Local Meets Global: Engaging with International Development Research, Policy and Practice around Gender and Social Transformation

以性别为重点的国际发展旨在解决男女之间和男女之间的不平等结构，从而努力实现长期以来女权主义者要求的平等，目的是建立一个平等的社会。性别与发展（GAD）项目和政策已经从性别中立转向性别敏感，最近又转向性别变革方法（Hochfield and Bassadien 2007; Espinosa 2013）。后者有可能推动和支持可以解决不平等结构的变化，包括获得教育，经济可能性，政治参与和基于性别的暴力作为不平等的现象和结果（Cornwall和Rivas 2015）。虽然自20世纪80年代以来，以性别平等和妇女赋权为重点解决不平等结构一直是国际发展工作的明确重点，也是当前国际和国家发展议程（如可持续发展目标5）的关键组成部分，但作为一个全球社会，我们尚未解决基于性别的歧视问题（OECD 2023）。我的博士论文认为，在全球范围内根除性别不平等的失败，其根源在于，主流国际发展机构没有将参与的伦理和政治纳入其中，这种参与是基于与后殖民女权主义批评一致的、围绕性别和社会转型的知识的共同生产（Mama, 2004）。在我的博士研究中，我考察了在西非加纳选定社区实施一个特定的国际非政府组织（INGO）项目。我认为有必要在发展研究、政策和实践中采用一种变革性的跨国女权主义视角，这些视角是由与女权主义“知识社区”周围的激进主义领域密切相关的学术工作提供的（Assiter 1996; Nnaemeka 1998; Yuval-Davis 2010; Radcliffe 2015）。这一观点要求社区一级的社会文化价值观，如尊重与和谐，与作为国际性别与发展方案的一部分所表达和颁布的价值观同等重要，并以全球基于权利的方法为依据。这种价值观的相互检验改变了我们的学术和政策理解，因为它认为我们需要将变革性性别思维的同样批判性视角应用于全球北方和全球南方利益相关者的文化和权利。这将焦点从国际发展的“传统”（原文如此！）焦点转移到全球南方贫困社区的有害传统上，并提出了关于主流国际发展继续对后殖民空间施加的结构性暴力的问题，包括当地妇女组织的工作。该奖学金将使我能够通过在同行评议的学术期刊上发表研究成果来加强我的博士研究的影响力。为了最大限度地发挥这种影响，我开始在全球南方和全球北方内部和整个全球范围内传播学术、政策和实践领域的研究成果。我的目标是对女权主义发展实践者的作用进行进一步的有限研究，我在博士论文中认为，这是对合作的伦理和政治进行亟需的重组的核心。布里斯托尔大学的社会、政治与国际研究学院（SPAIS）是我通过政治与国际研究途径获得奖学金的理想主办机构。我的主要导师Peace a . Medie博士为性别与政治关系项目带来了大量专业知识，重点关注撒哈拉以南非洲和全球知识生产。我的第二导师Mhairi Gibson教授成功地指导了博士后学生，并将重点放在批判性地研究对妇女和女孩有潜在“有害”影响的社会文化规范上。在更广泛的大学层面，我的奖学金可以为当前非殖民化课程的倡议提供信息。

International development, focused on gender, sets out to tackle unequal structures between and among women and men and thus works towards the long-standing feminist claim for equality, aimed at building an equal society. Gender and development (GAD) programmes, and policies, have moved from gender-neutral, to gender sensitive and, most recently, to gender-transformative approaches (Hochfield and Bassadien 2007; Espinosa 2013). The latter has the potential to drive and support changes that can tackle unequal structures, including access to education, economic possibilities, political participation and gender-based violence as a phenomenon and outcome of inequality (Cornwall and Rivas 2015). While tackling unequal structures with a focus on gender equality and women's empowerment has been a defined focus of international development work since the 1980s and forms a key component of current international and national development agendas such as Sustainable Development Goal 5, as a global society, we have not yet resolved gender-based discrimination (OECD 2023).My PhD thesis argues that this failure to eradicate gender inequality globally is rooted in the limitations, or a complete absence, of incorporating an ethics and politics of engagement within mainstream international development institutions based on co-production of knowledge around gender and social transformation in line with a postcolonial feminist critique (Mama, 2004).I examine in my doctoral research the implementation of a specific international Non-Governmental Organisation (INGO) programme in selected communities in Ghana, West Africa. I argue for the necessity to adopt a transformative transnational feminist lens in development research, policy and practice informed by scholarly work closely aligned to an activist realm around feminist 'knowledge communities' (Assiter 1996; Nnaemeka 1998; Yuval-Davis 2010; Radcliffe 2015). This lens necessitates that socio-cultural values at community level such as respect and harmony receive equal weight as values expressed and enacted as part of an international GAD programme, informed by a global right-based approach. Such reciprocal inspection of values transforms our scholarly and policy understanding as it argues that we need to apply the same critical lens of transformative gender thinking to culture and rights of stakeholders from the Global North and the Global South. This shifts the focus away from a 'traditional' (sic!) focus of international development on harmful traditions in poverty-stricken communities in the Global South and asks questions about the structural violence that mainstream international development continues to inflict on post-colonial spaces including the work of local women's organisations.The Fellowship will allow me to strengthen the impact of my doctoral research through publishing findings in peer-reviewed academic journals. To maximise this impact, I set out to disseminate research findings in an academic, policy and practice sphere within and across the Global South and Global North. I aim to carry out further limited research on the role of feminist development practitioners which, I argue in my PhD, is central to the much-needed restructuring to the ethics and politics of collaboration.The School of Sociology, Politics and International Studies (SPAIS) at the University of Bristol is the ideal host organisation for my fellowship through the Politics and International Studies Pathway. My primary mentor, Dr Peace A. Medie, brings substantial expertise to the project on the nexus of Gender and Politics with a focus on sub- Saharan Africa and global knowledge production. My secondary mentor Prof Mhairi Gibson has successfully mentored post-doctoral students and adds a focus on critically studying socio-cultural norms with potentially 'harmful' effects on women and girls. At wider university-level, my fellowship can inform current initiatives on Decolonising the Curriculum.