New AAA Fellow Leila Abdala at the Zukunftskolleg
Leila Abdala started her fellowship in July. She is affiliated with the Department of Literature, Art and Media Studies.
Since 2017, Leila has been a research fellow of the Instituto de Humanidades y Ciencias at the National University of Litoral (UNL) and the CONICET (National Council of Scientific and Technological Research of Argentina).
Furthermore, she is currently completing her PhD in the social sciences at the University of Buenos Aires. “The aim of my doctoral research is to enquire, describe and understand the ways in which women perform motherhood in groups that promote the humanization of childbirth and natural and respectful upbringing. I use an ethnographic approach in the city of Santa Fe, Argentina”, Leila explains.
At the Zukunftskolleg, she is going to collaborate with Professor Kirsten Mahlke on a new research project about the global midwifery crisis. Her interest lies in a comparative study of the midwifery situations in Germany and Argentina. Specifically, she studies how – despite these countries having different socioeconomic structures and regulatory frameworks – agreement on this topic can be found, since the demand for the humanization of birth has been established globally.
“I’m very interested in women’s rights with regard to birth, midwifery and obstetric violence”, says Leila.