Rebecca Gordon
(University of Birmingham)
Rishita Nandagiri
(Kings’s College London)
Mirna Guha
(Anglia Ruskin University)
Tina Wallace
Send message to Convenors
Formats:
Experimental
Stream:
Policy and practice
Sessions:
Wednesday 30 June, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Unsettling 'gender' within research, policy and practice II.
Panel P26b at conference DSA2021: Unsettling Development.
This panel explores the impact of research, policy and practice in gender and development on: Gender regimes, relations and norms, racialised inequalities and white fragility and conceptualisations of gender. It questions what it means to 'unsettle' gender and development discourses and practice.
Long Abstract:
2020 was the 25th anniversary of the Beijing Platform for Action, an event that was arguably a milestone for women's rights. However, many were hoping to promote a more radical agenda, particularly women's networks in the Global South. Since then, the approaches to gender and development (G&D) have evolved and shifted, but debates about what constitutes a 'radical' agenda in G&D remain. On this anniversary, it is important to critically assess the progress of the key ideas and actions, and their role in challenging/reinforcing the status quo. The pandemic and much-needed focus on systematic racism and white supremacy within the development sector has underlined the urgent need to interrogate the impact of feminist research, policy and practice, and practices of G&D organisations and groups on:
• Gender regimes, relations and norms
• Racialised inequalities and white fragility
• Conceptualisations of gender
This panel invites contributions (of 10 minutes) in any form (short presentations, posters, pecha kucha, zines, etc) which examine:
• What it means to 'unsettle' G&D discourses and practice.
• What remains 'radical' within G&D discourses, interventions and research.
• Entanglement of certain concepts within wider discourses of G&D, such as 'agency' 'empowerment' 'victimhood' 'power' and 'resistance'.
• Whether 'gender' alone is enough and/or necessary to advance the rights of marginalised groups globally.
• How G&D scholarship and practice address the intersections of 'gender' with 'race', class, caste, ability, religion, sexuality, etc., within inequalities.
• How to centre and represent marginalised voices, including in relation to Covid-19.
Discussing sexuality is a taboo topic in Ethiopia. However silenced, SRHR epistemological curiosity remains to flourish among girls. Drawing from an ethnographic research, this paper highlights how schools attempt to bridge SRHR knowledge gaps among girls by navigating policy and culture spheres.
Paper long abstract:
In Ethiopia, many young people remain to consume conflicting, negative and confusing messages about sexuality and gender (Vanwesenbeeck et al, 2015; Le Mat, 2017). This is often aggravated by embarrassment, and silence coming from the society and institutions regardless of the continuous information need. This ethnographic study aims to understand the practices of school-based SE in a restrictive context. By conducting school based observation and running a focus group discussions with adolescent girls, this study seeks to understand the expressed need for information on SRHR by girls. It also explored, the contents provided as well as topics suppressed about sexuality education. The findings indicate that girls are curious to learn about their body change, including menstruation, sexual relationship, condom use, pregnancy, and love. However, the school-based sexuality education appears to provide abstinence-only contents and sessions that are heavily dominated on risks from sexual practices such as HIV/AIDS and STIs while erasing the inquisitive voices among the pupil or dismissing as ‘western’ subject. The study concludes that school-based sexuality education is where there is abundance of curiosity and to the contrary undemocratic contents restricted to fixed values are practiced. The study argues that there is a need for improved policy that incorporates the voices of adolescent girls to address demands related to SRHR information.
Through a decolonial reading of the current pan-African gender agenda, this article probes the discourse around local norms and GBV, and interrogates the emancipatory potential of the histories of negotiated ‘gender’, ‘womanhood’ and empowerment across Africa.
Paper long abstract:
The Africa Union policies frame gender-based violence as enabled by inadequate local socio-cultural norms, or in other instances, by cultural, traditional or religious practices. In doing so, the institution is reproducing the discourse on culture vs rights, whereby knowledge-based transformation is seen as the key for changing harmful local norms. In 2021, the African Union and its gender institutions work under the theme of Arts, Culture and Heritage. The theme presents a nod to the continents vibrant cultural resources and the AU civil society platform on gender equality, GIMAC, particularly highlighted the opportunity to acknowledge the historic role of women in anti-imperial struggle and post-colonial Africa, while pointing out that culture is misinterpreted as a license to harm women. In the article at hand I propose that deploying a decolonial lens can reveals the shortcomings of culture vs rights discourse which downplays structural causes for gender-based violence on the continent and over-estimates the power of legal rights. Extreme poverty, the position of African countries in global economic system, lack of women in power, ethnic and other systemic marginalisations are just few structural issues to be named. Secondly, I suggest that decolonial reading of pan-African gender agenda point to the need to interrogate colonial gender regimes, and revitalise research into the pre-colonial histories of African peoples, as they reveal a wide variety of interpretations of ‘gender’, ‘womanhood’ and empowerment. Local histories might prove powerful resources for addressing gendered violence.
COVID-19 exposes disconnection between women’s empowerment and how policy has achieved empowerment in agriculture. Using Kabeer’s concept of empowerment located in ‘resources’, ‘agency’, ‘achievement’, this paper examines how conceptualizations of empowerment correspond to agency
Paper long abstract:
Women play a key role in Malawian agriculture, producing 70% of locally consumed food. However, they remain disadvantaged in policies and agriculture interventions. Women experience inequality across multiple dimensions that inhibits their capacity to manage risks and shocks, and limits their adaptive capacity. For example, floods and droughts exacerbated by climate change have significantly greater consequences for women participating in Malawi’s agricultural sector. These existing challenges are further compounded by COVID-19, which exposes the disconnection between women’s empowerment and how policy has achieved empowerment within the agricultural sector. Using Naila Kabeer’s (1999) concept of empowerment located in ‘resources’, ‘agency’ and ‘achievement’, this paper examines how conceptualizations of empowerment in Malawian institutions and policy correspond to agency. Semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with 32 expert key informants from the public and private sector. Thematic codes were generated from initial transcripts, and then modified, refined and organized during coding and analysis. Results show consensus among key informants regarding the role of COVID-19 as a wakeup call to reconceptualise and redevelop policy to empower women beyond access to material and economic resources to also cater for human and social resources. They further reveal poor targeting, limited information access and shortage of extension staff as challenges to empowering women. Informants had varying views on the best ways to promote empowerment including policy stipulating agricultural diversification to build resilience to shocks through expanded farmer incomes, systems-level change across farming sector, and an improved policy and regulatory environment to empower women farmers.
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