Women and Gender in Development Conference (CIRED)
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- Gender and Empowerment in Participatory ResearchOberhauser, Ann M. (2019-03-01)In recent decades, participatory research has become more diversified in terms of the types of approaches and applications in the development arena. Feminist and gender studies continue to interrogate the complex and often contested dimensions of participatory research by focusing on the power relations that comprise different aspects of the research process. This workshop draws from feminist perspectives on participatory research, addressing sustainable community development, gender and other inequality, rapid rural appraisal, and specific techniques and goals of these methods. Participatory research grew out of development approaches that challenge conventional, top-down, and modernist development projects and research. Participatory approaches focus on perspectives that are grounded in community-based knowledge, shifting locations of power, transformation, and shared outcomes in the research process. Feminist research examines gender inequalities that are manifest in the cultural norms, economic status, and political institutions of the field. This workshop explores dynamic and critical research that contributes to both participatory and feminist approaches in diverse geographical contexts. Topics that will be addressed in the workshop include techniques and thematic issues such as natural resource access, mobility patterns, household dynamics, sustainable development, and gender-based violence. Participants are asked to bring their own ideas about and experiences using participatory research to the workshop. We will engage in activities and focused discussions about how to effective apply feminist participatory methods in our research.
- Gender in food security programs: Take-away for moving towards more inclusive systemsJacobs, Krista (Virginia Tech, 2019-03-01)Development researchers and practitioners have an opportunity and responsibility to create processes where the experiences of the different populations where we work inform the design and implementation of programs and research. The conference has highlighted gender-responsive and community-centered approaches in agriculture, health, and natural resources. Integrating gender equality and women’s empowerment into Feed the Future, the U.S. Government’s global hunger and food security initiative, is an ongoing effort of clarifying aims and expectations amongst ourselves and with our partners and of building gender capacity across technical staff and leadership. The Global Food Security Strategy and the accompanying Research Strategy mark (1) a shift to using an agricultural and food systems approach – which necessarily involves a greater variety of populations and actors, including the private sector; (2) an emphasis on building communities’ resilience to threats to food security; and (3) human impacts of Feed the Future’s research and programs. We expect to be thinking more about fostering gender equality and women’s empowerment in agricultural systems beyond smallholder production; balancing the needs for intersectional analysis and approaches with efficient data collection and use; and understanding gendered use of and benefit from agricultural technologies. Lessons learned and questions arising from Feed the Future and the wider field have implications for how gender equity and women’s empowerment are measured and for the capacities needed to conduct research and programming in agricultural and food systems.
- Panel One: Power, Positionality, & IntersectionalityFaria, Caroline; Kato-Wallace, Jane; Van Houweling, Emily (Virginia Tech, 2019-02-28)Power, Positionality & Intersectionality - an interactive panel Moderator: Dr. Maria Elisa Christie, Director, Women and Gender in International Development, CIRED, Virginia Tech *Critical feminist reflexivity & the politics of whiteness in the ‘field’ - Dr. Caroline Faria, Assistant Professor, Department of Geography and the Environment, The University of Texas at Austin *Engaging men & transforming masculinities for gender equality: What we know - Jane Kato-Wallace, Director of Programs, Promundo *Misinterpreting women’s empowerment?: How a feminist postcolonial lens can reveal new dimensions of change in women’s lives - Dr. Emily Van Houweling, Assistant Professor, Masters in Development Practice, Regis University.
- Women and Gender in Development Conference 2019(Virginia Tech, 2019-02-28)The conference program for the Women and Gender in Development Conference 2019, held February 28-March 1 at the Inn at Virginia Tech.
- The SDG gender equality agenda and the distribution of land: Research challengesDeere, Carmen Diana (Virginia Tech, 2019-02-28)Among the advances in the 2030 Sustainable Development agenda is that the goal to achieve gender equality and empower women now has nine specific targets. These cover many of the root causes of gender inequality, including women’s unequal access to economic resources. This presentation focuses on women’s ownership and control over land in Africa, Asia and Latin America and why its distribution remains a pressing development concern. Moreover, the lack of data on women’s land ownership until recently has stymied research on a number of critical questions, for example, the relationship between land ownership and agricultural decision-making and whether it makes a difference if women own land individually or jointly with their spouse. Similarly, whether land ownership or off-farm employment contribute more to enhance women’s intra-household bargaining power and better outcomes for women and children. The SDG gender equality indicators on land provide a timely opportunity to advance feminist research, but require a strong lobbying effort to assure compliance.