Women and Gender in International Development Discussion Series (CIRED)

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https://hdl.handle.net/10919/80988

Our mission is to work towards gender equality in development by promoting gender sensitivity in every CIRED (Center for International Research, Education, and Development) project and ensuring that women benefit.

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Now showing 1 - 20 of 35

Beyond 'Women’s Traits': Analyzing Gender and Social Differences for Inclusive Crop Varietal Design
Tufan, Hale Ann (Virginia Tech, 2022-10-13)
Gender is integral to agricultural innovation. Yet, gender relations, social inclusion, power, and agency often remain an afterthought in agricultural innovation processes. Using crop improvement examples, this talk critically explores gender in agricultural innovation and design, including frameworks and approaches for inclusive design, innovative tools and methods that integrate gender research, and how intrahousehold dynamics shape crop trait preferences, varietal adoption and seed systems.
Climate Change and Agrobiodiversity in Nepal: A Gendered Perspective
Bhattarai, Basundhara (Virginia Tech. University Libraries, 2018-04-04)
The WGD program at CIRED has conducted a monthly discussion series for over a decade. Students, faculty, staff and members of the community are encouraged to attend the discussions and bring their ideas and questions. The series offers an opportunity for scholars and development practitioners to share their research and knowledge surrounding gender and international development with the Virginia Tech community and beyond.
Climate Justice, Gender, and Challenges in a Fractured World
Sultana, Farhana (Virginia Tech, 2022-03-24)
Climate change has had unequal and uneven burdens across places whereby the planetary crisis involves a common but differentiated responsibility. The injustices of intensifying climate breakdown, overlapping with injustices from the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, have laid bare the fault lines of suffering across sites and scales. A climate justice framework helps us to think about and address these inequities. Climate justice fundamentally is about paying attention to how climate change multipliers impact people intersectionally, unevenly, and disproportionately, as well as redressing the resultant injustices in fair and equitable ways. In this talk, I discuss how and why a feminist climate justice perspective allows for more equitable interventions to be envisioned and co-created for meaningful impacts in a fractured world.
Economic Development Through Art : Women, Gender & Environment
Zehner, Amanda (Virginia Tech. University Libraries, 2016-11-10)
Small-scale artisans are an important source of economic growth and sustainable livelihood development of great social and cultural significance around the world. Amanda Zehner, founder and owner of Living Threads Company, will discuss the role that business owners, development practitioners, and consumers can play in generating sustainable progress toward solving the challenges these artisans face and improving livelihoods around the world. Ms. Zehner is a Virginia Tech alumna with extensive experience working internationally, including service in the Peace Corps in West Africa. This event is part of the Women and Gender in International Development series and is free and open to the public.
Engaging Men in Supporting Maternal and Child Consumption of Milk and Other Animal Source Foods in Rwanda
Colverson, Kathy (Virginia Tech, 2021-10-21)
Maternal and child nutrition practices, including consumption of milk and animal source foods, are considered the responsibility of women in many low- and middle-income countries. However, men can influence nutrition in their households through their decision-making, control of resources, and social support. Despite the role of gender and the importance of men in influencing nutrition in their households, most nutrition programs target women and men are not comfortable participating. This ongoing project funded by the Livestock Systems Innovation Lab project is exploring methods of engaging men more actively in household nutrition through a combination of training and communication materials tailored to meet their needs. Training materials were developed after extensive field research with men and women using focus groups and key informant interviews. These materials were used to train local partners on providing nutrition education to men, and assess the effectiveness of changes in household nutrition before and after the training. Due to COVID-19 restrictions, the final results are pending, but should be available by the conference. The implications of this research could improve overall household nutrition, particularly as it relates to consumption of animal source foods by women and children.
Experiences in Merging Gender Transformative Approaches With Development Efforts in Aquatic Food Systems in Bangladesh
Choudhury, Afrina (Virginia Tech, 2022-04-14)
Afrina shares her experiences from working in Bangladesh for the past nine years and how her organization has come to embrace gender transformative approaches as a sustainable gender integration approach. She talks about the developmental and research challenges of taking up such an approach within a technical aquaculture environment and why it’s worth it. Finally, she shares how they are expanding gender transformative approach research further into new fields like entrepreneurship.
