Asia

Citation:

Mullany, Luke C., Catherine I. Lee, Palae Paw, Eh Kalu Shwe Oo, Cynthia Maung, Heather Kuiper, Nicole Mansenior, Chris Beyrer, and Thomas J. Lee. 2008. “The MOM Project: Delivering Maternal Health Services among Internally Displaced Populations in Eastern Burma.” Reproductive Health Matters 16 (31): 44–56.

Authors: Luke C. Mullany, Catherine I. Lee, Palae Paw, Eh Kalu Shwe Oo, Cynthia Maung, Heather Kuiper, Nicole Mansenior, Chris Beyrer, Thomas J. Lee

Abstract:

Alternative strategies to increase access to reproductive health services among internally displaced populations are urgently needed. In eastern Burma, continuing conflict and lack of functioning health systems render the emphasis on facility-based delivery with skilled attendants unfeasible. Along the Thailand-Burma border, local organisations have implemented an innovative pilot, the Mobile Obstetric Maternal Health Workers (MOM) Project, establishing a three-tiered collaborative network of community-based reproductive health workers. Health workers from local organisations received practical training in basic emergency obstetric care plus blood transfusion, antenatal care and family planning at a central facility. After returning to their target communities inside Burma, these first-tier maternal health workers trained a second tier of local health workers and a third tier of traditional birth attendants (TBAs) to provide a limited subset of these interventions, depending on their level of training. In this ongoing project, close communication between health workers and TBAs promotes acceptance and coverage of maternity services throughout the community. We describe the rationale, design and implementation of the project and a parallel monitoring plan for evaluation of the project. This innovative obstetric health care delivery strategy may serve as a model for the delivery of other essential health services in this population and for increasing access to care in other conflict settings.

Keywords: antenatal care, childbirth, emergency obstetric care, misoprostol, internal displacement, Burma

Topics: Displacement & Migration, IDPs, Gender, Women, Health, Reproductive Health Regions: Asia, Southeast Asia Countries: Myanmar

Year: 2008

Citation:

Mojab, Shahrzad, and Rachel Gorman. 2007. “Dispersed Nationalism: War, Diaspora And Kurdish Women’s Organizing.” Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies 3 (1, Special Issue: Transnational Theory, National Politics, and Gender in the Contemporary Middle East / North Africa): 58–85.

Authors: Shahrzad Mojab, Rachel Gorman

Abstract:

In this paper we provide an analysis of Kurdish women’s organizing in the diaspora, highlighting the tension between “homeland” and  “host-land” nationalisms, patriarchy, and feminism. This is the first feminist-transnational study of the experience of Kurdish women participating in a modern nation-building process in the Kurdish region of northern Iraq in the period of 1991–2003. The study is based on fieldwork among Kurdish women in Canada, Britain, Sweden, and Iraqi Kurdistan. We have analyzed the activities of four women’s organizations in the diaspora and have traced the impact of these organizations on the events and politics unfolding in the region. We have also observed and documented the impact of homeland politics on these diaspora organizations, paying special attention to the gendered influence exerted by Kurdish political parties. The theoretical contributions of this paper are twofold: One, we argue that diaspora should be understood as a historical rather than only a cultural phenomenon. Second, diaspora and transnationalism are both historical and political categories of social organization which involve a complex of national, international, and transnational political-economic relations.

Keywords: nationalism, diaspora

Topics: Armed Conflict, Civil Society, Displacement & Migration, Gender, Women, Gendered Power Relations, Patriarchy, Nationalism, NGOs, Political Participation Regions: MENA, Asia, Middle East Countries: Iraq

Year: 2007

Citation:

Manchanda, Rita. 2004. “Gender Conflict and Displacement: Contesting ‘Infantilisation’ of Forced Migrant Women.” Economic and Political Weekly 39 (37): 4179–86.

Author: Rita Manchanda

Abstract:

The experience of the refugee or the internally displaced person is one that is fundamentally disenfranchising. While women and children make up a majority of the forcibly displaced, international humanitarian discourses confer on them a presumed passivity that is naturalised in practice. Systems of care and protection even in UNHCR camps remain largely gender insensitive especially in south Asia where national laws reinforce gender discrimination. This paper uses a gender sensitive perspective, analysing the way a woman as a refugee subject is configured as a non-person so as to gain fresh insights on the 'infantilisation' and 'de-maturation' of the refugee experience. Moreover, it raises questions on the secondary status women occupy as citizens in south Asian polities.

