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241. Women’s Participation in High-Level Decision Making

Author:
Itır Akdoğan
Publication Date:
04-2019
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation (TESEV)
Abstract:
In this report, we enquire into the issue of gender equality by investigating different sectors at once to offer recommendations for improvement. In this project, which is supported by the Swedish Consulate General in İstanbul, we first examine, in light of data gathered and disseminated by European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE), the percentage of women high-level decision makers in Turkey’s politics, public administration, local government, civil society organizations, social partners, business, media, judiciary and education/science/research. We compare these rates in their historical transformation and with the rates of European Union countries, thus inspecting them in their wider quantitative context. Next, we conduct in-depth interviews with women (if not present, men) high-level decision makers in these areas to carry out a qualitative assessment of women’s participation in Turkey.
Topic:
Civil Society, Gender Issues, Politics, Women, and Inequality
Political Geography:
Turkey, Middle East, and European Union

242. Participation in Non-Farm Activities in Rural Sudan: Patterns and Determinants

Author:
Ebaidalla M. Ebaidalla
Publication Date:
11-2019
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
African Economic Research Consortium (AERC)
Abstract:
Despite the importance of non-farm income in the livelihood of the rural population in Sudan, information available on its size and determinants is scant. This study examined the patterns and determinants of decisions to participate in non-farm activities in rural Sudan. It also investigates whether the determinants of participation in non-farm activities vary across agriculture sub-sectors and income groups as well as among males and females. The data for this study was sourced from the Sudanese National Baseline Household Survey (NBHS) conducted by Sudan’s Central Bureau of Statistics in 2009. The results show that non-farm income is a crucial source of livelihood, contributing about 43% to household income in rural Sudan. The results of multinomial logit and probit estimation methods indicate that educational level, mean of transportation, lack of land and lack of access to formal credit are the most significant factors that push rural farmers to participate in non-farm activities. Surprisingly, the effect of household income was positive and significant, implying that individuals from rich households have higher opportunity to engage in non-farm activities compared to their poor counterparts. Moreover, the analysis revealed some symptoms of gender and location disparities in the effect of factors that influence participation in non-farm activities. The study concluded with some recommendations that aim to enhance the engagement in non-farm activities as an important diversification strategy to complement the role of the agriculture sector in improving rural economy in Sudan.
Topic:
Agriculture, Economics, Gender Issues, Income Inequality, and Rural
Political Geography:
Africa and Sudan

243. Household Economic Well-Being and Child Health in The Democratic Republic of Congo

Author:
Janvier Mwisha-Kasiwa
Publication Date:
11-2019
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
African Economic Research Consortium (AERC)
Abstract:
Health is both a direct component of human well-being and a form of human capital that increases an individual’s capabilities and opportunities to generate income and reduces vulnerability. It is argued that these two views are complementary, and both can be used to justify increased investment in health in developing countries. Therefore, investment in child health constitutes a potential mechanism to end the intergenerational transmission of poverty. This paper examines the empirical impact of household economic well-being on child health, and the gender differences in effects using the Demographic and Health Survey conducted in 2014. A series of econometric tools are used; the control function approach appears to be the most appropriate strategy as it simultaneously removes structural parameters from endogeneity, the sample selection and heterogeneity of the unobservable variables. Results suggest a significant positive effect of household economic well-being on child health. However, the magnitude of the effect varies by gender of household head; children from households headed by males appear healthier compared to those from female-headed households. In the context of DR Congo, female-headed households often have a single parent, therefore, the economic well-being effect on child health in the male sub-sample can be considered to include the unobserved contribution of women. These results have implications for public interventions that enable women to participate in paid labour market activities as a means of improving household economic well-being, which in turn could improve child health.
Topic:
Development, Economics, Gender Issues, Health, Health Care Policy, and Children
Political Geography:
Africa and Democratic Republic of Congo

244. Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana & Janani Suraksha Yojana (PMMVY & JSY)

Author:
Ritwik Shukla and Avani Kapur
Publication Date:
07-2019
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Centre for Policy Research, India
Abstract:
This brief reports on two maternity benefits schemes, offering conditional cash transfers to pregnant women and mothers: a) The Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana (PMMVY), Government of India’s (GoI’s) scheme aimed at providing partial compensation for wage loss and improving health seeking behaviour of pregnant women and lactating mothers, and b) the Janani Suraksha Yojana (JSY) aimed at incentivising institutional and safe delivery for reducing infant and maternal mortality. Using government data, this brief reports on: Trends in allocations, releases, and utilisation, Coverage and payments, and Outputs and outcomes.
Topic:
Gender Issues, Government, Health, Budget, Women, and Economy
Political Geography:
South Asia and India