Food, gender, and identity in a global context: An inter-disciplinary conversation with acclaimed culinary writer Nina Mukerjee Furstenau
Furstenau, Nina M. (Virginia Tech, 2023-04-13)
Food reveals a nuanced trail into the history of a region, what makes comfort there, how worship is celebrated; it reveals the labor involved in fields and kitchens, the trees that fruit, and the soils that sustain. Food story is also a personal journey connected with that community tale. Because of its universality, the sensory act of eating and the story behind that act can reach across boundaries of gender, education, access, conflict, geography, and politics in accessible ways. This approach creates opportunities for not only food research, but for a deep dive into gender roles and identity in a global context. This presentation takes a look at the uneven distribution of information between women and men due to gendered norms, literacy of women, divisions of labor, access to resources, and power relations in the context of food story. In journalism, writers learn to focus on the “five Ws,” and who, what, when, and where often make headlines across media platforms. Time and again, however, it is the last W, why, that is the heart of the story, and the pivot point in social science research. The talk closes with an overview of the field research behind Tasty! Mozambique as an example of using food story to reach across boundaries such as gender and education, followed by discussion on the need to understand cultural settings with a social science approach within research.
Four Stories About Food Sovereignty: The Potential and Limits of Community Action and Transnational Solidarity under Conditions of Global Capitalism
Gill, Bikrum Singh (Virginia Tech. University Libraries, 2019-10-17)
The Women and gender in International Development Discussion Series is organized by the Center for International Research, Education, and Development (CIRED) and is an Inclusive VT initiative of Outreach and International Affairs (OIA). The series offers an opportunity for scholars and development practitioners to share their research and knowledge surrounding gender and international development with the Virginia Tech community and beyond.
Gender and Decision Making: Quinoa Production among Indigenous Women in Rural Ecuador
Cárdenas, Elisa (Virginia Tech, 2021-09-16)
Women’s empowerment can be analyzed in agriculture through their ability to make choices that align with their life goals. Household farm decision-making is often examined as an individual or a jointly made choice, both frequently described as empowering in quantitative studies as women participate in agricultural decisions. However, empowerment is contextual and often difficult to measure and, thus, a qualitative methodology (focus groups and interviews) can better illuminate how joint decision-making processes occur to investigate women’s empowerment. This research asks: how is decision-making among Indigenous women influenced by their gender when producing quinoa in rural Ecuador? The findings include a feminization of agriculture among the participants, in which Indigenous women have become in charge of quinoa production, a traditionally male-dominated crop, due to Indigenous men’s absence in the farm. Furthermore, the participants described decision-making as jointly made, but men had greater authority, which was influenced by their religious beliefs, and men often made final decisions even when they had little or no participation in the farm work. Overall, women’s participation in quinoa production increased, but because the participants associated men as heads of household, women’s decision-making power was still limited even as they have become principal farmers. This study contributes to the literature of decision-making and demonstrates the importance of contextual characteristics, such as the feminization of agriculture, that influence decision-making processes. Overall, Indigenous women farmers are limited by patriarchal norms in their decision-making opportunities and overall empowerment.
Gender in Field Research, Gender in Academia: Navigating Multiple Identity Positions
Haenn, Nora (Virginia Tech, 2022-09-08)
Drawing on research that examines masculinity in a male-dominated, small-scale Mexican fishery, this talk explores gender as both an object of study and an identity that researchers must navigate as we traverse institutional and cultural settings. Research on fisheries and other common pool resources often relies on ideas of social capital to explain the communitarianism underpinning their management. One prominent definition of social capital emphasizes trust. That is, researchers argue social capital in the form of mutual dependability and shared expectations is essential to the social bonds that facilitate common pool management. Paradoxically, fishermen in San Evaristo on Mexico’s Baja Peninsula explained, “lies build trust.” Unpacking this notion, I employ an understanding of social capital as process to show that connections between trust and social capital are far from straightforward. In San Evaristo, fishermen worked assiduously to craft harmony and fend off deceit. They did so by creating a linguistic world unto themselves, a world of ribald jokes and non-stop boundary pushing. This world excluded women and calls for consideration of the gendered worlds through which researchers move. What happens when gendered researchers meet gendered social capital? The talk closes by inviting discussion of practical strategies women and men can employ to navigate gendered social structures and cultural norms.
Gender Transformations Embedded in Livelihood Transitions: Changes and Continuities in Hmong Gender Roles and Relations in Northern Thailand
Langill, Jennifer (Virginia Tech, 2023-10-12)
Feminist research has long critiqued the overly economic focus of development studies and scholarship, calling for greater attention to the gender and broader social dimensions of development. While we are seeing much more gender sensitivity in development discourse, overwhelmingly approaches remain siloed between economic and feminist lenses. In this talk, I present an integrated gender and development analysis of livelihood change in an ethnic Hmong village in northern Thailand. I outline 30 years of livelihood transitions in this village through the entry point of gender roles and relations. Such an approach identifies both gender transformations as well as gender tensions and inequities that persist. I argue that gender is more than context and outcome, but woven throughout all forms of livelihood, economic, and environmental change.
