CPRC

Past Research
Silvia De Zordo received a PhD in Social Anthropology from the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris in September 2008, and her BA in philosophy from the University of Pavia in Italy. In Italy she studied the impact of the political debate on new reproductive technologies on women’s reproductive rights, particularly on abortion rights, and she received a prize for her Bachelor’s Thesis by the Italian Association for Demography’s Educational Programs in 2002. Her doctoral dissertation was on state reproductive policies at the articulation of the global North and South and was focused in particular on family planning policies in Brazil and on their impact on the reproductive and contraceptive behavior of working class, black women in Bahia (Brazil). Dr. De Zordo presented the results of her Ph D research in a number of Conferences and seminars held in Europe, Brazil and the US and published the outcomes of her research in Italian, French and Latin American journals. 

Present and Future Research
Silvia De Zordo’s research interests encompass family planning, contraception and abortion, particularly in Latin America, as well as gender and race studies, among other areas. As an Ellertson Fellow, she intends to draw on her training in social anthropology and to build on her dissertation work to investigate health professionals’ moral and religious convictions and their perceptions and experiences of legal and illegal abortion in Brazil. She anticipates continued collaboration with Brazilian partners, including the Women and Health Research Center of the Federal University of Bahia which is concurrently researching maternal morbidity and mortality in the Northeast of Brazil, one of the Brazilian regions with the highest rates of maternal mortality due to unsafe abortion. At the same time, Dr. De Zordo is working on another research project to be undertaken in the US on “Healthcare Providers' Clinical Assessment and Perspectives on Pregnancy Ambivalence”. Her main objective for the future is to expand her research on reproductive health issues, including new topics, such as the impact of health professionals’ attitudes to ambivalence toward pregnancy on women`s contraceptive behavior and reproductive choices, and new geographic areas, such as the United States and Europe.