Cecilia Strand

Cecilia Strand, Ph.D., Department of Informatics and Media, Uppsala University, Sweden. Between 2003 and 2010, I worked with health communication related development cooperation in Lesotho, Namibia and Uganda, parallel to completing my dissertation Perilous Silences and Counterproductive Narratives Pertaining to HIV/AIDS in the Ugandan, Lesotho and Namibian Press.

My interest in development cooperation and international health has remained and between 2012-2013 I was involved in a UNDP-hosted research project -the Global Commission on HIV and the Law- focusing on the law as a tool to improve marginalized populations’ access to HIV/AIDS services around the world.

I have since my dissertation continued to pursue research on sexual minority rights in Africa, with special attention to health rights. Although I have a broad interest in Sub-Saharan Africa, I have primarily focused on the LGBTQI community in Uganda and their struggle for equal rights as enshrined in the Ugandan constitution. I am currently involved in a project studying social media platform as a space for self-controlled visibility and the implications of becoming more visible in a context where discrimination and persecution is both sanction and actively endorsed by the Government.

Im currently involved in the following research projects:

CIRCUS project- Tvärvetenskapens broar - ett nätverk om mäns våld mot kvinnor
& våld i nära relationer. project leader. 2024-01-01- 2025-12.31

FORTE Project grant. Strengthening intimate partners violence survivors’ resilience (Kraft att gå vidare: En intervention för att stärka kvinnor utsatta för våld i nära relationer). Project 2023-01-01- 2025-12-31

VR/Swedish Research Council. Navigating visibility in contexts of state-sanctioned homophobia: development actors and LGBTQ rights defenders in Uganda and Russia, dnr 2020-04003. 2021-2024

Swedish Institute, Creative Force 2022-2023. Project Creative 2022-2023. Projekt Empowering Queer Youth through Media & Culture, 15 Dec 2022 - 14 Dec 2023.