Members
Legal Gender Team - Led by Sofia Balzaretti
Sofia Balzaretti, a renowned specialist in human rights law and feminist legal theory, is set to lead the IGD’s Legal Gender Team with a passionate commitment to integrating a gender perspective across all legal fields. Her groundbreaking PhD dissertation, “Le sexisme en droit suisse, européen et international - Pour une approche féministe du droit,” offered a critical examination of sexism within legal systems and advocated for a holistic, feminist approach. Sofia Balzaretti brings a wealth of knowledge on gender issues and human rights at Swiss, European, and international levels. Her extensive research on feminist legal theory, gender and LGBTQ+ rights, and discrimination law is pivotal to advancing the IGD’s mission.
At the IGD, Sofia Balzaretti’s team will tackle issues that intersect with anti-discrimination law, gender identity, and public policy, directly supporting IGD’s dedication to equality and diversity. Sofia Balzaretti emphasizes the importance of viewing gender issues through a transversal lens, ensuring that legal discourse reflects the interconnectedness of various legal domains. This approach not only enhances legal academic research but also informs practical advocacy and influences policy reforms.
At the IGD, Sofia Balzaretti’s team will address critical issues at the intersection of anti-discrimination law, gender identity, and public policy, reinforcing IGD’s commitment to equality and diversity. Sofia Balzaretti underscores the importance of a transversal perspective on gender issues, ensuring that legal discourse captures the interconnectedness of various legal domains. This innovative approach not only enriches legal academic research but also drives practical advocacy and shapes policy reforms.
The team’s strength and missions within the IGD will be :
Legal Research: Providing clear, actionable insights into current legal issues around gender and human rights.
Workshops: Offering specialized training for practitioners and policymakers on evolving issue of gender and the law.
Legal Clinics: Bringing gender law to a wider audience, empowering individuals with a clear understanding of their rights.
Development Economics Team – Led by Christelle Dumas
Christelle Dumas is a development economist whose team offers an economic perspective on the question of gender and diversity representation. Her work broadly covers areas such as labor markets, fertility, poverty, and child labor. These domains inherently intersect with gender, as they often involve differential experiences and outcomes for women compared to men. By using rigorous microeconometric methods, her research provides quantitative insights into how gender shapes—and is shaped by—economic and social processes.
More precisely, she has worked on themes related to fairness and access to contraceptives, for instance, on the sensitive question of women’s sterilizations in India. Currently, she works on topics related to women's empowerment, such as whether and how labour pooling in rural Tanzania helps women improve their livelihoods. She has also written a literature review on the question of spouses’ cooperation in economic decisions. On the question of diversity representation, she studies quotas in local governments in India for lower castes and their effects on development.
Geosciences Team - Led by Ekaterina Filep
Ekaterina Filep leads the European RESIST project at the University of Fribourg, a groundbreaking initiative that addresses the rising tide of anti-gender movements across Europe. Spanning nine countries, including Switzerland, RESIST explores the profound impact of anti-gender rhetoric on feminists and LGBTIQ+ communities. Recognised for its urgency and significance, this important research has secured competitive funding from top European, UK and Swiss research councils.
The findings of the research so far show that even in Switzerland, considered a progressive society, anti-gender discourses are escalating, leading to malicious acts, such as threats against LGBTIQ+ events and Pride marches. Online harassment has also increased in the recent years for these groups, leading to increased emotional distress and insecurity. The project documents, that despite progressive advancements like marriage equality and extended anti-discrimination laws, Switzerland has witnessed a rise in anti-gender rhetoric. Despite these challenges, the project also highlights the resilience and resistance strategies developed by affected groups/individuals, including community solidarity and educational initiatives to counter anti-gender rhetoric.
At the IGD of the University of Fribourg, Ekaterina Filep’s team will be hosting dynamic workshops on intersectionality. These sessions will foster enriching discussions and exchanges that highlight how systemic discrimination uniquely affects people with intersecting marginalised identities, such as migrant women, LGBTIQ+ people, transgender people and people with disabilities. Participants will examine the intersections of gender, race, economic/legal status and sexuality, and explore issues such as migration, anti-gender hostility and discrimination in the workplace. The aim is to develop strategies for inclusive activism and policy-making.
PPSA Team - Led by Pascal Gygax
The PPSA team has tried to investigate and understand some of the foundations of our androcentric perspective, especially in the way language shapes our perception of the world. It did this with important national (e.g., Sandrine Zufferey at the University of Bern) and international (e.g., Ute Gabriel at NTNU in Norway) collaborations. The PPSA team has always maintained the idea that its work could help to build a more progressive, inclusive and equal society. Through twenty national and international public research grants, the PPSA team has, in the past 20 years, participated in raising approximately 8 mio Euros (approximately 4 mio directly at the University of Fribourg). As examples, the PPSA team is currently running an ambitious international SNF project on the effect of language and stereotypes on the vocational interests of children aged 12-18, and have started, with Belgium colleagues, a joint Weave project to investigate the propensity of non-binary pronouns in Dutch, Norwegian and French to activate non-binary representations of individuals.
