What Does ‘Transformative Change’ Mean in
Feminist Research and
How might it be Achieved?
A Presentation is based on Ph.D Research
Clíonadh O’ Keeffe
The School of Political Science and Sociology, NUIG.
DSAI Conference 2015
GENDER EQUALITY AND THE POST 2015 AGENDA
•
Post 2015 Development Agenda has the potential to bring about lasting change in
the power and choices women
•
We know that the concept of gender equality informing the targets now moved
beyond a focus on the public sphere and now includes the household and the
community.
•
Critically the gender goal and its targets consider a range of important factors that
shape women's daily lives and their ability to realise their rights. These include:
 the conditions and type of work in paid employment
 the burden of unpaid caring labour,
 the impact of violence and conflict and
 whether women have control over their own resources and incomes.
Presentation Focus and Overview
• Focus:
‘Transformative' aspect of the research questions and the methodology used
in the analysis of gender relations and women's experiences of gender,
poverty and violence in post independent Timor-Leste.
• Presentation Overview
i) Critiquing Gender Mainstreaming
ii) A Transformative Methodology
iii) Theorising for Transformation: Connell's Theory of Gender and Power
PROMOTING GENDER EQUALITY IN POST
CONFLICT CONTEXTS
• Global strategies such as gender mainstreaming have been
unable to successfully address gender inequality;
• Failure of to recognise and address gender and power
dynamics embedded within unequal social and economic
structures that give rise to women's everyday hardships;
• Understanding what a gender actually means has to be
clarified if development and peacebuilding interventions
are to successfully implement 'transformative' gender
mainstreaming policies (True, 2013).
Gender Mainstreaming
A Transformative Strategy?
Empirically:
Unable to challenge structures and practices
that reproduce gender inequality.
Theoretical deficits:
lack of understanding of gender
processes leading to gender inequality,
context and specifically
Research Questions
• What are the various dimensions of women's experiences
of structural inequality?
• How are gender, poverty and violence interacting in ways
that shape the lives of women and reproduce gender
inequality?
• How might post-conflict dynamics be breaking up or
exacerbating this mutually constitutive relationship?
Research Methodology and Methods
•
Qualitative, Feminist Standpoint:
•
Intersectional approach - FGD and Unstructured interviews
•
Four villages: two urban and two rural
•
Grounded Approach: focus on the private domain.
•
Iterative theorising: thematic analysis is followed by theoretical analysis
3 themes from within the data namely:
Gendered Poverty and Standards of Living (motherhood)
Gender-based Violence in the Family (Marriage)
Gendered Politics in the village council
Gender Analysis
Theorising Gender, Poverty and Violence
Connell and Beyond
Connell’s Theory of Gender and Power:
Understanding the meaning of gender in post-conflict context;
Labour, Power, Cathexis
Substantive theories
GBV: substantive theory of violence in post-conflict context
Poverty: Multiple dimensions of poverty: Chant and Kabeer, Lynch
Conflict dimension:
The back-lash: Being sensitive to the post-conflict context:
Militarised and violent masculinities, maternal femininities
Conclusion
• What does ‘transformative change’ mean and
how might it be achieved?
Gender relations: unpacking gender and poverty
and violence (back to the research question);
What have the women’s told me:
The complex dynamics and role of power and
norms in their everyday lives;