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It’s gender Jim, but not as we know it … A critical review of constructions of gendered knowledge of the global south

Bradshaw, Sarah, Linneker, Brian, Sanders-McDonagh, Erin (2019) It’s gender Jim, but not as we know it … A critical review of constructions of gendered knowledge of the global south. European Journal of Women’s Studies, 27 (2). pp. 128-144. ISSN 1350-5068. (doi:10.1177/1350506819847233) (KAR id:73615)

Abstract

This article explores how research helps construct a certain type of ‘gender’ knowledge that arises from, informs and reinforces ‘instrumentalist’ gendered policy perspectives on development of the Global South. It uses a case study of research funded under the ESRC-DFID Joint Fund for Poverty Alleviation which awarded 122 grants amounting to £66.2 million (around US$88 million) between 2005 and 2015. From a systematic review of the awards a typology of gender inclusion and exclusion was constructed that found 60% of all awards mentioned gender or included some level of gender analysis. The subsequent synthesis of the evidence suggested that in only 30% of all awards was the gendered knowledge produced central to the study and/or focused on better understanding gender roles, relations and identities. Applying a Feminist Institutionalist lens, the study highlights how institutional ideas around gender are reflected in the funding call specifications, and in turn influence how researchers ‘engendered’ their research, and the type of gendered knowledge produced. It finds much of the new gendered knowledge produced out of the Joint Fund emerged from non-gender focused research often produced by non-gendered researchers. It suggests that as gender becomes mainstreamed into research, and as more researchers ‘do gender’, so research becomes, conversely, less ‘gendered’. The ‘new’ gender knowledge produced may then merely evidence existing institutional policy positions rather than advance the policy agenda.

Item Type: Article
DOI/Identification number: 10.1177/1350506819847233
Uncontrolled keywords: DFID, ESRC, feminist institutionalism, funded research; gender mainstreaming; instrumentalist
Divisions: Divisions > Division for the Study of Law, Society and Social Justice > School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research
Depositing User: Erin Sanders-McDonagh
Date Deposited: 24 Apr 2019 15:31 UTC
Last Modified: 28 Jul 2022 22:09 UTC
Resource URI: https://kar.kent.ac.uk/id/eprint/73615 (The current URI for this page, for reference purposes)

University of Kent Author Information

Sanders-McDonagh, Erin.

Creator's ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6955-3955
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