Gender, Labor, and Livelihood: Invasive Pest Management in a Rural Ethiopian Community
Sumner, Daniel M. (Virginia Tech Libraries, 2017-09-07)
This presentation discusses recent research exploring the intersection between labor, gender, livelihoods, and pest management. We document how gender relations, norms, and attitudes determine how women and men are involved in managing invasive agricultural weeds as well as potential gender differentiated impacts. In Boset district (woreda), Ethiopia the invasive plant Parthenium hysterophorus L., is adversely affecting rural livelihoods, reducing agricultural productivity; biodiversity; livestock health and income generation. In response to these growing challenges, a research for development program has been developing biological control methods using natural insect enemies as an ecologically viable, cost-effective, and environmentally safe approach to manage Parthenium. Drawing upon individual interviews, our preliminary findings suggest that while managing Parthenium is a “family affair”, with all household members mobilized to control the weed, the additional time required to manage Parthenium disproportionately impacts women, whose overall labor burden is substantially increased. This presentation will conclude with recommendations for developing a gender-responsive outreach strategy for communicating information about new pest management options.
The Gendering of Climate Change Scholarship in Africa
Vercillo, Siera (Virginia Tech, 2022-11-10)
There is increasing recognition of the importance of conducting gendered analysis within climate change research. Africa features prominently in the literature on climate change as people and governments across the continent are disproportionately vulnerable to its impacts, with limited capacity to mitigate and adapt to increasingly erratic rainfall, heat stress, drought, flooding, and sea-level rise. Women and men face uneven vulnerabilities to climate change because of differences in gendered norms, divisions of labor, resource access and power relations. This presentation will report the findings from a systematic review conducted of all 260 studies published in the Web of Science on gender and climate change in Africa and offer suggestions for future research in this area. While there is no strong methodological bias found in this literature, comparative case studies and sex-disaggregated analyses predominate from a limited set of countries. Many articles covered the agrarian sector by comparing women’s and men’s on-farm vulnerability to a changing climate based on their adaptation behaviors. Though this literature recognizes women’s important conservation, farming, and food responsibilities, it oftentimes generalized these contributions without providing evidence. A number of important themes were generally missing in this literature, including research on coastal areas, conflict, education, energy, migration, urban areas, and water. Overall, more justice-oriented research is needed into the socioeconomic structures that intersect with varied social identities to make certain people, places, and institutions more vulnerable. Investigations into the power dynamics between (social) scientists and African institutions are also needed as most articles reviewed stem from North America and Europe and are locked beyond paywalls.
Geography and the Environment Through Kitchenspace: Cultural Ecology in the House-lot Garden in Central Mexico
Christie, Maria Elisa (Virginia Tech. University Libraries, 2018-03-16)
The WGD program at CIRED has conducted a monthly discussion series for over a decade. Students, faculty, staff and members of the community are encouraged to attend the discussions and bring their ideas and questions. The series offers an opportunity for scholars and development practitioners to share their research and knowledge surrounding gender and international development with the Virginia Tech community and beyond.
Governance, Livelihoods and Gender Issues in Run-of-the-River Hydropower Project Areas in Uttarakhand, India
Buechler, Stephanie (Virginia Tech. University Libraries, 2016-10-13)
As part of the Women and Gender in International Development discussion series, Dr. Stephanie Buechler, Assistant Research Professor in the School of Geography and Development at the University of Arizona, will present on run-of-the river hydropower projects in the Himalayan state of Uttarakhand, India. Currently 450 hydroelectric power schemes are proposed or are under development in this region. Run-of-the-river hydropower projects are being developed in order to avoid some of the costs to local communities and to the environment created by large dams. Stakeholders in this rapid hydropower expansion in Uttarakhand include urban and rural actors, often with diverging interests. The resulting governance challenges are centered on tradeoffs between local electricity and revenue from sale of hydropower on the one hand, and impacts to small-scale irrigation systems, riparian-corridor ecosystem services, and other natural resource-based livelihoods on the other. This study focused on the Bhilangana River basin, where gender differentiated livelihoods dependent on water include farming, fishing, livestock rearing and fodder collection. The purpose was to identify strategies that safeguard or enhance livelihoods of women, youth, and men in areas with hydropower projects, while also maintaining critical ecosystem services for headwater regions across the Himalayas and globally. The presentation is hosted by Women and Gender in International Development of the Office of International Research, Education, and Development (OIRED)and is co-sponsored by the Geography Department, Women's and Gender Studies,and the Virginia Water Resources Research Center.