Topics: Displacement & Migration, Forced Migration, Refugees, Refugee/IDP Camps, Gender, Women, Gender Mainstreaming, Gendered Power Relations, Humanitarian Assistance, International Organizations, Rights, Women's Rights Regions: Asia, South Asia

Year: 2004

Citation:

Majidi, Nassim, and Camille Hennion. 2014. “Resilience in Displacement? Building the Potential of Afghan Displaced Women.” Journal of Internal Displacement  4 (1): 78.

Authors: Nassim Majidi, Camille Hennion

Abstract:

Over 76% of Afghans have been displaced by conflict, natural or man-made disasters at some point during their lifetime. Among these, women are “the vulnerable within the vulnerable”, as shown in a recent report written by the authors for the Norwegian Refugee Council, calling for accrued attention to the needs of displaced women at a time of transition and rising insecurity. What do we know about the vulnerabilities and survival of Afghan displaced women? This article focuses on resilience in displacement, highlights specific gendered vulnerabilities of economic and social isolation, and the overall lack of coping mechanisms observed. In a situation of high vulnerabilities but low resilience, what is – and what can be - the response to Afghan women’s need for protection in displacement? This research will be based on a mix of quantitative and qualitative data collected through various research studies in 2012 and 2013 by the authors of this paper.

Keywords: resilience, IDPs, women, Afghanistan, Gender, conflict, humanitarian assistance

Topics: Armed Conflict, Displacement & Migration, IDPs, Refugees, Gender, Women, Humanitarian Assistance Regions: Asia, South Asia Countries: Afghanistan

Year: 2014

Citation:

Feingold, David A. 2012. “Trafficking, Trade, and Migration: Mapping Human Trafficking in the Mekong Region.” In An Atlas of Trafficking in Southeast Asia the Illegal Trade in Arms, Drugs, People, Counterfeit Goods and Natural Resources in Mainland Southeast Asia, edited by Pierre-Arnaud Chouvy. London: I.B. Tauris.

Author: David A. Feingold

Topics: Displacement & Migration, Gender, Women, Trafficking, Human Trafficking, Sex Trafficking Regions: Asia, East Asia Countries: China

Year: 2012

Citation:

Hyndman, Jennifer and Malthi De Alwis. 2003. “Beyond Gender: Towards a Feminist Analysis of Humanitarianism and Development in Sri Lanka.” Women's Studies Quarterly 31 (4): 212-26.

Authors: Jennifer Hyndman, Malthi De Alwis

Abstract:

We are not interested in highlighting the shortcomings of specific policies or staff in the fields of development and humanitarianism. Rather we contend that the root of the problem lies in the way in which gender has been conceived and disseminated within these fields. Accordingly, we outline a more comprehensive, and still portable, feminist analytic that provides a more sophisticated approach to understanding the production of gender identities and relations. The idea that gender identities and relations are generated differently across space and time, and have no essential pre-established qualities, is critical to changing them. This feminist analytic, then, is at once a tool for understanding social, economic, and political relations and a tool for changing them. We define feminist for the purpose of this article as reflecting analyses and political interventions that address the unequal and often violent relationships among people based on real or perceived social, economic, political, cultural, and sexual differences. The analysis and elimination of patriarchal relations of power within each of these fields is a primary focus. We recognize that there is more than one kind of feminism, and we do not wish to fix the category "feminist" in any singular manner nor to create a typology of feminisms. We contend that gender analysis has fallen prey to such rigidities, and has thus limited its analytical strength.

Keywords: gender relations, feminist, gender identity

Topics: Development, Feminisms, Gender, Gender Analysis, Gendered Power Relations, Humanitarian Assistance Regions: Asia, South Asia Countries: Sri Lanka

Year: 2003

Citation:

Hofmann, Erin Trouth and Cynthia J. Buckley. 2011. “Cultural Responses to Changing Gender Patterns of Migration in Georgia.” International Migration 50 (5): 77-94.

Authors: Erin Trouth Hofmann, Cynthia J. Buckley

Abstract:

In this paper, we explore how individual women cope with the tensions between economic forces encouraging temporary labour migration and cultural norms tying “proper” women to their homes and families. Combining in-depth interviews with returned migrant women in the Georgian capital of Tbilisi with secondary migration data for the region, we illustrate the recent increases in Georgian women’s participation in international labour migration. Deteriorating economic conditions in Georgia leave women with few local opportunities to financially support their families, while institutional changes have altered the accessibility and attractiveness of international destinations, leading to increasing motivations and opportunities for women’s migration. Focusing on the contradictions between growing female migration and persistent adherence to cultural norms stigmatizing migration in Georgia, we explore the cognitive strategies migrant women employ in an attempt to balance internalized perceptions of acceptable gendered behaviour with their migration choices. Two key pathways of adaptation emerge: framing migration as a necessity rather than a choice and stressing the unique and individually exceptional nature of their own migration experience. We posit that these strategies may serve to limit the norm-challenging nature of women’s migration in Georgia. Although migration is often described as an empowering experience for women, if women migrants work to present their migration in a way that fits within the bounds of traditional gender norms, these norms may be strengthened rather than challenged.

