| |
|
Date Added to
Site: 1st September 2003 |
| |
Short Summary
|
| Title |
Bearers, Buyers and Bureaucrats: the Missing
Social World in Gender and Water |
| Author |
Cleaver, F. |
| Publication
Date |
July 2003 |
| Publisher |
Institute of Development Studies (IDS) |
|
Short Summary |
Despite several decades of concern for gender
in the water sector, progress towards gender equitable practices has
been patchy in the extreme. Cleaver here draws on previous work reviewing
gender and water policies and identifying gaps in these and investigating
understandings of institutions of water resource management.This short
think-piece examines in more detail how the disappointing progress
with gender and water initiatives can be partly attributed to an impoverished
understanding of the social world, in particular to static and oversimplified
models of institutions, cultural norms and social relationships. This
lack of understanding of the social can lead to well-meaning gender
approaches to water merely reproducing stereotypes and perpetuating
essentialist myths about the nature of women's role in water resource
management. Cleaver suggests that little real progress will be made
until the importance is recognised of detailed and contextualised
social understandings, the dynamic nature of culture, the workings
of structure and agency in social relationships and the complex evolution
of institutions.
(Paper prepared for the International Workshop Feminist Fables and
Gender Myths: Repositioning Gender in Development Policy and Practice,
Institute of Development Studies, Sussex, 2-4 July 2003) |
| Complete Document |
 View
MS Word Document |
|
