Doctoral Dissertation Research: Broadening Participation of Underrepresented Groups in Civil Social Institutions

科学证明，当民间社会机构充分包容其所代表的广大民众时，它们是最有效和最持久的。该项目通过考察各国政府用来增加参与的具体实验，探讨哪些因素对民间社会中代表性不足的群体的参与起到促进和抑制作用。在对人类学研究生进行实证、科学数据收集和分析方法培训的同时，该项目将把其调查结果广泛传播给被投资寻找向公众传播科学的更有效方法的组织。这项研究的结果将以这样一种方式传播，以帮助研究人员和政策制定者改进旨在增加民间社会中代表性不足群体参与的政策和方案。该项目还有助于扩大传统上在科学界代表性不足的个人的参与。米里亚姆·基利莫将在埃默里大学的彼得·利特尔博士的监督下，探索政府项目对妇女参与公民社会的影响。为了解决妇女参政人数少的问题，许多国家在政治代表中采用了性别配额。性别配额包括要求各政党在选举期间提名女性候选人或直接提名她们担任政治职务等方法。虽然已经进行了大量研究，以调查哪些性别配额最能有效地增加女性担任政治职务的人数，但我们仍然不完全了解这些女性如何体验性别配额制度。这项研究将在肯尼亚进行，肯尼亚2010年的宪法引入了性别配额，以增加妇女的政治代表性。肯尼亚的性别配额规定，妇女在47个县议会中应至少占据三分之一的席位。自2010年以来，性别配额在两个选举周期中实施。当很少有女性通过选举获得席位时，各政党提名数百名女性进入县议会，以满足性别配额。然而，这些女性一直被批评为男性主导的政党的盟友。通过观察法、访谈、文献和媒体分析，研究人员将调查肯尼亚穆朗阿县和夸莱县女议员的经历。这两个县有不同的民族、宗教和政治历史。该研究将讨论县议会的女性议员如何参与县议会和社区，以及她们与县议会的男性议员之间的关系。这项研究还将审查在公众中流传的关于县议会女性议员的想法。这项研究的结果将为了解性别配额如何塑造政治制度和担任政治职务的女性的经历提供洞察。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

It has been scientifically well-documented that civil social institutions are most effective and durable when they are fully inclusive of the broader populations that they represent. This project explores what factors contribute to and inhibit the participation of underrepresented groups in civil society by looking at specific experiments that governments have used to increase participation. While training a graduate student in anthropology in the methods of empirical, scientific data collection and analysis, the project would broadly disseminate its findings to organizations invested in discovering more effective methods for communicating science to the public. The findings of this research will be disseminated in such a way to aid researchers and policy-makers to improve policies and programming aimed at increasing the participation of underrepresented groups in civil society. The project also contributes to broadening the participation of individuals traditionally underrepresented in science.Miriam Kilimo, under the supervision of Dr. Peter Little of Emory University will explore what impact government programs to engineer women's participation in civil society have on social relations. To address the low numbers of women in politics, numerous countries have adopted gender quotas in political representation. The gender quotas include methods such as requiring political parties to field female candidates during elections or to nominate them directly into political office. Although much research has been conducted to investigate which gender quotas work best to increase the number of women in political office, we still do not fully understand how these women experience the gender quota system. This research will be carried out in Kenya, where a 2010 constitution introduced gender quotas to increase women's political representation. Kenya's gender quota directs that women should occupy at least one-third of the seats in the 47 county assemblies. The gender quota has been implemented in two election cycles since 2010. When few women won seats by election, political parties nominated hundreds of women to county assemblies to meet the gender quota. However, these women have been criticized as allies of political parties that are dominated by men. Through observational methods, interviews, and document and media analyses, the researcher will investigate the experiences of female members of county assembly in Murang'a and Kwale counties in Kenya. These two counties have different ethnic groups, religions, and political histories. The study will address how female members of county assemblies participate in the county assembly and in the community, and how they relate to male members of county assemblies. The research will also examine the ideas about female members of county assemblies that are circulated in the public. The findings from the research will provide insight into how gender quotas shape political systems and the experiences of women who occupy political office.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.