Laura Pascoe is a feminist, gender and sexual and reproductive health and rights activist, practitioner, and scholar. Since 2009, she has contributed to Sonke’s work in various capacities, including as a full-time employee in the Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) Portfolio based in Cape Town and as a consultant with the Resource Mobilisation Unit; Community Education and Mobilisation Unit; International Programmes and Networking Unit; and the SRHR Portfolio. She holds an M.S. in Community Development and a Ph.D. in Geography, and her doctoral research investigated gender-power dynamics in the intimate spaces of negotiating pregnancy and HIV prevention and women’s sexual pleasure within heterosexual sex in South Africa.
In addition to her research qualifications, Laura also has extensive teaching experience across the fields of community development, qualitative research methodology, women and gender studies, and African American studies, including as lecturer for an upper-division undergraduate course on nonprofit organisations and their role in change at the local, national, and international levels. In addition to her work with Sonke, Laura is the Managing Editor for the Canadian-based Journal of Critical Race Inquiry, a Labour and Childbirth Certifying Doula, and a volunteer “sexpert” at a local sexual health resource centre offering outreach, information, referral and product services regarding sex, sexuality and sexual health to her surrounding community.
