Paper short abstract:

Participation of the marginalised communities by social, class and gender in watershed development initiatives, access to & control over resources, decision making process at different levels is not fully understood. Intersectional inequalities need to be tackled for gender transformative change.

Paper long abstract:

Integrated watershed development is a strategy for protecting the livelihoods of people inhabiting fragile, water-limited ecosystems because they tackle the challenges of soil conservation, land productivity and sustainable use of natural resources. Bundelkhand region in Central India is a hotspot of water scarcity, land degradation and extreme marginalization. Watershed development interventions have been implemented here for decades, both by official and nongovernmental organizations, with expectations for economic, political, social and environmental transformations. The strong gender norms are limiting the visibility, mobility, and communication of women within the household and the community. While women’s decision-making ability is restricted due to unequal power distribution within their households, formal and informal membership rules of local management organizations exclude poor, landless and marginalized women from community participation. The end result is the exclusion of the poor and powerless from the benefits of improved natural-resource management. To move towards gender equality, a gender transformative approach (GTA) needs to be adopted. Gender responsiveness, inclusion, and participation in water policy-making & management need to be strengthened to achieve sustainable local & global water security. More nuanced perspectives that conceptualize gender as socially constructed relationships, shaped by intersecting ties of ethnicity, caste, class, age, marital status, religion, and other forms of social difference must be taken into consideration in the design.  

Paper short abstract:

In this paper, we discuss the nuances of gender dynamics observed among the mobile pastoral communities in India. We argue that pastoral contexts provide major lessons to refresh the gendered narratives available for policy purposes.

Paper long abstract:

Indian pastoral communities, despite being diverse and distinct, remain less debated in both the academic as well as the policy domains. Very few studies exist that dwell into the pastoral communities of India and these studies are either dedicated to capturing their economic choices and/or mapping the ecological rationality behind their mobile livelihoods. In addition, a crucial dimension rooted in the gendered division of labour and ownership of productive resources within these communities remains unexplored. In our paper, we fill this gap through re-examining gender roles and dynamics using the case of the Gaddis of the northern Himalayan region of India.

The mainstream narrative of gendered exclusions seems to fall short of explaining the nuances involved in the actual praxis of pastoral communities like the Gaddis. Despite the pastoral practices being highly gendered, we have observed that there were instances where women negotiated their way into these seemingly rigid patriarchal social arrangements. We intend to capture this fluidity and the negotiated nature of gender roles among the Gaddis through our ethnographic qualitative case study. We propose here that in contrast to the mainstream communities, the mobile worlds of pastoralists present an intricate weave of practices from where major lessons around gendered praxis may be drawn, thus giving us a chance to refresh the gendered narratives available for policy purposes.

Paper short abstract:

This paper discusses the use of indicators in Gender and Development. I argue that, while indicators have been used to de-radicalise the project of gender equality, this is not an intrinsic property. Hence, it is possible to reclaim them to support a transformative version of gender equality.

Paper long abstract:

Quantitative indicators appear to offer an "objective" and "transparent" tool for decision-making. However, who decides what to measure and how to measure it matters: Indicators have underlying frameworks that are obscured behind the veil of ‘technical’ choices.

In the field of development, indicators have played a crucial role not only in monitoring development projects, but, more importantly in the conceptualisation of the category and its attached identities. This paper discusses the use of indicators in Gender and Development using a feminist framework and a political economy approach. Feminist advocates have often conflicting views on the use of indicators. On the one hand, indicators have been a crucial piece of the strategy for gaining institutional support from powerful actors. On the other hand, some feminists have been sceptical about the ability of measurements to capture the complexities and aspirations articulated in the catchphrase of “gender equality”.

Using as a case study how care work has been conceptualised in the Sustainable Development Goals indicator framework, I identify how quantitative data has been instrumental in supporting reformist narratives linked to Gender and Development. I argue that, while in the past indicators have played a key role in de-radicalising the project of gender equality, this is not an intrinsic property: Indicators are not per se regressive, they serve regressive purposes because of who is behind their production. Therefore, it is possible to reclaim quantitative data and use it to reframe and redirect the discussion towards a more transformative version of gender equality.