Flavia Luciana Magalhaes Novais

Dr. Flavia Novais graduated with a degree in social work from UFMA in Brazil (2010). She holds a master’s (2017) and doctorate (2023) in Social and Institutional Psychology from UFRGS in Brazil. Dr. Novais has experience working and researching mainly on human rights; sexual, gender and body diversity; and care theories, inspired by science and technology studies (STS) and postcolonial and ethnographic approaches.

As an Ethel Louise Armstrong Postdoctoral Fellow, she is conducting research on accessibility in healthcare spaces for people with diverse bodies from a perspective based on anti-ableist approaches of feminist disability studies. Inspired by Haraway’s concept of localized research and Alzandua’s exploration of weaving as a form of knowledge production, she plans to use participatory methods, such as workshops and discussion groups, proposing to stitch together different experiences, practices, sensations and discourses about the production of body diversity and health care. By examining the contributions of STS and decolonial feminism, she seeks to understand how care practices can be more inclusive.