Elina Oinas is professor in Sociology at the Swedish School of Social Science at the University of Helsinki, Finland, since 2015. Before that she was university lecturer in Development Studies in University of Helsinki 2010-2014, and in Sociology in 2009-2010 in University of Turku. She was researcher in the Nordic Africa Institute in Uppsala in 2007-2008, and currently serves as the chair of the Board of the Nordic Africa Institute. She is docent/Adjunct Professor in Women’s Studies in Åbo Akademi University and in Sociology in University of Turku. Oinas has a PhD in Sociology from Åbo Akademi University, on girls, the body and medicalization, 2001.
Her most recent research project was an Academy of Finland funded research consortium with the Youth Research Network on young people and politics in Africa, resulting in the anthology What Politics? Youth and Political Engagement in Contemporary Africa. Leiden: Brill 2018, edited with Henri Onodera and Leena Suurpää. She has also worked extensively on HIV, knowledge and activism in South Africa.
Oinas is currently working on feminisms and Gender Studies in comparative perspective in South Africa and Finland, and on a vaccine trial in Benin, both projects comprising her interest in STS, medicine, science, relevance, youth, feminism and politics.