245. Introduction: Gender in the Global South: A Complex and Contradictory Agenda

Author:
Natália Maria Félix de Souza
Publication Date:
08-2019
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Contexto Internacional
Institution:
Institute of International Relations, Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro
Abstract:
The publication of the last of three parts of Contexto Internacional’s special issue ‘Gender in the Global South’ is the opportunity to both celebrate and lament the accomplishments of feminist scholarship in the so-called global South. Reflecting from the Brazilian experience and scenario, it is remarkable how much the women, gender and sexuality agenda has grown in the field of international relations: from a marginal perspective at the turn of the century (Nogueira and Messari 2005), it has now become a major locus of resistance and contestation, which can be attested to by looking at the power plays at the Brazilian international relations association’s annual meetings, the multiplication of feminist collectives inside public and private universities, not to mention the growing number of gender-sensitive research articles published by the main national journals – including this triple special issue. From where I look, there is no doubt that feminism has come to shake the conventions of the area and produce a much more plural and interesting picture of international relations – one which encompasses more voices, stories, subjectivities and narratives. From this standpoint, there is much to celebrate and hope for.
Topic:
International Relations, Gender Issues, Socialism/Marxism, Realism, International Relations Theory, Feminism, and Liberalism
Political Geography:
Latin America and Global Focus

246. From Binary to Intersectional to Imbricated Approaches: Gender in a Decolonial and Diasporic Perspective

Author:
Andréa Gill and Thula Pires
Publication Date:
08-2019
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Contexto Internacional
Institution:
Institute of International Relations, Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro
Abstract:
This article proposes a re-reading of the problem of gender, or as it has been put, more often than not, ‘the woman problem,’ that resists the reproduction of modern/colonial systems of governance and their political norms, standards, ideals and pacts. In turn, it seeks to open pathways to dialogue with, rather than import, conceptions of gender that respond to the terms through which modern/colonial societies have been forged on the continent of Abya Yala, drawing inspiration from decolonial and diasporic perspectives. To this end, the article maps some of the available channels of the gender debate in what has come to be known as the global South from an array of perspectives that highlight the ways in which the relations between categories of oppression and privilege (such as race, class, sexuality and gender) are reflected and positioned so as to grapple with the coloniality of knowledge, power and being. More specifically, it focuses on three ways of dealing with power dynamics in the context of Abya Yala that have influenced how we conceive and respond to questions of gender. Its primary objective is to investigate the politico-epistemic conditions that structure gender thinking in binary and intersectional ways, and, in turn, open space for imbricated approaches forged from within (post-)colonial histories that do not take as their starting point the importation of theoretical references from places otherwise situated within a global political economy of knowledge/power/being. More than a critique of theoretical standpoints from the global North, in and of themselves, which regardless were not thought to respond to our realities, here we analyse the terms through which gender and feminisms have been put up for debate. Without effectively decentring the Eurocentred references that preoccupy gender thinking in our respective disputes, we risk continued distraction from what is at stake when gender is put on the table: the (im)possibilities of living one’s full humanity on one’s own terms.
Topic:
Gender Issues, Political Theory, Diaspora, Women, and International Relations Theory
Political Geography:
Europe, Latin America, and Global Focus

247. Women’s Struggles Against Extractivism in Latin America and the Caribbean

Author:
Enara Echart Muñoz and Maria del Carmen Villarreal
Publication Date:
08-2019
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Contexto Internacional
Institution:
Institute of International Relations, Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro
Abstract:
Since Cynthia Enloe asked, ‘Where are the women?’ in 1989, studies about the place of women in International Relations have increased. However, most of the analyses since then have focused on the participation of women in international organisations, events and institutional spaces, making invisible other practices and places occupied by black or indigenous women from the South. This article aims to highlight the role of women at the international level, analysing their performance in disputes over the meanings of development in Latin America and the Caribbean, based on struggles against extractivism. In addition to denouncing the impacts of this development model, these struggles seek to construct alternatives that, although they could be essentially local, have been multiplied and articulated throughout the Latin American and the Caribbean territory, as part of a broader resistance to the dominant extractivism in the region. These struggles will be mapped using a database of 259 conflicts around mining activities, developed by the Research Group on International Relations and Global South (GRISUL).
Topic:
Gender Issues, Race, Natural Resources, Women, Global South, and Indigenous
Political Geography:
Latin America, Caribbean, and Global Focus

