Southeast Asia

Officialising Strategies: Participatory Processes and Gender in Thailand's Water Resources Sector

Citation:

Resurrección, Bernadette P., Mary Jane Real, and Panadda Pantana. 2004. “Officialising Strategies: Participatory Processes and Gender in Thailand’s Water Resources Sector.” Development in Practice 14 (4): 521–33.

Authors: Bernadette P. Resurrección, Mary Jane Real, Panadda Pantana

Abstract:

This paper examines participatory processes in an Asian Development Bank (ADB) technical assistance package in Thailand's water resource sector. The authors analyse various levels of social interaction in the local community, in meso-level stakeholder consultations, and in opposition to ADB's environment programmes expressed by civil society organisations. While participatory approaches are employed to promote more bottom-up management regimes in water resources, the authors find that local power and gender differences have been overlooked. Evolving institutions of resource governance are constituted by gender, reproducing gender inequalities such as regarding water intended for agricultural use as a 'male' resource. Finally, it is argued that understandings and practices of participation legitimise particular agendas in a politically polarised arena.

Topics: Agriculture, Civil Society, Gender, Gendered Discourses, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality, Gender Hierarchies, Infrastructure, Water & Sanitation, International Organizations Regions: Asia, Southeast Asia Countries: Thailand

Year: 2004

Constructing Humanitarian Selves and Refugee Others

Citation:

Olivius, Elisabeth. 2016. “Constructing Humanitarian Selves and Refugee Others.” International Feminist Journal of Politics 18 (2): 270–90.

Author: Elisabeth Olivius

Abstract:

Contributing to ongoing debates about what happens when feminism is institutionalized in global governance, this article examines how gender equality is given meaning and applied in humanitarian aid to refugees, and what the implications are with regard to the production of subjectivities and their positioning in relations of power. Drawing on Foucauldian and postcolonial feminist perspectives, the analysis identifies two main representations of what it means to promote gender equality in refugee situations. Gender equality is represented as a means to aid effectiveness through the strategic mobilization of refugee women's participation, and as a project of development, involving the transformation of “traditional” or “backward” refugee cultures into modern societies. The subject positions that are produced categorically cast refugees as either passive or problematic subjects who need to be rescued, protected, assisted, activated, controlled and reformed through humanitarian interventions, while humanitarian workers are positioned as rational administrators and progressive agents of social transformation. In effect, gender equality is used to sustain power asymmetries in refugee situations and to reproduce global hierarchies.

Keywords: global governance, gender equality, refugees, humanitarian aid, governmentality, postcolonial feminism, Thailand, Bangladesh

Topics: Displacement & Migration, Refugee/IDP Camps, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality, Governance, Humanitarian Assistance, NGOs Regions: Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia Countries: Bangladesh, Thailand

Year: 2016

The Culture of War: A Study of Women Military Nurses in Vietnam

Citation:

Scannell-Desch, Elizabeth. 2000. “The Culture of War: A Study of Women Military Nurses in Vietnam.” Journal of Transcultural Nursing 11 (2): 87–95.

Author: Elizabeth Scannell-Desch

Abstract:

Many books and studies have described the male Vietnam War culture, whereas similar literature about women is almost nonexistent. This study describes the culture of war nursing as experienced by 24 U.S. women military nurses. Data were generated using a core question and in-depth interviews. Phenomenology served as the research method, incorporating data analysis procedures of Colaizzi and Lincoln and Guba. Nine theme categories were identified to describe the culture of war nursing. Core values of the military culture were threaded throughout descriptions, and activities to make their environment more homelike embodied the positive values of their culture.

Keywords: nurses, Vietnam, Vietnam War, women

Topics: Armed Conflict, Gender, Women, Health Regions: Asia, Southeast Asia Countries: United States of America, Vietnam

Year: 2000

‘You Can’t Have Our Land’: Land Grabbing and the Feminization of Resistance in Aloguinsan, Cebu

Citation:

Ocasiones, Leny G. 2018. “‘You Can’t Have Our Land’: Land Grabbing and the Feminization of Resistance in Aloguinsan, Cebu.” Philippine Sociological Review 66: 35–60.

Author: Leny G. Ocasiones

Abstract:

Land grabbing has been present in the Philippines for the past decades. It occurs when local communities and individuals lose access to land that they previously used, thus threatening their lives and livelihood. Civil society organizations that are skeptical toward the growing trend of large-scale acquisitions by foreign corporations, however, argue that land grabbing can be committed by domestic actors and sometimes in cooperation with foreign actors. Land grabbing raises important questions about the welfare, livelihood, and land security of farmers in the Philippines. Using archival sources, key informant interviews, and focus group discussions, this study investigates women's experiences of land grabbing and resistance among farmers of Aloguinsan, Cebu. This study reveals that land grabbing has profound impacts on the lives of the farmers and that women farmers are affected differently than men because women are generally considered a vulnerable group. Further, land grabbing generated fierce resistance from farmers, especially from women who developed creative ways to defend their lives, land and community. The study concludes that the resistance put up by the Aloguinsan farmers is gendered, and serves as a case of the feminization of resistance.

