Gender – Keough Insider

A call for action driven by humility and honest self-reflection

I have gone over this blog in my mind for a long time. How should I write something that is true to the difficult conditions of people’s lives in Timor-Leste without trivializing the work that they have already achieved? How do I talk about the resilience and ethic of the Timorese without patronizing them and exotifying their struggles? Should I even try? Is it even valid for me to claim some or any knowledge of their lives given my privilege as someone only passing by?

Our Integration Lab project with Oxfam is primarily evaluative—we have travelled to Timor-Leste, and further still to an enclave called Oecusse splintered from mainland Timor-Leste and surrounded by Indonesia. We have collected stories through interviews with fifty participants in Oxfam’s Saving for Change (SfC) project and key informants within Oxfam, other civil society organizations, and the government in the span of two weeks. However, I am not naive enough to think that we have alleviated or assisted the people we accompanied (for only two weeks, at that!) to the extent that they want or need. It is with great trepidation and self-evaluation that I even start this blog. Furthermore, this blog is not a criticism of the entirety of developmental work and the organizations that are continuing to do good. This post is a call for all burgeoning and hopeful practitioners in the Keough School, many of whom will undoubtedly get jobs in high positions, to start their careers with honest questioning and reflection on their privilege and power and how that impacts the interactions that we have.

OXFAM’S SAVING FOR CHANGE IN TIMOR LESTE

Our project aims to assist women’s economic empowerment through SfC implemented by Oxfam’s local partners. The challenges these women (and men) face are immense; our work aims to see how we might better assist in the implementation of this program and whether this can be scaled up to include vocational training, financial literacy, or access to markets. We also looked at the possibility of structuring a multi-country program around women’s economic empowerment with interest from Oxfam in Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam. We hope to inform Oxfam (both the US and country offices) through our research while also being acutely aware of the limitations of our study, given the short time frame. There’s also the matter of power dynamics—as representatives of Oxfam, we were in a position of power given the majority of our interviewees were beneficiaries of Oxfam’s project.

Oxfam, to its immense credit, employs local staff and funnels its programming through local organizations that already have a presence in the communities that they help. It is also one of very few organizations that aims to be involved in advocacy on such sensitive issues as gender equity and sexual violence. Local partners, even when fully stretched in terms of funding and personnel, were available to help and assist our little project. The Oxfam office in Oecusse is entirely run by local Timorese staff while the office in Dili, the capital, has only three to four non-Timorese staff. This integration of local knowledge, staff, and expertise gives me hope that development work occurs at the grassroots level and is not entirely funneled through outside organizations often in the Global North.

A traditional house in Oecusse, Timor-Leste.

It is hard not to notice the influence of INGOs, aid agencies, and international governments in shaping Timor-Leste, one of the youngest countries. For nearly 400 years, the Portuguese had a colonial presence in the country, only for the Indonesians to occupy the area from 1975 to 1999, after which the UN ushered in democracy by organizing the first election in 2001. The agencies that have worked here since the country’s independence in 1999 have done immense work in assisting to forge a country that is well-equipped politically and socio-economically, but there is still a lot to be done. All of this, however, could not be achieved in a such a short period of time without the will, ingenuity, and work of the Timorese.

REFLECTIONS AND THE NEED TO QUESTION

While we can all celebrate the UN and the various other organizations in attempting to better Timor-Leste, can we also not simultaneously question the problematic nature of the powerful in co-opting the course of an entire country? I fully admit that this is reductionist; that the people who are coming in for development are not the same as those that colonized and brutalized this country, but it must also be acknowledged that the countries who come in now and have the capacity to extend this “help” are also the ones who predominantly benefited from the colonization and exploitation in the first place. Is there nothing problematic with colonizing a country for 200+ years, stripping its resources, undermining and oppressing its people, leaving it barren with little to no institutional capacity to build itself up and then having the audacity to come back in with supposed aid and expert advice?

In today’s political climate—with the rise of religious populism, toxic nationalism, and many Western countries’ flirtation with heavily-right leaning political parties—it is often considered taboo to question the inherent power structures in the world. As master’s students, we are taught to question everything, and yet, I have found that this only applies up to a point where the answers, or even the questions, start making us uncomfortable. Questioning development does not mean that you do not appreciate the good things that have been achieved; however, given the current polarization of people’s beliefs, I can see why criticism is mistakenly equated with hostility towards development.