Topics: Displacement & Migration, Migration, Economies, Gender, Women, Livelihoods Regions: Asia, Central Asia, Europe, South Caucasus Countries: Georgia

Year: 2011

Citation:

Hoang L.A. 2011. “Gender and Agency in Migration Decision-Making: Evidence from Vietnam.” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 37 (9): 1441-57.

Author: L. A. Hoang

Abstract:

This paper examines the influences of gender as an identity on an individual's ability to exercise agency in decision-making about internal migration in Vietnam. Women and men exert agency with reference to prevailing social norms in order to negotiate for or against their own migration and that of others. It has been well recognised that, beyond sex, their specific gender identity as mothers or fathers, daughters or sons, husbands or wives, etc. impacts on who can migrate for what kind of work. However, this study explores the more neglected ways in which gender structures migration. While my findings show that decision-making about migration was overwhelmingly consensual in nature, this did not necessarily mean that migration was equally in everyone's best interests. Women's agency around their own migration was in part constrained because they were forced to negotiate for their interests whilst trying to preserve family harmony. While social norms supported men's power to make unilateral decisions and while they resorted to powerful threats of divorce to get their own way, this did not prevent wives from resisting unwelcome decisions by ‘passive' means. The paper deepens feminist insights into the ways in which migration is gendered.

Keywords: identity, internal migration, agency, feminist, gender identity, social norms, Vietnam, migration decision-making

Topics: Displacement & Migration, Migration, Feminisms, Gender, Livelihoods Regions: Asia, Southeast Asia Countries: Vietnam

Year: 2011

Citation:

Hewamanne, S. 2009. “Gendering the Internally Displaced: Problem Bodies, Fluid Boundaries and Politics of Civil Society Participation in Sri Lanka.” Journal of International Women's Studies 11 (1): 157-72.

Author: S. Hewamanne

Abstract:

In this paper I argue that the internally displaced Muslim women’s experience of displacement and their perception of new developments since the last round of peace initiative between the Sri Lankan government and the LTTE are significantly different from their male counterparts in that the women find these experiences as empowering in some respects. The paper also evidence that this empowerment is differently experienced by women belonging to different social classes. Women have been identified as a problem body within the Muslim community and restrictions on Muslim women have been justified through discourses on family honor and frivolous women. The forced regional boundary crossing had resulted in Muslim women playing a different role in public space as the targeted population for NGO activities. They have become “a needed body of persons,” through a skillfully negotiated traversing among fluid boundaries, most of which are not physical. While the state, the humanitarian agencies and the urban Muslim community amidst they live now all shape the gendered subjectivities of internally displaced Muslim people the very same discourses allow women to transcend barriers they formally faced in entering public space and to negotiate positions within and against the subjectivities created for them.

Keywords: Muslim women, internal displacement, Sri Lanka, qualitative research

Topics: Displacement & Migration, IDPs, Gender, Women, Humanitarian Assistance, NGOs, Peace Processes, Religion Regions: Asia, South Asia Countries: Sri Lanka

Year: 2009

Citation:

Dannecker, Petra. 2005. “Transnational Migration and the Transformation of Gender Relations: the Case of Bangladeshi Labour Migrants.” Current Sociology 53 (4): 655-74.

Author: Petra Dannecker

Abstract:

The article discusses the transformations of gender relations due to transnational migration between Bangladesh and Malaysia. It is shown that the uneven economic development in Asia during the last decades has not only initiated new migration movements and patterns but has also led to a feminization of migration, which has resulted in transformations of gender relations. It is argued that the increased migration of Bangladeshi women as temporary labour migrants to Malaysia and the transnational discourses and practices these movements have initiated are leading to renegotiations and transformations of the existing gender order. Networks and transnational activities of Bangladeshi male migrants are analysed in order to show, first, that transnational spaces are gendered and, second, how transnational influences are changing power and gender relations. The successful exploitation of global markets by female migrants has not only resulted in new migration patterns and new gendered labour markets but has become an important agent for transformations of gender relations.

Keywords: gender relations, labor migration, networking, social transformations, transnational activities, transnationalism

Topics: Development, Displacement & Migration, Migration, Economies, Gender, Gendered Power Relations, Livelihoods Regions: Asia, South Asia Countries: Bangladesh, Malaysia

Year: 2005