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Emanuela Girei
(Liverpool John Moores University)
Ibrahim Natil
(Institute for International Conflict Resolution (IICRR) at DCU)
Format:
Panel
Streams:
Politics and political economy
Sessions:
Friday 8 July, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Challenges to Justice and Equity in a post-Pandemic Context: civil society responses - NGOs in Development Study Group.
Panel P57 at conference DSA2022: Just sustainable futures in an urbanising and mobile world.
This panel explores COVID-19 and post-pandemic challenges that have influenced the future of sustainable developments as justice, equity, climate and ecological crisis in an urbanising and mobile world in the global south and the global north.
Long Abstract:
The Covid-19 pandemic has profoundly shaken the ways NGOs, CSOs, researchers and practitioners tackle issues of justice and sustainability in the global south and the global north. As explored in our panel at the DSA conference last year, several new dynamics started shaping and changing the civil society sector, including increasing private funding, shrinking of public funding, digitalisation and localisation.
This panel, building on last year discussions, aims at continuing our exploration of these and new dynamics that have emerged in the previous year, how they have affected NGOs and CSOs work and research and how practitioners and researchers have dealt with them.
In particular, we would like to focus on:
- Distinctive country-focused challenges and NGOs/CSOs responses to just futures of sustainable development: while virtually all NGOs have been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, the impact has been different in each country. We welcome contributions that offer in-depth single country perspectives or comparisons among different countries.
- Distinctive sector-specific challenges and NGOs-CSOs responses to Justice and Equity issues: how has the pandemic differently affected ‘operational’ and ‘advocacy’ with regard to Justice and Equity?
-Distinctive methodological challenges. We welcome contributions that focus in particular on:
*Adjusting existing-in progress work, approaches and methodologies to tackle issues of justice and equity: what has the process implied? Who was involved in the decision-making? What solutions were identified?
* Co-production and participation: to what extent and how has COVID-19 impacted co-production and equality in NGO/CSOs work and research?
* Decolonisation: to what extent and how has COVID-19 impacted efforts to decolonise knowledge and approaches in the field of justice and equity?
This panel is organised by the NGO in Development study group and aims to provide a platform for sharing practitioners’ and researchers’ experiences and reflections. We welcome both empirical and theoretical contributions in different styles and at various stages of development.
Methodology
Panellists will upload their materials three weeks before the conference itself. These contributions can take multiple forms, including video, video with slides, slides with audio, podcast/audio only and text only.
Convenors will ask panellists to watch other people’s presentations in advance of the synchronous discussion session(s). The convenors will also share in advance what they think are the key questions emerging from the recorded presentations which will be addressed in the synchronous discussion. The convenors will also start the synchronous session outlining these questions. Then, each presenter will give a 2min pitch summarising their key argument and another 2min in which they address one of the key questions from the convenors. After this, the discussion will be open to the audience with convenors’ moderation.
This paper focuses on documenting the experiences and lessons learnt in conducting qualitative research with African-based CSOs during COVID-19. It seeks to highlight the personal experiences and reflections on researching African-based CSOs to better inform qualitative scholars working on CSOs.
Paper long abstract:
The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has had a drastic impact on researchers conducting qualitative research and has also disrupted the operations of many Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) across the globe. Studies on CSOs have largely focused on face-to face interactions. However, the COVID-19 pandemic and its associated social distancing and governments travel restrictions has meant that researchers transition from face-to-face interactions to virtual methods. However, there is relatively limited research that comprehensively explores the practical, ethical and logistical considerations issues in designing and engaging in qualitative research on CSOs in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. This article presents a reflexive narrative of the experiences encountered in conducting qualitative research with African-based CSOs by detailing the logistical, practical and ethical issues encountered and how they were addressed. This article draws on insights from interviews and webinars conducted with over 70 African-based CSOs representatives. The paper seeks to highlight the personal experiences and reflections on researching CSOs during the pandemic to better inform qualitative scholars working on CSOs in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper therefore contributes to the emerging literature on virtual qualitative research methods by providing insights and guidelines for future researchers using virtual qualitative methods to study CSOs.