Grassroots lessons: Implementation of pension schemes for single women and the elderly in Jharkhand, India
Raonka, Pallavi (2015-02-05)
There is ongoing debate in India on whether Government spending on social security schemes should be cut. Advocates for spending cuts claim that they do not reach their intended people. However there is not much. There is lack of scholarship examining grassroots- level - implementation of pension schemes. This paper presents the data collected from field - based research in the Indian state of Jharkhand regarding the implementation of the National Social Assistance Program (NSAP). In contrast to the claims of low spending advocates we found high awareness of Central Government entitlements , among pensioners, that the scheme is reaching its intended people, - and that payments are supporting the most vulnerable and marginalized members of Indian society. This study draws upon the 81 interviews conducted with pensioners in January 2013 in Jharkhand, which is a poor state in eastern India where corruption is widespread. While we found that the pension schemes were being effectively implemented, we also found that there are considerable shortcomings, such as high transaction costs, confusing procedures, and unpredictability in payments. We also analysed the effectiveness of advocacy by groups such as Pension Parishad who support public action to extend the coverage of NSAP to poor widows and elderly people. This paper draws upon the voices of the people of Jharkhand to consider the importance of pension schemes and how they can be better implemented. The WGD program has sponsored a discussion series for the past several years, giving students and professionals an opportunity to share their research and discuss issues of Women and Gender in International Development.
Healing Cartographies: Body Mapping by Guatemalan Women Survivors of Genocide
Macal, Carla (Virginia Tech, 2024-02-26)
In this discussion, I examine the embodied transformative memory of GuateMaya feminist groups in Guatemala and in Los Angeles. Through a decolonial feminist perspective and feminist ethnographic approach, I built intimate relationships with the grassroots groups. This presentation will explore the multidimensional ways the groups create a transformative memory opposing Guatemala and U.S. states of what can be remembered and what can’t. The groups are committed to what I call cartographies of healing, weaving memory, movement, and embodied testimonios across settler-colonial borders. The groups honor loved ones' memory by installing public altars, photos, art, and poetry. The presentation will delve into the concept of cartographies of healing and the ethnographic work I employed from 2019 to 2023. A particular method I used was body mapping to examine the embodied transformative memory of the groups and women who seek justice. Body mapping has been used with HIV-positive patients and migrant children. Latin American feminist decolonial geographers (Cabnal 2010; Zaragocin 2020, GeoBrujas 2021) are using the method of body mapping as a decolonial, counter-cartographic perspective that highlights Indigenous peoples’ lived experiences. I use the method to explore the relationships between the body, memory, and healing from intergenerational trauma. Informed by decolonial feminists, I aim to center the testimonios of GuateMaya feminist groups and be guided by a body-mind-spirit perspective to amplify the concerns, visions, and futures of GuateMaya groups across the hemisphere.
The Impact of Culture and Family: Women's Education and their Role in Development in South Sudan
Lado, Flora E. S. (Virginia Tech. University Libraries, 2017-10-19)
The WGD discussion series aims to provide an avenue for prominent scholars from inside and outside the university as well as Virginia Tech students to share their research studies and discuss issues of women, gender, and international development with the greater Virginia Tech community.
Intersections of Vulnerabilities: Multiple Marginalized Experiences of Women and Girls with Disabilities in Nepal
Khanal, Neeti (Virginia Tech, 2024-03-14)
Nepal, known as one of the 48 Least Developed Countries in the world, is now on its preparatory five-year plan (2021-2024) to graduate toward being a developing country. This possible graduation however is happening without much visible improvement in status of one of the most marginalized groups in Nepal: women and girls with disabilities. In the presentation, Dr. Neeti will discuss how the experience of women and girls with disabilities is shaped by the complex intersection of ableism and patriarchy. These intersections are further heightened by four barriers: social, physical, communication and institutional, and policy. Further, these experiences are shaped by other aspects of social identities of women and girls with disabilities: caste/ethnicity, class, education, social capital, and place of residence. Nepal has ratified a number of conventions and treaties including the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. However, women and girls with disabilities, despite being one of the most marginalized and excluded groups in Nepal, continue to remain invisible in state legislation, policy, and programs. This presentation is based on Neeti Aryal Khanal’s two-decade-long research-based activism on various aspects of women and girls with disabilities in Nepal: gender-based violence, sexual and reproductive health, experience of motherhood, and institutional and policy barriers.
The local meanings of empowerment and lessons for gender inclusive agri-food system programming in Uganda
Boonabaana, Brenda (Virginia Tech, 2024-10-17)
Several agricultural interventions that aim to empower women smallholder farmers in Africa are often top-down and disconnected from the local experiences and expectations of empowerment. This makes it difficult for well-intentioned programs to achieve the desired empowerment outcomes for women. Paying attention to the local understanding of empowerment provides utility for understanding the different local meanings but also the underlying social drivers attached to those meanings. It also creates opportunities for community co-creation of more locally acceptable and sustainable empowerment solutions. My presentation focuses on the meanings of empowerment for rural women and men farmers in Uganda, key areas of rural women’s disempowerment, and implications for their meaningful participation in, and benefits from, agricultural opportunities.

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