Gender And Participation - Participatory Methods
GENDER AND PARTICIPATIONOverview ReportSupriya Akerkar Institute of Development Studies, November 2001ISBN 1 85864 385 6
Contents1. Introduction .12. Concepts, Approaches and Methodologies.22.1 What counts as participation? .22.2 From ‘Women in Development’ to ‘Gender and Development’ .22.3 Why has Gender and Development not been more participatory? .32.4 Why have participatory approaches not been more gender aware?.32.5 Gender and participation: Learning from each other.43. Gender and Participation in Projects and Programmes .63.1 Where participatory projects ignored gender .63.2 Combining participation and awareness of gender and other differences .73.3 Mainstreaming gender and participation into projects and programmes .114. Gender and Participation in the Policy context.154.1 Participatory Poverty Assessments (PPAs) .154.2 Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) .164.3 National women’s machineries and their influence on planning processes .184.4 Gender budget analysis .184.5 Lessons learnt from these measures .194.6 Decentralisation and affirmative action: increasing participation of women inpolicy-making bodies and processes .205. Conclusions.235.1 Recommendations of good practices to institutionalise participatory processesand gender issues at different levels.245.2 The review of gender and participation issues, three critical knowledge gaps .256. Bibliography .26
1. Introduction1Concepts of ‘participation’ and ‘gender’ have been a part of emancipatory discourseand practices for the last decade. Advocates of these concepts have claimed that theyallow the representation of the most marginalised groups – women and the poor.However both approaches have also been accused of being co-opted and providing lipservice to the interests of the most marginalised sections that they claim to represent.A common mistake of some applications of gender and participation approaches is thefailure to be aware of conflicting interests between groups. Both approaches have hadto encounter a similar set of questions from critics, such as: To what extent can gendertake account not only of the differences between men and women, but also ofdifferences between women, and between men, along the axes of class, age, ethnicity,race, caste, sexuality etc.? And to what extent have participatory methods allowedexpression of divergent voices along the lines of gender, as well as other differences?The similarity of questions posed in both cases has now led people using bothapproaches to take a critical note of and learn from each other.This report looks at convergences between approaches to gender and to participation,how these have been played out, and how they have been or could be constructivelyintegrated into projects, programmes, policies, and institutions. In the following section,background is given on the concepts of gender and participation, why there has notbeen more interaction in the past, and attempts for learning across these twoapproaches. Part three looks at efforts to combine participatory methodologies andgender in projects. Part four describes ways in which the two have been used toinfluence policy and to what extent measures have been institutionalised. Part fiveconcludes the paper, draws out recommendations for policy, projects andprogrammes, and identifies gaps in research on this area.This report forms part of the Cutting Edge Gender Knowledge Pack on Gender andParticipation which also includes a summary of this report, a copy of the BRIDGEbulletin in brief on the same theme and a collection of supporting resources.1BRIDGE thanks Andrea Cornwall for her advice and editing of this report.1
2. Concepts, Approaches and Methodologies2.1 What counts as participation?Participation can mean many different things. In this paper we use participation to referto both the use of participatory methodologies in development projects, and taking partin governmental and other political processes.Participatory methodologiesParticipatory methodologies are now commonly used in development projects. One ofthe better known methodologies is Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) which is usedwidely for development planning. PRA draws on Freire’s legacy of critical reflectionand other, earlier participatory research methods to develop a set of practices, toolsand methodologies which facilitate critical reflection, analysis and action bymarginalised groups. The aim is for local people to be able to represent and analyseinformation about their livelihoods or other issues, and make their own plans. Thislearning process is enhanced by the use of visual graphics and can motivate thoseinvolved – researchers, development practitioners, local people and policy makers, tobehave differently and to undertake different kinds of action (Guijt and Cornwall, 1995:3).Genuine or hypocrisy?The word participation has been used in development projects with a range ofmeanings. While it can refer to genuine intent to hand over the power to interpret,analyse and come up with solutions, in some cases, imposition of donor agendas hasbeen justified by cursory consultation processes which are then referred to asparticipatory.2.2 From ‘Women in Development’ to ‘Gender and Development’Since the seventies, gender