Based on research with NGOs/CBOs in Cape Town and Cali, our paper asks, To what extent can the social infrastructure provided by community-based organisations' pandemic response support (new understandings of) community resilience in cities? Here we present framework, methods and early findings.
Paper long abstract:
Faced with Covid's asymmetrical effects in cities, low-income communities have a critical role in building local resilience. Globally, both pandemic and control measures severely affected residents' ability to meet basic needs, particularly relating to food, services (e.g. health, education and childcare), and access to reliable information. Community-based organisations (CBOs) have played a decisive role in pandemic response in many low-income neighbourhoods, mitigating vulnerabilities by responding to gaps in basic needs provisioning. Yet little is known about their enhanced role in pandemic response, or how this affects community capacity to withstand future crises. Our research explores CBOs' pandemic responses, applying the concept 'social infrastructure' (MacFarlane and Silver 2017) to capture innovative responses to basic needs gaps, dynamic emerging practices, and contextual factors. Using this lens, we explore how CBOs in two highly unequal cities, Cape Town and Cali, have addressed needs relating to food, care and digital inclusion. These three spheres reveal the 'socio-material relations that sustain urban life' (McFarlane & Silver 2017, 463), wherein 'people as infrastructure' (Simone 2004) mesh with material/spatial elements (e.g. food parcels, allotments, care packages, phones, charging stations), shaped by urban conditions such as overcrowding, inadequate public space, and poor-quality services. This comparative project works with partner NGOs Isandla Institute and Predhesca, and two CBOs in each cities, to gather information in four neighbourhoods. It uses interviews, focus groups, digital diaries and documentary analysis to explore these issues with. This paper will present the theoretical framework, methodology and initial comparative findings from the two research sites.
COVID-19 pandemic in India severely impacted the scope and efficiency of the government institutions for providing social safety nets for poor. I use the case study of an NGO India to demonstrate how SHGs by rural women were able to demonstrate resilience in this time of crisis and adapt quickly.
Paper long abstract:
Rajiv Gandhi Mahila Vikas Pariyojana (RGMVP) organises rural women in Uttar Pradesh, India, into Self Help Groups for initiating financial inclusion using the platform for layering health and livelihood interventions. COVID-19 impacted the activities and scope of SHGs, the larger context of its functions, and brought up operational challenges with curbs in external donor funding. However even in limited capacity, SHG's health workers functioned as resource persons for information on hygiene, infectious disease prevention, testing, and provision of drugs and consumables. They were also semi-formal financial institutions when loss of jobs and income was acute. The loans facilitated were used for investments into farms and enterprises, or basic necessities and prevented debt traps and poverty. Finally, the SHGs function as structures where women (from different castes and religions) came together on a common platform to form bonds of solidarity and connect on shared concerns. This is transformative in an otherwise feudal and patriarchal society. Formal institutions and state programmes related to health, education, and law and order are dismal in rural areas and their services were further restricted during the pandemic. SHGs emerged as excellent informal institutions of community networks for provision of continuum of care related to health, education, and finance. SHGs proved to be resilient networks for providing moral and emotional support during extremely difficult and unprecedented times. In rural India, where community networks are the norm, informal institutions have great potential to emerge as excellent social safety nets and ensure equitable response for the most vulnerable.
Drawing on an in-depth participatory case study of a civil society-based accountability activism in Nepal, the paper will explore the potential and limitations of civil society-led activism in constructing and promoting alternative narratives of care and justice in the context of Covid-19 pandemic.
