Berlin University Alliance

During her tenure as Audre Lorde Visiting Professor

at the Institute for Gender in Medicine (GiM) at Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Prof. Diniz curated and participated in a diverse series of academic events. These included interactive workshops, keynote lectures, writing seminars, and research-focused lab meetings, targeting various academic groups within the Berlin University Alliance (BUA).Highlights included the "14th DiGENet Dialogue on Gender, Global Health & the Global South", academic writing workshops, and contributions to the Einstein Center Neuroscience’s "Club of Difference and Distinction". Prof. Diniz also led sessions on obstetric violence, trans healthcare, ultra-processed food, and health literacy. Many events were conducted in collaboration with Prof. Jaya Dantas and Prof. Dr. Gertraud Stadler, both online and in person across BUA institutions. Prof. Diniz took part in the BUA Meridian Podcast, featuring episode 18 “Giving Birth in Brazil: and Politics in Global Health”. Her active engagement significantly enriched the academic community and facilitated interdisciplinary exchange.[Beschreibung]2025 Prof. Dr. Angela Akorsu (Freie Universität Berlin) - Innovator in Gender and Digital Economy Research[Bild]Angela Dziedzom Akorsu is an associate professor of labour and gender studies at the University of Cape Coast, Ghana. Since 2022, Professor Akorsu serves as Dean of the School for Development Studies. Her earlier leadership roles include Head of the Department of Labour and Human Resource Studies, and Research Coordinator at the Centre for Gender Research, Advocacy, and Documentation (CEGRAD), all at the at the University of Cape Coast (UCC).Her scholarship is grounded in a commitment to amplifying the perspectives of those often excluded from mainstream development narratives. She also maintains a strong intellectual engagement with the philosophical foundations of Development Studies and with Gender and Development, bringing critical reflection to the ways in which we conceptualize progress, empowerment, and justiceFrom April to October 2025, she serves as Audre Lorde Visiting Professor of the Diversity and Gender Equality Network (DiGENet) of the Berlin University Alliance (BUA). She will be hosted at the Freie Universität Berlin. In Berlin, Professor Akorsu is teaching a master course on Changing Epistemologies: Feminist African Philosophy of Knowledge, and is working to develop a proposal for future cooperation. Her work will focus on the women’s work in the digital platform economy, exploring the intersection of gender, technology and labour and how digital platforms shape the experiences of women and other marginalized groups in the workforce. Professor Akorsu delivered her fellowship inaugural lecture at the “15th DiGENet networking event DiGENet Dialogues „Sustainable Synergies: Uniting Gender, Diversity, and Global South Voices“ on 6th May, 2025 on the topic, Gender Division of Labour, Women's Work and the Sustainability Question. In her lecture, she demonstrated how women’s work in Ghana is gendered and how that undermines sustainability. She explained that the root cause of gendered work is a hierarchically structured system of gender division of labour under the global capitalist economic system within which women anywhere, including Ghana are trapped. She further explained that the SDGs have failed to address women’s work problems because those are a creation by the global politico-economic powers and cannot counter the effects of its own ills. Thus, according to Professor Akorsu, sustainable work for women is not a mere gender issue; it is an economic, social, and environmental necessity that require an economic transformation with a gender-just, decolonized approach to sustainability, one that is rooted in African realities, histories, and collective struggles.