HUMILITY AND SELF-CRITICISM

The Keough School has given me the chance to analyze development work as a practitioner, and it would be a disservice to myself as well as the people who we aim to accompany if I did not reflect deeply on this. Self-reflection on what one is doing, especially given the privilege one holds and understanding how that privilege and power was attained, should be a prerequisite if we are to continue to practice development work.

My team and I planning our project with a representative from Oxfam in the i-Lab.

A little bit of humility goes a long way. You are not going to change the lives of the people with just one product, report, or evaluation. Knowing one’s limitations and approaching others with humility is a simple notion, though rarely practiced. Mixed together, there needs to be a reevaluation of what one’s final product really is. Is our report or product really adding something insightful that others before us have not already noticed or reported on? Through humility, reflection, and active listening, we can attempt to build on what has already been achieved and produce something useful.

There is a need for more evaluative projects, like Oxfam’s, where participants are given an equal voice to raise their concerns free of pressure. Only through honest and critical self-reflection can we practitioners truly move forward.

Feelings in the field

by: Abeera Akhtar

“When natural disasters strike, they hit poor communities first and worst. And since women make up an estimated 70 percent of those living below the poverty line, they are most likely to bear the heaviest burdens.” – WEDO and Oxfam America Fact Sheet

My Integration Lab (i-Lab) partner, Theresa Puhr, and I reached Cambodia in the first week of June to temperatures of around 38°C. The heat combined with the humidity was more than any of us had expected. We soon learned that while summer in Cambodia had always been warm, this year was exceptionally hot, and the rainy season had not seen much rain. The culprit is no stranger to any of us anymore: climate change.

For our i-Lab research project, Theresa and I are spending the summer in Cambodia working with Oxfam to understand how women’s economic empowerment (WEE) programs work and how they can be used to challenge gender dynamics in the household and expand smallholder women farmers’ access to markets. Climate change was never something that explicitly came up as we prepared for our time in Cambodia, yet it is a reality that we could not ignore once we were here.

Though Cambodia is still recovering from the socioeconomic devastation left by the Khmer Rouge, it has certainly caught global attention for its rapid economic growth rate of 7.5% per year. As Cambodia moves away from its dependence on international aid and imports, its focus has shifted to building its natural resource industries. With a largely agrarian economy, rice is one of Cambodia’s main exports, and there is a push for the country to become the largest organic rice producer in Asia.

Green rice fields in the Pursat province of Cambodia. — Rice fields in the Pursat province of Cambodia

Most of the women farmers we have met are between the ages of 40 and 60, since much of Cambodia’s youth have migrated to cities or other countries to look for better economic opportunities. Farming is clearly a labor-intensive job, even more so because these women cannot afford machines to automate any of their work. In our interactions with them, we learned that organic crops provide a premium price, and we sensed their desire to learn about advancements in farming techniques so they could access this market. Yet changing the traditional techniques that they have grown up with is not easy. And while the process may be slow, Cambodia expects to be a force to be reckoned with when it comes to rice production in the near future.

HOW CLIMATE CHANGE HOLDS CAMBODIA BACK

Despite all the optimism around increasing rice production, each interview with the women farmers brought forth several challenges still facing the industry. Out of many, one in particular stuck with me: the changing seasonal patterns.

Cambodia has two seasons: the dry season, which lasts from December to April, and the wet season, which is from May to October. Given that rice requires a lot of water, it is a staple of the rainy season. Due to the lack of rainfall this year, many farmers have lost entire crops. While every stakeholder we met with—from development partners to the government—acknowledged climate change as an issue, just like the rest of the world, they are struggling to respond to it. And as Cambodia fast-tracks its development, climate change has become a bigger reality.

PEOPLE BEFORE POLICY

As students of the Keough School’s Master of Global Affairs program, we talk a lot about policy recommendations, how they might be implemented, and their implications as a whole. However, in these discussions about these major problems, we often lose out on how policies affect individuals and fail to fathom how far-reaching their consequences are. I truly felt this as the private sector individuals in Cambodia talked about how European tariffs and demand from China affects local rice demand—yet, the woman we met had one purpose: produce rice and sell it to make a decent living.