has become increasingly visible as an issue indevelopment. Development workers became aware that women had been excludedfrom much of the benefits of development activity. In response, a ‘Women inDevelopment’ (WID) agenda was advocated, which aimed to increase local women’sinvolvement in the market economy and project activities. However, problems with thisapproach soon became apparent. Women were already working hard, particularly poorwomen, and women’s labour was already a part of the economy, although notnecessarily recognised as such, or remunerated. Increasing their ‘involvement’ inproject and market at times meant primarily increasing their labour burden.Furthermore, the WID approach focussed on women without looking at their context.Trying to change the situation of a group of women without looking at how the men intheir lives might be affected made for an ineffective strategy. In the 1990s ‘Gender andDevelopment’ (GAD) was touted as the new approach which was to overcome theshortcomings of WID. GAD aims to look at the social relations and interactionsbetween women and men, and the contexts and constructions of masculinities andfemininities. To some degree the GAD approach has brought about real change,however in practice some ‘GAD’ interventions may continue WID’s distorted focus onwomen in isolation from their context.2
Several gender analysis frameworks have been developed as the tools of GAD, withthe aim of enabling development planners to systematically understand gender issuesin their local contexts and find ways of addressing them at every stage of the projectcycle (Mayoux, 1995). However, translating these gender analysis frameworks intopractical tools to enable gender redistributive responses and strategies is easier saidthan done. The search for tools and frameworks to integrate gender sensitive data andpractices to projects and policies implies a faith that technique can override forms ofprejudice embedded in organisational systems and work cultures. Framing gender asa technical issue underestimates the role of discriminatory gendered patterns inincentive systems, accountability structures and the bureaucratic procedures andinstitutional practices of development organisations (Goetz, 1997). As a result,changes to more equal gender relations remain an elusive goal in spite of theincorporation of gender analysis frameworks into many projects and programmes.2.3 Why has Gender and Development not been more participatory?The inadequacy of these frameworks in understanding and addressing gender realitiesindicates the need for participatory approaches to bring the voices and strategies ofdifferent groups of stakeholders into the process. One reason may be that Gender andDevelopment involves the application of external models and concepts as the basis fordesigning or assessing the differential impact of interventions for women and men. Incontrast, participatory approaches deriving from the PRA school of practice try toenable local people to articulate and analyse their own situations for themselves ontheir own terms. This leaves little room for facilitators to challenge aspects of the statusquo, which may be objectionable to feminists (Cornwall, 2001). This ‘top down’conceptualisation of gender in development circles has limited openness to divergentexperiences which may come to light in participatory activities. Fixed ideas of genderare not compatible with the complex, varied and changing realities that may bereflected in participatory reflections on gender.The following trends have thus inhibited gender and development work from beingmore participatory: Operational frameworks tend to treat men and women as if they comprisedinstantly identifiable groups by virtue of their sex alone, and as if women havedifferent interests and competing claims with men. This isolates women and menfrom the web of social relations that are important for their well-being.A focus on women may mask other forms of exclusion and differences within thecategory ‘woman’. Women are also active in relations of dominance anddisprivilege and are not necessarily more open to sharing power and control thanmen.Gender relations generally refer to that dimension of male/female relations thatinvolve actual or potential heterosexual relations. Other kind of male-femalerelations and also gender dimensions of same sex relations are ignored (Cornwall,2001).2.4 Why have participatory approaches not been more gender aware?Just as gender work has ignored participation, participation has also lacked anawareness of gender and gender differences.3
