H2020Individual fellowship2017–2018

WoRD-DoME · Women's Economic Rights and Cultural Difference: Defining Development for the Middle East

Horizon 2020 — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions

Duration: 2017-07-01 → 2018-09-30
EU contribution: €117,137
Participants: 1
Scheme: MSCA-IF-EF-ST

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Results in brief

Women's Economic Rights and Cultural Difference: Defining Development for the Middle East

This research addresses a gap in studies of gender and development. Although we know about the workings of power inequalities in development program implementation, we know less about agency formation and inequality in institutional processes. Although we highlight problems in development programs, we have less insight into how negotiations inside institutions produce them. We also know little about how assumptions about culture and cultural difference figure in these processes and their implications for questions of gender inequality. This interdisciplinary research fills these gaps. It asks: 1. How do assumptions about culture and discourses of cultural difference interact with development agendas? 2. How do gender experts experience and strategize during these encounters? 3. What are the outcomes in terms of official programs and mandates? 4. What do these processes suggest for how gender and culture interact in development work? It has three objectives: 1) Exploring how discourses of cultural difference and women’s rights interact in development agendas. 2) Studying gender experts’ experience with the construction of notions of culture. 3) To develop new theory. The project is also socially relevant in a world where conservative politics in different parts of the world can use arguments of cultural difference to justify political action against rights-based claims. Those who advocate for expanded rights can find themselves facing accusations of orientalism and western imperialism. This research advances a perspective that acknowledges cultural diversity, but also highlights questions about who defines culture and underlying power relations. The research contributes to broader discussions of how discourses of culture and rights interact in everyday politics.

Data: CORDIS, © European Union

Project objective

This research focuses on tensions between discourses of multiculturalism and women’s economic rights and the processes in which they arise in development institutions and programs. While the multidisciplinary literature on development unpacks public declarations by development institutions and studies the local implementation of development programs, it evades two crucial questions: conditions of agency formation and inequality in institutional processes, and the role assumptions about cultural difference play in development paradigms. This research fills these gaps by exploring how issues of women’s economic rights and notions of cultural difference are negotiated inside development institutions and reflected in their programs. The research deploys two data collection strategies, longitudinal content and discourse analysis of relevant development reports and interviews with gender experts with work experience on the Middle East. It will be conducted at the Gender Centre of the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, under the supervision of Professor Elisabeth Prügl, a best fit for the project given the rich array of gender and development scholarship at the Centre, its established networks with the multilateral actors in Geneva and beyond, and the two scholars’ mutual interests in the area of gender expertise and gender equality. It is an interdisciplinary project, informed by relevant studies in the fields of anthropology, sociology and political science, and has significant potential to contribute development studies and feminist political economy. It builds on the researcher’s experience in the field of gender and development, the Middle East and transnational networks. It expands her research to international gender experts in development; grows her expertise on the Middle East; and enlarges her fieldwork scope to Europe. The training, networking and publication prospects put her on a firm path toward professorship.

Original text from CORDIS.

Participants

FONDATION POUR L INSTITUT DE HAUTES ETUDES INTERNATIONALES ET DU DEVELOPPEMENT · GeneveCoordinatorSwitzerland

WoRD-DoME · Women's Economic Rights and Cultural Difference: Defining Development for the Middle East

Results in brief

Women's Economic Rights and Cultural Difference: Defining Development for the Middle East

Project objective

Participants

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