What is ECSO?
The Ethics, Culture and Society group (ECSO) is an inter-university research alliance group between the VUB and UGent.
Since 2017, it has brought together members of the RHEA Expertise Centre in Gender, Diversity and Intersectionality at VUB Brussels, and CRCG, Centre for Research on Culture and Gender at UGent. It is supported by The Special Research Fund at UGent and VUB.
What does ECSO do?
Members collaborate regularly in joint research projects, publications and events. Various members also co-operate closely in education, especially in the inter university Master in Gender and Diversity.
Currently (2023 - 2026), the group focuses on three main topics:
- Ethics, religion, anthropology
- Anthropology of moralities: intimacy and sexuality
- Feminist bio-ethics: care and reproduction
Recent events
Symposium: Islamitische ethiek en samenleven in ethnisch-culturele diversiteit
Past collaborations: a selection
Harmful Cultural Practices: A critical analysis of cross-cultural discourses and moral understandings of gender, sexuality and embodiment (FWO, 2014-2019): L. Rahbari, S. Dierickx (supervised by G. Coene, C. Longman)
Sexual Rights Activism in Mozambique: A qualitative case study of civil society organizations and experiences of lesbian, bisexual and transgender persons, Joint-PhD in the framework of VLIR-UOS co-operation with Universidade Eduardo Mondlane Mozambique (2009-2018), M. Chipenembe (supervised by G. Coene, C. Longman)
Global families, global inequalities. The politics of child relinquishment, search and reunion in transnational adoption, FWO PhD project (2017-2023), Atamhi Bex (supervised by K. De Graeve & S. Withaeck).
International Conference ‘Sexual and Gendered Moralities’ under the auspices of the International Association for the study of Religion and Gender (IARG) UGent, 26-28 November 2018. (Special Issue: “Sexual and Gendered Moralities”. Gender and Religion, 12, 2, 2022).
Members
VUB | UGent |
| Gily Coene (director | Chia Longman (co-director) |
| Dirk Lafaut | Katrien De Graeve |
| Iman Lechkar | Michiel De Proost |
| Memory Mphaphuli | An Van Raemdonck |
| Hannelore Van Bavel | Giulia Nazarro |