Voice, Agency and Intentional Purpose: Reflections on Impact and Process of the GRACE

Network

Presentation for the Webinar: “Looking for a gender perspective in ICT4D”

Organised by ONG 2.0 and CCM – Comitato Collaborazione Medica 9 April 2015

Ineke BuskensGRACE Network

LeaderResearch for the

Future

Introduction to the GRACE Network

Gender Research in Africa and the Middle East into Information Communication Technology for Empowerment: Currently 21 research teams in 14 countries. Support team in South Africa and Canada. Period 2004 – 2014

Origin: United Nations 2003 call for Voices of women from the Global South, especially from Africa, in relation to the Information Society.

Initiated and funded by the International Development Research Centre (ACACIA Programme, Heloise Emdon) and supported by the Association for Progressive Communication (Jennifer Radloff and Anriette Esterhuyzen).

Purposes and Intentionalities

• General GRACE Purpose: Women’s Empowerment through, in and with ICT, taking into account the internal and external factors that either support or challenge their empowerment efforts (2005).

• Background vision (True North) of a world where all people are free.

• Regional Purpose:– For the Africa group (2005): ‘Giving Africa its dignity back’– For the MENA group (2008): ‘Improving the position of

women in the region’.• Project Specific Purposes for the various teams.• Individual intentions pertaining to personal aspirations. 

Understanding of Development

Development is grounded in the intention and the undertaking of efforts of people to create the life that they have reason to value.

This means that the involved parties need to:understand the external factors as well as the internal factors that either inhibit or encourage intentions and efforts to this end;enhance awareness of such factors and support intentions and efforts for personal change and social transformation.

Approach: Voice, Agency and Intentional Purpose

• Every team was encouraged to follow their passion and had the freedom to choose their own research purpose and question, discourses, definitions, research methods and techniques and respondent group.

• The purpose aligned research designs required the development of meta theoretical capacity.

• Ongoing suggested reading: gender and feminist literature, ICT4D and project specific theory.

• Intense annual teaching and learning workshops• Ongoing virtual and physical mentorship.• Intensive mediation of dialogues on our mail lists.• Writing: morning pages, reports and book chapters

(2 books)

Impact Proxy: Women and ICT in Africa and the

Middle East: Changing Selves, Changing Societies

• Part One: Agentic ICT Use: The Aspiration For Emancipation Versus The Power Of Gender Traditions

• Part Two: Developing Critical Voice In And Through Safe ICT- Created Space

• Part Three: ICT- Enhanced Relating And Becoming: Personal And Social Transformation

Part One: Agentic ICT Use: The Aspiration For Emancipation Versus The Power Of Gender Traditions

1. Healthy Women, Healthy Society: ICT And The Need For Women’s Empowerment In Yemen

2. Computer Proficiency And Women’s Empowerment: Gendered Experiences Of ICT At The University Of Khartoum |

3. Towards Non-Gendered ICT Education: The Hidden Curriculum At The National University Of Science And Technology In Zimbabwe

4. Equal Opportunities On An Unequal Playing Field: The Potential For Social Change In The ICT Workplace

5. Can New Practice Change Old Habits? ICT And Female Politicians’ Decision-Making In Senegal

6. Personal Expansion Versus Traditional Gender Stereotypes: Tunisian University Women And ICT

7. Hiba’s Quest For Freedom: ICT And Gender- Based Violence In Yemen

Part Two: Developing Critical Voice In And Through Safe ICT- Created Space

8 ICT In A Time Of Sectarian Violence: Reflections From Kafanchan, Northern Nigeria 9Disconnecting From And In The Public Sphere, Connecting Online: Young Egyptian Women Expand Their Self-Knowing Beyond Cultural And Body-Image Dictates

10Teenage Girls’ Sexting In Cape Town, South Africa: A Child-Centred And Feminist Approach

11Of Browsing And Becoming: Young Yemeni Women Enhance Their Self-Awareness And Leadership Capacities

12ICT In The Search For Gender Freedoms: Jordanian University Students Think, Talk And Change

13Scheherazades Of Today: Young Palestinian Women Use Technology To Speak Up And Effect Change

14 Jordanian Bloggers: A Journey Of Speaking Back To The Politics Of Silence, Shame And Fear

 

8

Part Three: ICT- Enhanced Relating And Becoming: Personal And Social Transformation

16 Ancient Culture And New Technology: ICT And A Future Free From FGM/C For Girls In Sudan

 17 Finding New Meaning, Creating New Connections: ICT Empowers Mothers Of Children With Special Needs In Egypt

18 Serving Self And Society: Female Radio Presenters In Uganda Effect Social Change

19 Challenging The Silence, Secrecy And Shame: Transforming ICT’s Role In Increasing Pre-Marital Sex In Sudan

20 Reviving The Power Of Community: How Radio Rurale Femme De Mbalmayo In Cameroon Became A Catalyst For Equality And Democracy

21 Transforming Relationships And Co-Creating New Realities: Landownership, Gender And ICT In Egypt

 

Factors Facilitating Integration and Impact

The focus on intentional purpose in all aspects of the preparation and the actual work nurtured participants’ capacity for agency; not only their critical agency but also their creative agency.

The focus on relationality in all aspects of the preparation and the work stimulated participants’ capacity for voice; not only their critical voice but also their capacity for critical dialogue.

GRACE as a living membrane, held and supported all of us, regardless what we went through.

What I learnt: Respect ……

• For women’s rationalities….. especially when we do not understand them

• For power, power differentials and power relationships from the global scene to the household, from the self geo-politically

• For ourselves, our journeys of learning and growing insight and our care

Acknowledgements and contact details

All our research participants, the organizations and institutions that facilitated access to our research participants and funded us (especially the International Research Development Centre (IDRC)

Serena Carta of ONG2.0

Contact Details: GRACE: grace-network.net Ineke Buskens: ineke@researchforthefuture.com