Idorenyin Williams

Idorenyin Williams is a first year Doctoral student in Cultural Studies. She is a Feminist researcher and activist from the Niger Delta region of Nigeria. As an activist for gender justice, she has volunteered with the University of the Witwatersrand’s Gender Equity office as an Advocate. She has also worked with Gender Links in eSwatini, together with the local councils to end GBV in local communities in eSwatini. Her research interest is multidisciplinary, as it cuts across the areas of Gender studies, African Studies, Cultural Studies, Black Feminisms/African Feminisms, Black (feminist) movements/Activisms, community-based research/service. 

Idorenyin holds a Bachelor’s degree in English from the University of Uyo, Nigeria; Honors and Masters degree in African Literature from the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa. She is a recipient of the Andrew Mellon Foundation’s scholarship on the project; ‘Governing Intimacies’. She is also a recipient of the University of the Witwatersrand’s Postgraduate Merit Award; and a one-time recipient of the University of the Witwatersrand’s inter-faculty award (Second place, poster category). Her Doctoral research emerges from her subject-position as an indigenous feminist researcher from the Niger Delta region in Nigeria. She intends to carry out a comparative study of experiences of sexual violence by indigenous women living in and around communities with extractive activities such as the Niger Delta and Northern Canada.  Her critical enquiry in gender and sexual violence research from an indigenous, postcolonial and intersectional perspective in previous research, will help situate the gap in researching the impact of resource extraction on indigenous women from an intersectional/transnational perspective.