Activist Scholarship:
Radicalizing Academia in an Era of Fear

Andrea Smith (Cherokee) is an assistant professor of Native American and Women´s Studies at the University of Michigan, a longtime anti-violence and Native American activist and scholar who is co-founder of INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence, and is the interim coordinator of the Boarding School Healing Project. She is the author of Conquest, Sexual Violence, and American Indian Genocide (South End Press, 2005). Her extensive writings and lectures focus on violence against women, Native American studies, feminism, and religious traditions. Andy was the Women of Color Caucus chair of the National Coalition Against Sexual Assault and co-founder of the Chicago chapter of Women of All Red Nations.

Lilia Labidi Anthropologist and Psychoanalyst, is a professor of Psychology at the University of Tunis and a visiting professor of Psychology at the American University in Cairo (2004-2005). After having worked in France as teacher, researcher and clinician, Dr. Labidi returned to Tunisia, where since 1979, she is a member of Tunisian University. She becoming a member of the section on Preventive and Social Pediatrics (at the Tunis Children's Hospital/Medical School) from 1979 to 1995, organizing a number of national and international meetings on women's health (on Women and Contraception, Maternity-Femininity, Medicine for Women, Midwives and the Discourse of Islamic Reform, the Circulation of Women in Public Space, etc.), and establishing a prize for the promotion and defense of women's rights. Dr. Labidi is the author of several books (one of which won an award at Tunisia's International Book Fair in 1989) and several articles, and has also organized a number of exhibitions of documentary photographs on the political participation of women.

Radha D'Souza is an activist from India who has come to the academe after working for over twenty-five years in India working with unorganised sectors workers, democratic rights movements and movements for radical political change. She was an activist lawyer in India as well as a grassroots organiser, a critic, campaigner, columnist and writer. Eight years ago, she moved to New Zealand where she teaches at the University and works for GATT Watchdog and ARENA and Shama: Hamilton Ethnic Women’s Support Network. Her publications included academic books and articles as well as contributions to popular media and campaign literature. She contributes to Z-Net amongst other networks.