Nanna Schneidermann presented the IMAGENU project as part of the first annual conference of project  Re-imagining Reproduction: Making babies, making kin and citizens in Africa, led by Nolwazi Mkhwanazi and Deevia Bhana at University of Pretoria South Africa. The project website can be found here:  https://reimagining-reproduction.africa/ 

The aim of the project and the first workshop was

1.develop a research agenda that interrogates the diversity of biological and social reproduction practices on the continent from an African perspective,

2.support and nurture a cohort of researchers who can take this research agenda forward as they develop their careers.

By using the idea of ‘reimagining reproduction’ on the African continent, the key objective is to challenge (and hopefully shift) discourses and perceptions of reproduction that frame it primarily in terms of a natural given, of abundance, pathology, mortality, and irresponsibility.

The aim of this event is to discuss the idea of what a reimagining of scholarship on reproduction in Africa might look like and might achieve (or not). Towards this end we will be discussing studies of reproduction of the past, present and future, asking:

What does re-imagining reproduction entail?

What are the prospects, opportunities and challenges involved?

What are the emerging trends in reproduction and caring within Africa?