Sustaining Power: Women's struggles against contemporary backlash in South Asia

南亚妇女几十年来一直在努力改善她们在家庭、社区中的生活，确保她们的生计，并让国家听到她们作为公民的声音，妇女运动对促进她们的权利至关重要。然而，当代社会、经济和政治的变化产生了新的、多种形式的反弹和争执。面对这些倒退的力量和反弹，妇女如何捍卫自己的权利，并确保自己的利益？这个问题引导我们研究妇女用来保住权力和维持妇女权利成果的战略和机制。这项研究特别感兴趣的是不同的女性群体是如何理解权力和斗争的，以及这些如何随着时间的推移而变化。我们的目标是评估如何有效地捍卫妇女权利，并解释为什么在维持成果方面，一些斗争比其他斗争更成功。我们认为，妇女斗争的成功取决于a)她们用来对付不同类型的反弹的战略的类型；b)斗争包括不同妇女群体的声音和观点的方式；c)斗争与地方、区域和国家各级的其他运动和团体联系的方式。因此，研究的中心问题是：女性的权力斗争何时、如何以及为什么成功地保住了权力，并在抵制反弹的情况下保持了她们的成果？南亚为调查妇女的斗争提供了宝贵的机会。在过去十年中，该区域经历了快速和巨大的变化，包括城市化、越来越多的就业早熟、新的选举法和制度变化、社会规范的转变以及数字技术的传播。我们的目标是研究这些变化如何产生新的和多种形式的反弹；以及女性的权力斗争如何因这些变化而受到不同程度的挑战、开放或关闭。我们感兴趣的是揭示不同妇女运动在面对反弹时为保持权力而使用的进程和战略的异同，以及妇女自己的经历和对她们斗争的解释，因为这些经历和解释随着时间的推移而演变和适应。我们将选择代表南亚人口最多的四个国家的16个妇女斗争案例：孟加拉国、印度、尼泊尔和巴基斯坦。在每个国家，我们将在四个争取妇女权利的领域中选择一个正在进行和有争议的斗争案例：家庭、社区、市场和国家。这项研究将使用各种方法，包括：a)确定和分析当代变革进程造成的反弹的类型；b)绘制关键参与者的地图，以及是什么影响了他们的行动动机；c)通过口述历史方法、反思和参与技术、定性访谈和档案研究，追踪每一场运动的斗争、性质和轨迹，以对抗反弹；d)进行比较分析，比较不同的运动可能如何引发、激发或加强不同领域的权力斗争；以及e)确定和系统化在南亚及其他地区保护妇女权利的机制和战略的哪些组合。这是一个合作研究项目，汇集了一个多学科研究小组，他们在南亚的妇女权利和当代权力斗争方面具有深厚的国内和概念专长。该项目包括强有力的能力建设倡议和通过与妇女运动和研究伙伴的反思进程进行学习的机会。这项研究的范围是雄心勃勃的，我们希望我们的研究结果将以妇女的现实生活经验为基础，对女权主义学者、活动家和政策行为者制定未来在世界各地捍卫妇女权利的行动方针将是相关和有用的。

Women in South Asia have struggled for many decades to improve their lives within their families, in their communities, for securing their livelihoods, and in getting their voices heard as citizens by the state, with women's movements being critical in advancing their rights. However, contemporary social, economic and political changes have created new and multiple forms of backlash and contestations. How do women defend their rights, and secure their gains against these regressive forces and backlash? This question leads our research on the strategies and mechanisms that women use to retain power and sustain gains in women's rights. This research is particularly interested in how different groups of women understanding power and struggle, and how these change over time. We aim to assess what works to defend women's rights, and explain why some struggles are more successful than others in sustaining gains. We think that success of women's struggles depends on a) the types of strategies they use to counter different types of backlash; b) the ways in which struggles include voices and perspectives of different groups of women; and c) the ways in which struggles connect to other movements and groups across local, regional and national levels. The central research question therefore is: When, how, and why do women's power struggles succeed in retaining power and sustaining their gains against backlash? South Asia provides a valuable opportunity to investigate women's struggles. The region has witnessed rapid and large changes over the last decade, including urbanization, rising employment precarity, new electoral laws and regime changes, shifts in social norms, and the spread of digital technology. We aim to examine how these changes create new and multiple forms of backlash; and how women's struggles for power are variously challenged, opened up or are closed down by these changes. We are interested in unraveling the similarities and differences in processes and strategies used by different women's movements to retain power in the face of backlash; and in women's own experiences and interpretations of their struggles as these evolve and adapt over time. We will select 16 cases of women's struggles in four countries that represent the largest populations of South Asia: Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Pakistan. Within each country, we will select on-going and contentious cases of struggle in one of four arenas within which gains in women's rights are being sought: family, community, market and the state. This research will use a variety of methods including: a) identifying and analyzing the types of backlash created by processes of contemporary change;b) mapping critical players and what shapes their motivations for action; c) tracing the struggles, nature and trajectory of each movement to counter backlash - through oral history methods, reflective and participatory techniques, qualitative interviews and archival research; d) undertaking comparative analysis to compare how different movements may have triggered, galvanized or been strengthened by power struggles across different arenas; and e) identifying and systematizing which combinations of mechanisms and strategies work to defend women's rights in South Asia and beyond. This is a collaborative research project that draws together a multi-disciplinary research team with deep in-country and conceptual expertise on women's rights and contemporary power struggles in South Asia. This project includes strong capacity building initiatives and opportunities for learning through reflective processes with women's movements and research partners. This research is ambitious in its scope and we hope that our findings that will be grounded in real life experiences of women, will be relevant and useful for feminist scholars, activists and policy actors to set their future course of action to defend women's rights across the world.