Gender was hidden [in participatory research] in seemingly inclusiveterms: ‘the people’, ‘the oppressed’, ‘the campesinos’, or simply ‘thecommunity’. It was only when comparing projects that it became clearthat ‘the community’ was all too often the male community (Maguire,1996 cited in Guijt and Shah, 1998: 1).PRA methods for example, are in themselves largely gender neutral. PRA facilitatorswho lack a concern with process, power and difference can easily reinforce forms ofdevelopment practice that do little to address inequalities. Numerous so-called'transformative' projects pay little attention to gender, and support a highly inequitablestatus quo. This is in part due to PRA’s tendency to look for consensus andagreement within the target group, based on the often mistaken idea that a certainlevel of cohesiveness and common interests will be found within a community. In herarticle ‘Rescuing gender from the poverty trap’, Cecile Jackson argues that inparticipatory approaches, and in PRA in particular, it should not be assumed thatwomen can or will express their priorities to facilitators. This is largely because theyare generally excluded from dominant worldviews and male vocabularies (Jackson,1996).Irene Guijt and Meera Kaul Shah have also identified obstacles to participatoryapproaches addressing gender: Development has been driven largely by a poverty-alleviation agenda that hasresulted in the analysis of social difference being limited to those below and thoseabove the ‘poverty line’ rather than addressing differences such as gender andage.Development professionals were initially mainly men, making communication withwomen culturally difficult in many areas. Moreover they were not generallyexposed to gender analyses.Negotiating structural change with men and women takes time and courage,making it an unappealing task for donors and many NGOs. The association with awestern imposed feminist agenda - an association heightened by pressure fromdonors - has exacerbated the unpopularity of tackling structural change in genderrelations (Guijt and Shah, 1998).2.5 Gender and participation: Learning from each otherTo some extent, both participation and gender practitioners have responded tocriticisms of their mutual ignorance, and strategies have been found which bring thetwo together.The transformative or the empowerment approach to gender issues originated infeminist and third world organisations such as DAWN (Development Alternatives forWomen in a New Era), and emphasised the collective dimensions of empowerment.DAWN stressed the need for a new vision of development based on the perspective ofwomen in developing countries, which promoted change towards a society free ofpoverty and inequality. The core methods were political mobilisation, legal changes,consciousness raising and popular education. This had implications for organisationalstructures and procedures such as democratic processes, dialogue, participation in4
policy and decision making and techniques for conflict resolution (Sen and Grown citedin Oxaal et al., 1997).The empowerment approach to gender issues connected participation anddevelopment in a transformative sense, in so far as change was to be driven by selfmobilisation of women’s collectivity leading to a wider process of social transformationand a potential challenge to existing power structures. It also meant allowingconflicting interpretations of the social reality to surface within the communities namely from women and men from different social groups/classes. The idea was thatsensitive facilitation would lead to a realignment of social practices. This, in turn meantgender sensitive development practices would have to ask questions such as thoseposed by Robert Chambers in 1997: Whose knowledge counts?Whose values?Whose criteria and preferences?Whose appraisal, analysis and planning?Whose action?Whose monitoring and evaluation?Whose learning?Whose empowerment?Whose reality counts? (Chambers, 1997: 101)In other words, initiating gender sensitive changes would need skills, tools, andmethodologies, which would allow differing and even conflictual articulations of socialreality within the communities, and would promote local engagement on these differentunderstandings to bring about gender redistributive change. Several projects havetoday turned to the use of participatory methodologies in order to enable localownership over such processes of social change. Insights from gender analysis, forexample the need for gender disaggregated data, and separate meetings for womenand men, have also enriched participatory methodologies.Some participatory methodologies are based on the assumption that communities arefairly homogenous, and able to come to a consensus on a range of problems andsolutions. Some gender approaches assume that women share a set of interestswhich differ from a set of interests shared among men. There are now howeverexamples of these approaches combining in the realisation that they hadunderestimated the diversity and conflict within communities, and within groups ofwomen and men, and that the lines of division may be multiple: ethnicity, caste, race,class, culture, sexuality, education, physical ability as well as gender, economicdifference and many other factors. The following section presents some case studiesof projects which failed to take account of this multiplicity of interests, and then moveson to examples of those which succeeded in doing so.5
