reviewed academic journals and books. She is joint editor of four special issues on Feminist Methodologies; Men and Masculinities; and Gender, Sexuality and Feminism in the Caribbean. Dr. DeShong has advised Caribbean governments on gender-based violence policies and laws, is the author of the Saint Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG) National Gender-based Violence Action Plan and has jointly designed a GBV/HFLE curriculum for post-secondary school students in SVG (with Dr. Tonya Haynes). She was also the lead researcher and author of the qualitative component of the UN Women/CARICOM/Caribbean Development Bank Women’s Health Survey on violence against women in Grenada.
Dr. DeShong served as an Ambassador and Second Deputy Permanent Representative at the Permanent Mission of the Government of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines to the United Nations. She was SVG’s expert, during the country’s two-year tenure (January 2020 to December 2021) on the United Nations Security Council on Women, Peace and Security; Children and Armed Conflict; Youth, Peace and Security; and the Protection of Civilians. In addition to this, she also covered the situations in Mali, Somalia, Guinea-Bissau, and West Africa and the Sahel. Animating her teaching, public service, scholarship and outreach is a concern for ending the enduring effects of complex systems of violence.