Keywords: land grabbing, feminization, resistance, women

Topics: Civil Society, Gender, Women, Gendered Power Relations, Land Grabbing, Livelihoods Regions: Asia, Southeast Asia Countries: Philippines

Year: 2018

Working Wives: Gender, Labour and Land Commercialization in Ratanakiri, Cambodia

Citation:

Joshi, Saba. 2020. “Working Wives: Gender, Labour and Land Commercialization in Ratanakiri, Cambodia.” Globalizations 17 (1): 1–15.

Author: Saba Joshi

Abstract:

In Ratanakiri province, home to a large share of Cambodia's indigenous minorities, land commercialization involving large-scale land transfers and in-migration has led to shrinking access to land for indigenous households. Drawing on qualitative interviews and a household survey conducted in Ratanakiri, this paper explores the links between social reproduction and agrarian production in the current phase of agrarian transition through the lens of everyday gendered experiences. It argues that while wage labour is becoming an essential component of agrarian livelihoods for land-poor indigenous households, gendered hierarchies mediate access to local wage labour opportunities due to the incompatibilities between care work and paid labour. This paper contributes to the literature by exposing locally-specific processes through which gender- differentiated impacts are produced under multiple modes of dispossession. It also illuminates the links between dispossession and social reproduction and the tensions between capitalist accumulation and care activities in agrarian trajectories following land commercialization.

 

Keywords: Cambodia, land grabs, care labour, wage labour, indigenous peoples, gender

Topics: Agriculture, Displacement & Migration, Migration, Gender, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Hierarchies, Households, Indigenous, Land Grabbing, Livelihoods Regions: Asia, Southeast Asia Countries: Cambodia

Year: 2020

Women, Ecology and Health: Rebuilding Connections

Citation:

Hamrell, Sven, and Olle Nordberg, eds. 1993. Women, Ecology and Health: Rebuilding Connections. Uppsala, Sweden: The Dag Hammarskjöld Centre and Kali for Women.

Authors: Sven Hamrell, Olle Nordberg

Annotation:

Summary:
The seminar on 'Women, Ecology and Health: Rebuilding Connections', which has provided the basis for the material presented in this issue of Development Dialogue, was held in Bangalore in southern India from July 17 to 22, 1991. It was jointly organised by the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation and the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Natural Resource Policy, Dehra Dun, India, and moderated by the Director of the latter foundation, Vandana Shiva. It brought together 25 participants from seven South Asian and Southeast Asian countries and one participant from the United States. Both foundations are grateful to the participants for their valuable contributions to the seminar discussions and to the authors for the pains they have taken in thoroughly revising and updating their papers.The basic idea behind the organisation of the Bangalore seminar was the conviction that, twenty years after 'the Environment' was placed on the international agenda, the time was ripe to take stock, from a women's perspective, of two decades of development in the environmental field. Furthermore, an important factor was the growing recognition that across the world women are rebuilding connections with nature and renewing the insight that what people do to nature directly affects them, too; that there is, in fact, no insular divide between the environment and their own bodies and health (Summary from original source).

Table of Contents:

  1. Women, Ecology and Health: An Introduction
    Vandana Shiva
  2. After the Forest: AIDS as Ecological Collapse in Thailand
    Ann Danaiya Usher
  3. Killing Legally with Toxic Waste: Women and the Environment in the United States
    Penny Newman
  4. Environmental Degradation and Subversion of Health
    Mira Shiva
  5. Using Technology, Choosing Sex the Campaign Against Sex Determination and the Question of Choice
    FASDSP Group
  6. Legal Rights… and Wrongs: Internationalising Bhopal
    Indira Jaising, C. Sathyamala
  7. ‘Green Earth, Women’s Power, Human Liberation’: Women in Peasant Movements in India
    Gail Omvedt
  8. Filipino Peasant Women in Defence of Life
    Loreta B. Ayupan, Teresita G. Oliveros
  9. Ethnic Conflict in Sri Lanka: Its Ecological and Political Consequences
    Rita Sebastian
  10. The Seed and the Earth: Biotechnology and the Colonisation of Regeneration
    Vandana Shiva

Topics: Coloniality/Post-Coloniality, Environment, Ethnicity, Feminisms, Ecofeminism, Health Regions: Americas, North America, Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia Countries: India, Thailand, United States of America

Year: 1993

Transformative Ecofeminism Movement in Empowering Indonesian Women

Citation:

Clara, Evy. 2018. "Transformative Ecofeminism Movement in Empowering Indonesian Women." PEOPLE: International Journal of Social Sciences 4 (2): 581-98. 