Paper long abstract:
What are the opportunities and challenges for civil society-driven accountability activism to assert the political potentials for a 'just recovery' from the Covid-19 pandemic in Nepal? The proposed paper draws on an ongoing participatory research project involving researchers, civil society activists and practitioners based in Nepal and UK to examine this overarching question. Using the Covid-19 disaster as a site of political possibility, the paper draws on the perspectives and experiences of civil society activists and youth volunteers in Nepal to understand the potential of grassroots activism in challenging intersecting inequalities facing labour migrants in the wake of the Covid-19 crisis in Nepal. The paper will share some emerging evidence from an in-depth, participatory case study of a civil society-driven campaign in Nepal called 'Coronavirus Civic Acts Campaign (CCC)', with a professed goal to alleviate various forms of disadvantages facing returnee migrants and other marginalised communities. The paper shows the political possibilities and challenges of youth-led, bottom-up activism in terms of its ability to construct alternative narratives of care and justice and forge newer alliances to hold the State accountable to the voices of the returnee Nepali migrants. Through co-produced knowledge, we aim to contribute to the ongoing scholarly and practical debates surrounding civil society-led activism under difficult circumstances as a constant process of renewal, contestation, and improvisation in deepening the prospect of a just and democratic recovery from the pandemic.
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Ibrahim Natil (Institute for International Conflict Resolution (IICRR) at DCU)
Short Abstract:
This panel explores COVID-19 and post-pandemic challenges that have influenced the future of sustainable developments as justice, equity, climate and ecological crisis in an urbanising and mobile world in the global south and the global north.
Long Abstract:
The Covid-19 pandemic has profoundly shaken the ways NGOs, CSOs, researchers and practitioners tackle issues of justice and sustainability in the global south and the global north. As explored in our panel at the DSA conference last year, several new dynamics started shaping and changing the civil society sector, including increasing private funding, shrinking of public funding, digitalisation and localisation.
This panel, building on last year discussions, aims at continuing our exploration of these and new dynamics that have emerged in the previous year, how they have affected NGOs and CSOs work and research and how practitioners and researchers have dealt with them.
In particular, we would like to focus on:
- Distinctive country-focused challenges and NGOs/CSOs responses to just futures of sustainable development: while virtually all NGOs have been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, the impact has been different in each country. We welcome contributions that offer in-depth single country perspectives or comparisons among different countries.
- Distinctive sector-specific challenges and NGOs-CSOs responses to Justice and Equity issues: how has the pandemic differently affected ‘operational’ and ‘advocacy’ with regard to Justice and Equity?
-Distinctive methodological challenges. We welcome contributions that focus in particular on:
*Adjusting existing-in progress work, approaches and methodologies to tackle issues of justice and equity: what has the process implied? Who was involved in the decision-making? What solutions were identified?
* Co-production and participation: to what extent and how has COVID-19 impacted co-production and equality in NGO/CSOs work and research?
* Decolonisation: to what extent and how has COVID-19 impacted efforts to decolonise knowledge and approaches in the field of justice and equity?
This panel is organised by the NGO in Development study group and aims to provide a platform for sharing practitioners’ and researchers’ experiences and reflections. We welcome both empirical and theoretical contributions in different styles and at various stages of development.
Methodology
Panellists will upload their materials three weeks before the conference itself. These contributions can take multiple forms, including video, video with slides, slides with audio, podcast/audio only and text only.
Convenors will ask panellists to watch other people’s presentations in advance of the synchronous discussion session(s). The convenors will also share in advance what they think are the key questions emerging from the recorded presentations which will be addressed in the synchronous discussion. The convenors will also start the synchronous session outlining these questions. Then, each presenter will give a 2min pitch summarising their key argument and another 2min in which they address one of the key questions from the convenors. After this, the discussion will be open to the audience with convenors’ moderation.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Friday 8 July, 2022, -Emmanuel Kumi (University of Ghana)
Melanie Lombard (University of Sheffield) Fiona Anciano (University of the Western Cape) Carlos Andrés Tobar Tovar (Pontificia Universidad Javeriana Cali)
Swati Saxena (Cancer Awareness, Prevention, and Early Detection (CAPED))
Nimesh Dhungana (University of Manchester) Narayan Adhikari (Accountability Lab Nepal) Flora Cornish (London School of Economics Political Science) Kripa Basnyat