Gender and Racial Justice Researcher At African Futures Lab

Position overview

Job Title: Gender and Racial Justice Researcher

Status: Consultant

Duration: 3 months (April – June)

Start Date: As soon as possible

Application Period: March 06, 2025 – April 06, 2025

Organizational context

Founded by two Black women in the aftermath of the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests around the world, the African Futures Lab (AfaLab) works to advance demands for racial justice for Africans and Afro-descended people. We pursue the recognition and repair of global racial injustices through rigorous, empirically grounded knowledge exchange across Africa and Europe. Our work includes research, “Mobilization Labs” with partner organizations, and advocacy.

These initiatives aim to hold states and private actors accountable for the enduring effects of colonialism and slavery in Europe and Africa. Our current projects center on racial justice and its intersections with gender rights, climate justice, and socio-economic inequalities.

Learn more about AfaLab on our website or follow us on Instagram and LinkedIn.

Project context

Over the past ten years, three successive presidents of the French Republic have, in their official speeches and media coverage, pointed to the allegedly excessive fertility of African women as being responsible for poverty on the African continent, global warming and the fact that they are lagging behind in their entry into modernity. While these remarks immediately outraged a section of public opinion in Europe and Africa, they are part of a set of stereotyped representations of black women’s sexuality, maternity and submissiveness that go back a long way.

Indeed, these representations have their origins in the era of colonization, and even slavery, and continue to shape the public and public policy view of black women in many societies to this day. Worse still, these racial representations are at the root of forms of violence, injustice and discrimination that these women suffer in their daily lives in contemporary times. For example, a report published in 2018 showed that black women in the UK and US were 84% more likely to experience online harassment than white women.

The aim of this project is therefore to raise awareness of the persistence of racial prejudice against black women in our societies in Europe and Africa, and to tackle the injustice and suffering that this causes to those concerned.

Drawing on robust data from a research report, this project aims to raise awareness among the public, civil society organizations, and authorities in Europe and Africa about the dual violence Black women experience at the intersection of race and gender.

To put it another way, we want to draw attention to the fact that black women’s bodies are an instrument of colonial expansion policies, but also to underline how black women’s bodies are, in contemporary times, a tool in the foundation of racial and patriarchal domination.

To this end, we aim to conduct a research project documenting the persistence of stereotypes and injustices against Black women from colonization to the present day in two former colonial powers (the UK and Germany) and their former colonies (Kenya and Namibia).

The main questions raised by this research project are as follows:

• How did colonial administrations and European populations view African women during the colonial era?
• What were the colonial legal, political and social measures that affected or were aimed specifically at African women?
• What are the political, socio-economic, and human rights consequences for their lives?
• Are there differences between colonies and over time?
• What remains of these stereotypes in the European and African countries concerned?
• What are the consequences for women’s daily lives in terms of their personal experiences and their social, political and economic lives?
• To what extent do these stereotypes persist in national and international public policies targeting this population?

Research specifics

Operational aims of the research: this research aims to support an advocacy agenda on racialized gender-based violence.

Duration: 3 months

Required qualifications

• PhD in qualitative and/or quantitative social sciences. Relevant disciplines include, but are not limited to history, law, sociology, anthropology, political science and economics.
• Thematic expertise in gender studies.
• Thematic expertise in historical and contemporary racial injustices.
• Demonstrated experience in qualitative and/or quantitative social science research, including field research.
• Proven experience in conducting operational research.
• Excellent writing skills, demonstrated by a record of publications.
• Required language skills: Excellent command of English.