MGA students, an Oxfam representative, and a translator stand in front of a large tree in Cambodia.

As every interview and focus group we have participated in talks about the changing weather and how it has affected crops, I am filled with a sense of dread. Given the current trajectory of climate change, the future looks bleak. Cambodia, along with the rest of the world, is not alone in being unprepared for the challenges that lay ahead. If we were to come back to meet the same women in five years’ time, how will climate change have affected their livelihood? Would the government have stepped up to deal with the problem? Even more so, will the needs of smallholder farmers, particularly women, be heard? Organizations like Oxfam are trying to ensure progress in this area, but with a problem that big and so many lives at stake, the real question to ask is: Are we really doing enough?

Navigating Cambodia: Reflections from the first week

by: Theresa Puhr

While climbing through the ruins of one of the many temples in the Angkor Archaeological Park in the city of Siem Reap, I was taken aback by a large tree growing on top of the temple’s walls. It was striking—the tree soared into the sky at least 20 feet high, its roots sturdily straddling the wall. For the rest of the day, I continued to think about that tree. To me, it seemed to be a perfect metaphor for Cambodia: the ruins of the temples symbolized the country’s long history, while the tree was present-day Cambodia. Present-day Cambodia isn’t simply a remodeling of an old temple. Rather, it is a stark offshoot that is attempting to stay connected to its roots.

A tall tree growing off the side of a temple at Angkor Archaeological Park — Ruins from a temple in Angkor Archaeological Park.

The Khmer Empire emerged in the ninth century and ruled for five hundred years, bringing Buddhism and political and cultural development to Cambodia. This was evident at the archaeological park, where massive stone structures, full of intricate art, lay on top of human-constructed waterways. The area was bustling with tourists, and it was easy to get caught up in the awe-inspiring complex of temples.

However, small details remind you of Cambodia’s darker, more recent history. At several of the temple entrances, a group of musicians serenaded visitors with traditional music. They all had apparent physical disabilities—and signs next to their performance space confirmed this, describing how these musicians were all injured by landmines. While we ate lunch with our tuk-tuk driver, he explained to us that he was not a native of Siem Reap—rather, he used to live in the jungle, fleeing from the Vietnamese during the reign of the Khmer Rouge.

Remnants of the legacy of the Khmer Rouge and its genocide of around two million people during the 1970s are ubiquitous in Cambodia. I see it on a daily basis—in the fairly young faces that surround me on the streets, in my struggle to figure out what Khmer cuisine exactly is since many recipes and culinary traditions were lost to the genocide, in the very visible survivors of the war who share their stories on the street.

At the same time, rapid economic development also dominates the landscape. High-rises are under construction, most being built by Chinese companies. Parts of the capital, Phnom Penh, are full of modern architecture and advertisements for Western luxury brands. These images of economic growth have brought to life everything I learned about Cambodia’s rapid rate of development in one of my macroeconomics class projects back in my first semester of the MGA program. Any observer can clearly see that Cambodia has made an impressive comeback over the last four decades. In reality, Cambodia’s development has only scratched the surface and has yet to reverse the damage done by the Khmer Rouge.

The city of Phnom Penh at night. — Nighttime near the center of Phnom Penh—this area is in striking contrast to the more populated areas of the city.

PICKING UP THE PIECES

According to official reports, the country’s poverty rate has experienced a massive decline and is currently sitting at 13.5 percent. However, poverty indicators that account for factors other than just income place Cambodia’s poverty rate at a much higher 35 percent. This is why NGOs like my i-Lab partner organization, Oxfam, continue to operate in the country.

Through the Keough School’s i-Lab, my team and I are working with Oxfam in both Cambodia and Timor-Leste to explore avenues to achieve financial inclusion. Inequality in Cambodia is growing: there are limited opportunities for decent work, and climate change threatens its most vulnerable populations. Thus, it is important to remember that, regardless of Cambodia’s ability to achieve remarkable economic growth in recent years, healing from trauma is a long and difficult process.