Gender History Team - Led by Regula Ludi
Regula Ludi is a historian and has a rich research and teaching experience in modern and contemporary history with a special focus on gender relations. Areas of her expertise include the aftermath of the Holocaust, Nazi era refugees, human rights history, international feminism and the history of crime and criminal policy in the nineteenth century.
At the University of Fribourg, Regula Ludi regularly teaches introductory courses and MA seminars in Gender Studies for students of contemporary history, sociology and political science. She is the director of two research projects funded by the Swiss National Science foundation. The project Volunteering and Gender. Renegotiating the Social Division of Labor since the 1970s (2021-2025) explores the relationship between gender, power and voluntary work in contemporary Swiss history. The project Making History: Archival Activism (to Archive Activism) in the Interwar Period (2025-2029) is focusing on the establishment of record collections by social movements in their efforts to document their own histories and includes a subproject on the creation of international feminist archives in the 1920s and 1930s. Regula Ludi is also a partner of the AGORA project on Volunteering and Gender Relations headed by the historian Matthias Ruoss and realized in cooperation with the Gosteli Archives on Swiss Women’s History, Worblaufen.
Contemporary History Team - Led by Pauline Milani
Pauline Milani is at the forefront of exploring the intricate history of gender, feminist theories, and antifeminist movements. Leading a dynamic research team, including a postdoc and a PhD student, she delves into the uncharted territory of antifeminism in Switzerland and its transnational connections. This pioneering research, the first of its kind in Switzerland, is capturing significant attention from both the academic world and the media.
In terms of the IGD's aims and objectives, Pauline Milani and her team see combining public science with outreach as a core value. She frequently works with the media, schools and various associations to provide historical insights on gender issues. She also co-directs the Dictionnaire sur l'histoire des femmes en Suisse, an online platform that bridges the gap between academic research and the general public.
The team’s strength and missions within the IGD will be :
- Historical insights: Providing context for current gender issues, including sexual and reproductive rights, feminist movements and anti-feminist responses.
- Training on masculinist discourses: Teaching about the dangers of masculinist ideologies.
- Teacher training: Providing specialised training for secondary school teachers on the history and didactics of women and gender.
- High school interventions: Conducting sessions in secondary schools on the history of women and gender in Switzerland.
Sociology Team - Led by Francesca Poglia Mileti
Francesca Poglia Mileti’s team excels in interdisciplinary approaches to gender and socialization. They explore how social expectations, rooted in androcentric, hetero-, and cisnormative perspectives, shape behaviors and marginalize non-conforming individuals. By examining gender alongside race, class, origin, and more, they use an intersectional approach to reveal how these interconnected factors amplify discrimination. This perspective helps uncover the deep-seated stereotypes and biases that influence our actions and interactions.
Francesca Poglia Mileti's outstanding research strategy has secured 12 accredited projects worth over CHF 2 million. Her interdisciplinary work (with national and international collaborations) spans gender relations, economic distribution within couples and adolescent languages. She recently founded GREMISS (Research Group on Migration, Health, and Sexuality), which focuses on discrimination in migration and intercultural contexts. GREMISS uses a qualitative, participatory approach to publish in international journals, collaborate with professionals and engage the public.
Francesca Poglia Mileti’s team is at the forefront of groundbreaking research, including the innovative SNF-funded project InMIND (Intersectionality, Minorisations, and Ethno-Racial, Sexual, and Gender Discrimination in a Migratory Context). This project delves into the unique discrimination experiences of migrants and individuals from migrant backgrounds who identify as non-cisgender and non-heterosexual. As one of the few studies of its kind in Switzerland, InMIND bridges the gap between gender and migration research, traditionally seen as separate fields.
Poglia Mileti and her team are renowned for their dynamic approach, offering lectures and courses, organizing social events, and sharing their expertise across various platforms, from scientific conferences to public media. They collaborate with associations, community members, health professionals, social workers, national and cantonal services (like OFSP and Ville de Fribourg), institutional boards, and politicians.
The InMIND project exemplifies their innovative method of bridging academia and the community. This participatory research initiative aims to support LGBTQIA+ rights by exploring strategies to combat discrimination, tracking their development, and identifying the social spheres where they are implemented.
Link to the GREMISS Team website
History of Sexual and Reproductive Health team - Led by Caroline Rusterholz
European Law and Migration Law Team - Led by Sarah Progin-Theuerkauf
Sarah Progin-Theuerkauf is current vice-rector (HR and legal affairs) and former president of the University’s gender equality commission. She is a professor for EU Law and Migration Law and has published in the area of EU Anti-Discrimination Law, for example on the principle of equal pay or the impact of EU Free Movement Law on rainbow families. In the area of migration, she is particularly interested in gender-based persecution, gender-sensitive asylum procedures and combating domestic violence and gender-based violence (Istanbul Convention).
Link to Sarah Progin-Theuerkauf'sTeam website
