Engineering the Daily Meal: Women, Food, and Techno-Politics in Rural Mali
Laura Ann Twagira is an Associate Professor in the History Department at Wesleyan University, additionally holding appointments in Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, the Science and Society Program, and is the current chair of African Studies. Her book Embodied Engineering: Gendered Labor, Food Security, and Taste in Twentieth-Century Mali was published by the Ohio University Press in 2021. In it she foregrounds African women’s ingenuity and labor by focusing on how women in rural Mali have used technology to ensure food security through the colonial period, several environmental crises, and post-colonial rule. Twagira also co-edited the special issue “Africanizing Technology” for the journal Technology and Culture, which appeared in 2020. She was also a scholar-in-residence at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in New York City, and her work has received recognition from the Society for the History of Technology, the International Committee for the History of Technology, and the American Historical Association.