Too much book: a capabilities and African-feminist based investigation of Cameroonian women’s empowerment through higher education

• In Event: Dissertation workshop session
  In Special Session: Critical Race Theory and Feminist Perspectives

Proposal

This abstract details ongoing research supervised by Professor Melanie Walker, SARChI Chair and director of the Higher Education and Human Development Research Group at the University of the Free State, South Africa. The researcher has completed their dissertation proposal to the satisfaction of the research committee and has been recently cleared for data collection.
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In Cameroon, the Pidgin-English phrase ‘too much book’ is often used to capture the notion of being overeducated to one’s detriment particularly with regards to women. While enrolment figures show that general education is valued for both genders in most of the country, Cameroonian women soon meet with an invisible line that determines that they have had ‘enough’ education. This line typically falls at the end of a woman’s first tertiary qualification; a woman’s education is seen as acceptable and adding value till postgraduate level at which point succumbs to a law of diminishing returns. This notion of ‘too much book’ rests on the aggrandizement of ideas advanced by international development agencies in promoting initiatives to meet global education targets. These initiatives which paint all educated women as ‘empowered’ women lend credence to the stereotype that a woman with ‘too much’ education would be a threat to men and traditional society as a whole (Atanga, Ellece, Litosseliti, & Sunderland, 2013, p10). However, research shows that the empowerment of women by higher education is conditional and not guaranteed. Likewise, the empowerment itself is a fluid concept that must be contextualized and cannot be assumed. The assumption of Cameroonian women’s empowerment through higher education, therefore, generates two problems; it promotes the limitation of young women’s aspirations and an incomplete informational basis for government (and public) judgement of higher education outcomes to women. This research takes on this assumption by proposing an exploration of what empowerment means for Cameroonian women and the potential of state universities in Cameroon to enable the empowerment they have reason to value.

To address the above-outlined problem(s), this study employs the modular format of Capabilitatian applications forwarded by Robeyns (2017) and develops an original African-feminist application of the Capabilities Approach to frame its exploration of what empowerment means for Cameroonian women and answer the overarching question: ‘Can higher education provide Cameroonian women with the necessary capabilities to consider themselves empowered and be considered empowered’? The following sub-questions indicate the objectives of the study:
i. How do diverse Cameroonian women themselves conceptualize empowerment, and what do they perceive as their most valued capabilities/functionings?
ii. How does higher education empower Cameroonian women with the necessary capabilities to consider themselves and be considered by others as empowered?
iii. What conversion factors serve to enhance or hinder the empowerment of Cameroonian women through higher education and how would higher education need to improve to foster Cameroonian women’s functionings and capabilities for empowerment?
iv. How does an innovative and original African-feminist and capability approach theorization contribute to the understanding of women’s empowerment and the development of Capabilitarian theory?

Informed by this aim and driving research questions, this study adopts the interpretivist paradigm as its underlying worldview and a qualitative approach. The study is designed as a narrative inquiry with the triangulation of qualitative primary data (collected through life-story interviews and interactive focus groups) alongside secondary data analysis of related literature to consolidate the research as valid and reliable for the academic world. Participants for the study (a sample of twenty Cameroonian women graduate students) will be recruited via calls made at four higher institutions reflecting Cameroon’s multidimensional higher education system and diverse population. Data collected will be analyzed narratively and thematically with the aid of instruments- Rowland’s (1997) categorization of power, and the capabilities and empowerment framework presented by Murphy-Graham and Lloyd (2016) - adapted as per principles of the African-feminist application. By so doing, the research conceptually interrogates power deficits and understanding what empowering education entails, supporting this with empirical evidence of participant narratives.

By questioning the very conceptualization of one assumed outcome of higher learning- empowerment - this research encourages us to examine what is valued prior to proclaiming its delivery. The simultaneous application of an African-feminist framework and the Capabilities Application (which has been predominantly engendered using mainstream western feminist thought), will contribute considerably to developing nuanced understandings of what it means to be empowered through higher education, thus enriching international literature in this field whilst underscoring how Cameroon’s higher education can be improved to best enable the empowerment of Cameroonian women for human development.

Author

• Monique Kwachou, SARChi Chair in Higher Education & Human Development Research Programme- University of the Free State