3. Gender and Participation in Projects andProgrammes3.1 Where participatory projects ignored genderCase I: The Kribhco Indo British Rainfed Farming ProjectThis poverty and gender focused project in India has the objectives of building localcapacity to manage natural resources and improve the ability of the poorest people toaccess government programmes. In July 1992, after extensive training in PRAmethods, community organisers began their entry into the villages and conductedPRAs.Organised as social and public events, the PRAs had implications for the kind ofinformation that was generated. For example, being initial PRAs they rarely involvedall sections of the village community; gender, age, kinship and education allinfluenced the nature of participation. In particular women’s participation was found tobe limited and discontinuous as women faced a number of practical constraints toparticipation, such as timing of the PRA which clashed with women’s weeding work.Women also faced social constraints such as their cultural exclusion from publicspaces and activities such as those outlined above. Public expressions of women’sinterests generally revolved around issues such as health care, child care, nutrition,domestic work and home-based income generation activities, and therefore offered asocially acceptable profile of women’s activities. Women are also excluded from themapping of natural resources, and the methods used in the PRAs failed to incorporateseveral of the women’s concerns, such as overwork and violence from husbands, asthese could not be expressed spatially through maps and charts. Further, as publicevents, PRAs emphasised the general over the particular which led to a unitary viewof interests, underplaying difference and conflict. The very structure of PRAs whichinvolved group activities leading to plenary presentations, assumed and encouragedthe expression of consensus (Mosse, 1995).Case II: Joint Forest Management (JFM) Project, IndiaJoint Forest Management (JFM) had initial success due to the initiative of localforesters in West Bengal and is seen by certain sections of development professionalsas an alternative to the traditional practices of centralised forest management in India.PRA tools are used to develop a village forest management plan. Typically, PRAsessions are held in the village where discussions are arranged between differentgroups (mostly men but also some’ women) on the history, use of the forests, andproblems faced. A problem analysis in PRAs highlighted how excessive andunrestricted use of the forests had led to their degradation. It therefore containedsolutions fencing of certain areas for regeneration and planting new saplings, to restrictpeople’s access to forests in their own interests. Access and use of certain parts offorests has consequently been restricted in a number of places where JFM has beeninitiated.Fencing has led to several negative impacts on poor women and groups whoselivelihoods were dependent upon forests for fuel, fodder and other survival needs. Itwas found that fencing had led to an increase in women’s work, particularly poor6
women who were dependent upon the forests for fuel. They now had to walk a muchlonger distance due to the fencing of the nearer forests. In addition, the livelihoods ofmen and women dependent upon forests were often also severely affected. In theHimachal Pradesh Forestry Project, it was found that people had to sell off their sheepand goats a
the better known methodologies is Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) which is used widely for development planning. PRA draws on Freire’s legacy of critical reflection and other, earlier participatory research methods to develop a set of practices, tools and methodologies which facilitate critical reflection, analysis and action by
PLA: Participatory Learning and Action; PAR: Participatory Action research; PAD: Participatory Action Development; PALM: Participatory Learning Methods; PRA: Participatory Rural Appraisal. . that it is action based upon understanding achieved through the analysis of research information. Strategic action (Grundy and Kemmis, 1982)
accessible and diverse gender information. It is one of a family of knowledge services based at IDS . Other recent publications in the Cutting Edge Pack series: Gender and Care, 2009 Gender and Indicators, 2007 Gender and Sexuality, 2007 Gender and Trade, 2006 Gender and Migration, 2005 Gender and ICTs, 2004 . 6.3.1 Gender mainstreaming .
facing these programs is to be participatory not only in planning and implementation of activities, but also in their evaluation. However, participatory evaluation of participatory research raises conceptual, methodological and other related issues. Among these are: shared understanding of participatory evaluation by program stakeholders, cost-
Participatory Action Research (PAR) Participatory Action Research Steps Similar to popular education, participatory action research is a pro-cess of collective inquiry to reach a deeper understanding of the context and causes of a problem impacting a community. As with popular education, the ultimate goal of participatory action research .
Early Approaches to Participatory Research Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) - approaches and methods to enable local people to share, enhance and analyze their knowledge of life and conditions, to plan and to act (Chambers, 1994: 953) Key different between participatory and other research methodologies lies in the location of power in
of justas many participatory methods.In addition to these fiches,you will find a brief overview of almost40 other methods and techniques.An introductory chapter,with a comparative chartof the discussed methods,and a chapter with general guidelines for using participatory methods complete the toolkit.
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