Author: Evy Clara

Abstract:

This research has a purpose to analyze Women’s Journal Foundation as an organization of women who performs the environmental movement and the empowerment of women (ecofeminism) through the Journal. This research used a critical paradigm, a qualitative approach and phenomenological designs. The research locations were held in Jakarta, Salatiga, and Klaten, and took time for 23 months (August 2013 - June 2015). The result showed that: (1) Women Journal Foundation was founded in 1995 by Gadis Arivia with the goal of advancing gender equality; (2) it initially lied on feminist ideology, a courage to build women’s awareness through women journals as the essential movement media; (3) instrument of Women Journal Foundation movement is Friends of Women Journal, performing financial strengthening while providing ecofeminism awareness, and raising ecofeminism in the practical level; and (4) the implications of the movement Women Journal Foundation are the growth of ecofeminism awareness that manifests itself into empowerment of women who care about garbage (Garbage Bank) in Salatiga and natural dye used for batik in Klaten.

Keywords: transformative ecofeminism movement, empowering, Indonesian women

Topics: Environment, Feminisms, Ecofeminism, Gender, Women, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality Regions: Asia, Southeast Asia Countries: Indonesia

Year: 2018

Beyond Victimisation: Gendered Legacies of Mining, Participation, and Resistance

Citation:

Sinclair, Lian. 2021. “Beyond Victimisation: Gendered Legacies of Mining, Participation, and Resistance.” The Extractive Industries and Society (January): 1-10. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.exis.2021.01.005.

Author: Lian Sinclair

Abstract:

Mining developments, corporate-community conflict, and participatory community development programs can have diverse gendered impacts on people affected by mining. Thus, changing gendered relations are amongst the social, economic, and political legacies of mining. Despite growing literature on the gendered impacts of mining, little explains how and why particular developments produce divergent legacies. This paper builds on feminist understandings of primitive accumulation and social reproduction theory to understand the rapid economic, social and political change that reconfigures gendered relations between and within groups of men and women. Drawing on research across three case studies in Indonesia, I argue that while mining developments can disproportionately disadvantage women, resistance work and participation in corporate social responsibility programs (CSR) may be empowering. This paper thus moves beyond the ‘women-as-victims’ approach to uncover the social, economic, and political foundations of inequality that may be disrupted or reinforced by mining, participation and resistance. The implications of this for mining governance policy, CSR and NGOs are that gendered legacies of mining depend on how resistance or participation create opportunities to overcome structural inequalities exacerbated by mining.

Keywords: gender, Indonesia, political participation, resistance, social reproduction theory

Topics: Extractive Industries, Feminisms, Gender, Women, Gendered Power Relations, Multi-National Corporations Regions: Asia, Southeast Asia Countries: Indonesia

Year: 2021

Land Resources Management in Southeast Asia: Redefining the Role of Women as Land Managers

Citation:

Pradipta, Lengga. 2020. “Land Resources Management in Southeast Asia: Redefining the Role of Women as Land Managers.” Komunitas: International Journal of Indonesian Society and Culture 12 (2): 206-16.

Author: Lengga Pradipta

Abstract:

The global trend to transform land management responsibility from the state to ‘communities’ or local user groups has neglected the implications of intra-community power differences for the effectiveness and equity of land management. Despite the rhetoric about gender equality that has mushroomed in recent years, a review of evidence from several countries in Southeast Asia, such as Malaysia, Indonesia and Vietnam, has shown that female participation is very minimal in land management. One basic reason for this is the formal and informal institutional exclusion of women. Moreover, the bargaining power of women within households and communities is categorized as ‘lip-service’ because patriarchy is seen as bonded to culture or tradition. Further detailed and comparative research is required to identify and analyze the major factors that affect women’s access and control over land resources, especially regarding how culture and local wisdom can accommodate this issue and ensure the participation of women in the management of resources.

Keywords: land resources management, patriarchy, women

Topics: Agriculture, Gender, Women, Gender Equality/Inequality, Patriarchy, Governance, Indigenous, Land Tenure, Rights, Land Rights Regions: Asia, Southeast Asia Countries: Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam

Year: 2020

'Knowing One’s Place': Gender, Mobility and Shifting Subjectivity in Eastern Indonesia.

Citation:

Williams, Catharina Purwani. 2005. “‘Knowing One’s Place’: Gender, Mobility and Shifting Subjectivity in Eastern Indonesia.” Global Networks 5 (4): 401–17.

Author: Catharina Purwani Williams

Abstract:

In this article I analyse the gendered space of transnational mobility by problematizing migrant subjectivity in everyday practices. In line with feminist perspectives I highlight the significance of the micro-scale experience of female migrants from Eastern Indonesia in acquiring mobility as a struggle for new subjectivity. I frame this migration as a production of the subjective space of power. Based on in-depth interviews with returned migrants, I present reflexive accounts of two migrants on contract domestic work abroad to illuminate the changing contours of the relationships between gender, mobility and shifting subjectivity. Households take into account the cultural meanings of space in everyday life including local relations in the decisions on mobility. Strategies of ‘knowing one's place’ reflect women's agency in negotiating alternative roles and positions within the intra-household dynamics and in the workplace. Women's personal accounts have the potential to illuminate spatial processes of migration as a contested space for the repositioning of self in networks of family, kin, local and global relations.

Topics: Displacement & Migration, Migration, Feminisms, Gender, Gender Roles, Women Regions: Asia, Southeast Asia Countries: Indonesia

Year: 2005

Pages

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