Fatou Sow

retired Professor of sociology, University of Dakar

Bio

Dr. Fatou Sow is a Senegalese sociologist. After completing her undergraduate studies at the University of Dakar, Dr. Fat Sow earned a doctorate in sociology at the University of Paris Sorbonne and a Habilitation to direct research in sociology at the University of Paris Diderot. She was appointed by the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS, France) at the very beginning of her career. She was posted at IFAN (Cheikh Anta Diop, University of Dakar) and at the SEDET Laboratory (Paris-Diderot University). She also taught and lectured at various universities in the USA and Canada.

Her early sociological work focused on the formation of the state and its elites (thesis Les Fonctionnaires de l’Administration centrale sénégalaise, published in the African Studies series of IFAN), education, migration and urbanization, natural resource and environmental management, sexual and reproductive health, etc.

Fatou Sow has progressively worked to promote women and gender studies in the African academy and to entrench a feminist critique of social sciences in Africa.

Ayesha Imam, Amina Mama and herself set up the current CODESRIA Gender Institute, in 1994, after the colloquium on “Gender Analysis in Africa” published under the title . Engendering African Social Sciences (1997). In 1999, she organized the 2nd International Congress of Francophone Feminist Research, the proceedings of which she published: Language, Identities and Issues in Francophone Feminist Research). At the University of Paris-Diderot, she was a member of CEDREF, a center for feminist studies. She has been a member of several feminist research and advocacy organizations, including Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era (DAWN, Fiji) of which she is a board member and Women Living Under Muslim Laws (WLUM, London) which she directed for 10 years and the African Feminist Forum (AFF, Accra).

Publications

• Ayesha Imam, Amina Mama et Fatou Sow, (éds), Sexe, genre et société. Engendrer les sciences sociales africaines, Paris, Karthala, 2004, version française de Engendering African social sciences, CODESRIA, Dakar, 1997.
• Samir Amin, Mahmood Mamdani et Fatou Sow, Conférences spéciales de la 10e Assemblée générale du CODESRIA, Kampala, 2002. Fatou Sow « Témoignage sur Léopold Sédar Senghor, Président-Poète du Sénégal, 1906-2001 », et « Repenser le développement en Afrique : et si les femmes comptaient », CODESRIA, Dakar, Décembre 2004.
• Fatou Sow et Codou Bop (dir.), Notre corps, notre santé : la santé et la sexualité des femmes en Afrique subsaharienne, l’Harmattan, Paris, 2004.
• Fatou Sow (dir.), La Recherche féministe francophone : Langue, identités et enjeux, Karthala, Paris, 2009.
• Jules Falquet, Helena Hirata, Danielle Kergoat, Brahim Labari, Nicole Le Feuvre et Fatou Sow (dir.), Le sexe de la mondialisation. Genre, classe, race et nouvelle division du travail, Les Presses de Sciences Po, Paris, 2010.
• Lacoue-Labarthe Isabelle et Fatou Sow (dir.), « Politique, esthétique, féminisme », Tumultes, N° 37, 2011.
• Fatou Sow et Ndèye Sokhna Guèye (dir.), Genre et dynamiques socio-économiques et politiques en Afrique, CODESRIA, Dakar, 2011.
• Fatou Sow (dir.), Genre et fondamentalismes, Dakar, CODESRIA, 2018.