248. The Post-Political Link Between Gender and Climate Change: The Case of the Nationally Determined Contributions Support Programme

Author:
Felipe Jaramillo Ruiz and Juan Pablo Vallejo
Publication Date:
08-2019
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Contexto Internacional
Institution:
Institute of International Relations, Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro
Abstract:
This paper interrogates to what extent the gender component of the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) Support Programme of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) reaffirms the post-political condition of climate change. By analysing the incorporation of gender in the NDC Support Programme and its articulation in Colombia’s Low-Carbon Development Strategy, the study exposes the strategic, epistemological, and normative risks of advancing feminist ideas within mainstream institutional frameworks. Thus, this paper shows the opportunities and challenges of dislocating the political and epistemological boundaries of climate change policies by promoting feminist ideas.
Topic:
Climate Change, Development, Gender Issues, United Nations, and Women
Political Geography:
Colombia and Latin America

249. Signalling for Status: UAE and Women’s Rights

Author:
Vânia Carvalho Pinto
Publication Date:
08-2019
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Contexto Internacional
Institution:
Institute of International Relations, Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro
Abstract:
That societies should be gender-equal is a prevailing normative ideal to which states at the very least pay lip service. The UAE as a highly globalised state that aspires to a superior status has not stood outside of these dynamics. Whereas in the decades since independence in 1971 women’s rights were emphasised as a sign of the country’s progress, nowadays, the UAE government portrays women’s rights as being advanced to such an extent that they are setting up a new gender empowerment benchmark for the Middle Eastern region. Additionally, the UAE has also proclaimed the goal of becoming one of the top 25 gender-equal states in the world by 2021. I suggest that these official proclamations are indicative of a signalling strategy whose aim is to advocate to an international audience that the UAE deserves a status higher than it currently holds. Based on Larson and Svechenko’s interpretation of social identity theory, I claim that the UAE’s strategy is one of social creativity. It rests on creating a new value – the Emirati standard of gender equality – within the Arab group. The former is operationalised through, on the one hand, ‘teaching to the test’ tactics in the area of women’s political participation, a field that can be easily regulated by the government. And on the other, on overemphasising the professional deeds of a small group of high-achieving women. In the latter case, as the numbers of females in employment are rather low, the government elects to call attention to women in specific and unconventional positions so as to lend greater credence to the existence of their own superior standard of gender equality within the Arab region.
Topic:
International Relations, Gender Issues, Women, and Democracy
Political Geography:
Middle East, North Africa, and United Arab Emirates

250. Struggles Around the Empty Signifier of Freedom: An Interview with Leticia Sabsay

Author:
Thais de Bakker Castro
Publication Date:
08-2019
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Contexto Internacional
Institution:
Institute of International Relations, Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro
Abstract:
Leticia Sabsay is a prominent Argentinian academic, based at the London School of Economics, whose work has been exploring pressing issues and questions: how gender and sexuality relate to ideas of freedom, how to define human subjectivity, how to politically resist, among others. In Sabsay’s writing, ideas of gender and sexuality cannot be dissociated from our broader political formations and complex processes of becoming subjects in neoliberalism. And our aspirations to evoke political shifts and improvements cannot be separated from a notion of the human as a being with permeable borders, invariably interconnected to others and to a conjunction of experiences – as opposed to the liberal notion of autonomous individuality. I believe she joins theorists like Judith Butler in an attempt to resituate the ontological grounds of our notion of the individual and of our political formations, and she is thus an important reference for feminist and queer efforts to make sense of liberal cooptation, on the one hand, and conservative backlash, on the other. The following is an interview conducted in November of 2018, at the LSE, in which I asked her about her references, her more recent body of work, and her conceptualizations of current tendencies in politics. The interview was lightly edited for clarity.
Topic:
Gender Issues, Women, Freedom of Expression, and Feminism
Political Geography:
Global Focus