It may take generations for Cambodia to recover from its painful history and reestablish roots in its traditions. As our team works with Oxfam to improve the status of women by examining programming which addresses gender norms and researching market access opportunities in Cambodia, we will continue to be mindful of the fact that these goals cannot be achieved in a vacuum. Context matters, and we must not forget Cambodia’s complex layers of history and tradition in our work to address gender inequality.

Bangladesh: A New Learning Experience

by: Chista Keramati

Chista Keramati is working with the Bangladesh Centre for Advanced Studies (BCAS) in Dhaka. Chista and her teammate, Jamie, will be studying the gendered aspect of climate change by looking at policies and programs in Bangladesh that address the vulnerabilities of women to climate-induced hazards. The team is conducting fieldwork in three different rural areas of Bangladesh, each prone to a different mix of climate disasters.

The pilot announced that our plane would be landing in 40 minutes at Shahjalal International Airport in Dhaka. Looking out the window, I tried to see with my own eyes the Bangladesh landscape. I spotted settlements here and there, green areas of what I assumed were cultivated land, and what I initially perceived as “dirt roads.” I asked myself, “But, wait! Where is all the water that I read so much about?,” only to realize that the “dirt roads” were not really roads but rivers whose brown color comes from the huge amount of sediment they carry with them along the way. I gazed in awe at the magnificent web of rivers and wetlands that were running across the landscape below our feet.

That feeling of awe has not only remained but grown with me at every scenic or human encounter here. Life in Dhaka involves learning not necessarily new things, but everything in a new and different way. This new learning experience encompasses everything from the very basic activity of crossing the street (a double challenge when you are not used to people driving on the left-hand side of the road, and overcrowded streets that rarely have street signs) to working with our partner organization BCAS.

FIRST MEETING WITH OUR PROJECT PARTNER

Our first week in Dhaka involved extensive meetings with BCAS members, together with our professor Tracy Kijewski-Correa. We heard about the BCAS team’s hopes and aspirations not just for a better life for the people of Bangladesh, but for the whole world.

On our first meeting with Dr. Atiq Rahman, the founder of BCAS, he explained how the neat and well-organized knowledge in written reports and proposals do not necessarily match the messy realities on the ground.

I can see what he means. The realities we read about on paper before coming here have felt different when faced and experienced first-hand. I am seeing with my own eyes the amount of water running across the Bangladesh landscape, and how this might relate to climate change. And instead of seeing images of busy streets, I am now crossing even the narrowest streets of Dhaka with special caution. I am relieved, too, to find that there are some female experts working at BCAS and that it is not an all-male organization. This is important to our research.

RESEARCHING GENDER AND CLIMATE CHANGE

As a team of two women interested in researching the gendered aspect of climate change in Bangladesh, we are trying to observe and learn as much as we can about the attitude towards women in this country. Of course, our own personal experience has been mixed with our identity as not just women, but non-Bangladeshi women. We are slowly getting used to attracting attention at every turn in the local market, and being asked to take selfies wherever we go site-seeing.

Another lesson I have learned is that Google Maps doesn’t help much with local transportation. When you are stuck in a street and don’t know how to get home, and you also don’t know the local language, you can still rely on the kindness of strangers to help you take a CNG taxi (a small motor vehicle that runs with compressed natural gas). I have learned that once you ask someone for help, they feel responsible for you until their job of helping you is completed successfully.

AnAn attraction in our own right — An attraction in our own right.

As I am writing the final words of this blog post, I come across another cause for celebration, not necessarily related to our personal experience here, but surely related to Bangladeshi women: the Bangladesh women’s cricket team has just won the Asia Cup, making it the first Bangladeshi team ever to win this championship. It is both funny and endearing to read the comment of Soumya Sarkar, a Bangladeshi male cricket player on this great achievement, saying, “the moment is a proud one for us. This is the first time the girls won something, and that has come at the Asia Cup. They have won a big title, whereas the boys have won none till date, despite all the facilities.”[1]

Kudos to the women of Bangladesh! Our team is here to learn from you all.

[1] https://www.dhakatribune.com/sport/cricket/2018/06/10/bangladesh-women-elect-to-field-in-asia-cup-final