Sixteenth International Conference on New Directions in the Humanities

Abstract

This paper engages with the politics of sex education as promoted through international aid and development. Probing this field of intervention reveals not only strong reiterations of modernist linear thinking and colonial continuities but also provides insights in the complexities of the reception and vernacularization of Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR). Conceiving the international development context as an arena of collision and concession made to the demands of the hegemonic order as well as of strategic and creative translation and subversion, I will make a case for a critical anthropology of sexuality in international aid and development interventions. Focusing on a project to promote sex education in Bangladesh financed by Dutch agencies, the need for situating this intervention within specific transnational and local web of power relations will be argued. Furthermore, drawing inspiration from anticolonial feminist scholarship to move beyond deconstruction, a critical anthropological approach will be proposed to enable a more inclusive, politically-sensitive and ethical conversation about sexuality and development.