Women’s support systems as mechanisms of sustainable social transformation in India

• In Event: Gender and social transformation

Proposal

Women’s support systems as mechanisms of sustainable social transformation in India

When a woman fights for power,
as all women would like to,
quietly or loudly,
it is questioned.
And yet, there must be freedom –
if we are to speak.
And yes, there must be power —
if we are to be heard.
And when we have both (freedom and power),
let us not be misunderstood.
- Anasuya Sengupta (1995)

Introduction
Women and girls in India, especially those from minoritized groups, are disproportionately denied education and basic human rights. As a response to structural discrimination against women, Indian women’s organizations have emerged to support minoritized women – including Dalit and tribal women – in educating themselves and each other through formal and informal systems. This study-in-progress examines two such systems to understand how teaching and learning occurs: (1)Stree Mukti Sanghatana (SMS), an all-women waste-picker organization that is a sustainable livelihood source in Mumbai’s “slums,” and (2) Mahila Rajsatta Andolan (MRA), a group of localized female political leaders who oversee Panchayats, a village-level governance structure, across Maharashtra. Both organizations work at the nexus of education and professional and community development. SMS is an informal site of professional development and livelihood creation as a means to women’s empowerment, and MRA is formalized by national policies requiring female representation at the village level. Although the support systems differ in terms of formality and official purpose, both organizations organize, educate, and create the conditions for women to empower themselves and each other.

This study is guided by the following research questions:
1. What are the ways in which women’s support systems operate as vehicles for education and agency development within marginalized communities?
2. How do the goals, structures, and practices of women’s support systems vary across the diverse contexts in which they are situated?
3. How do women experience these support systems, and how does their participation in these systems impact their own lives, families, and communities?

Conceptual Framework
Indian girls lack equal access to education systems. Female students remain far less likely to be enrolled in quality schools and to complete secondary education than their male peers (Azam & Kingdon, 2013; Muralidharan & Prakash, 2017). This gender gap persists in other educational spaces, too: As of this year, “some 49% of women between 15 and 24 years old are not in education, employment, or training, compared to just 8% for boys” (A job of her own, 2018, p. 14). Caste, socioeconomic status, and other identity markers further influence girls’ and women’s ability to participate in and contribute to India’s knowledge economy (Beyond Basics, 2018; Rege, 2010).

In this context, women’s support systems provide vital opportunities for personal and professional development. This is not to say that such systems are inherently successful in empowering their members; indeed, some studies of self-help groups (e.g., Shylendra, 1998; Minimol & Makesh, 2012) found that groups did not reach their full potential, suggesting a need for women’s groups to document and share best practices among themselves. Moreover, dialogue between women’s groups, which have traditionally been divided along lines of caste, socioeconomic, linguistic, and cultural difference, is a crucial step towards building a unified Indian feminist movement and “translating the discourse of sexual politics from individual narratives to collective contestations of hierarchies” (Rege, 1998, WS43-WS44). Women’s support systems have the potential to spur both individual growth and sustainable social transformation in India.

Data Collection & Analysis
This emergent design study consists of three mutually informative phases of data collection and analysis. The first phase is an ethnographic participant observation of both sites’ leaders, members, and activities, including extensive visits to multiple sites such as the organizations’ headquarters, waste-pickers’ routes throughout Mumbai, and Panchayat offices and community meetings across Maharashtra. In addition, we incorporate participatory transect walks with insiders to hear their perspectives about the physical/relational landscapes of their lives (Mukherjee, 2002). These methods serve to generate data related to our first two research questions and identify participants for Phase II.

Phase II consists of individual and small-group interviews with women leaders and members of SMS and MRA. Phase II begins with in-depth interviews with 10 key participants from each organization who represent a range of social identities. After these interviews, we include participatory member checks to solicit participants’ feedback on interpretations and themes emerging from formative analysis (Ravitch & Carl, 2016). These interviews and member checks answer the third research question and generate a list of additional participants to be included in small-group conversations (determined via snowball sampling).

Phase III focuses on summative data analysis with open coding of the data set to develop inductive codes and emergent themes (Gibson & Brown, 2009). After developing first-round codes, we engage participants to see if/how these codes represent their experiences and invite interested participants to engage in subsequent collaborative data analysis to develop case profiles connected to emergent themes on the roles women’s support systems play in their lives and communities (not all of which may be positive). A primary goal is to leverage these narratives as contextually relevant resources for women’s networks across India and collaborate with organizational leadership to disseminate findings and design future research. The presentation of this study-in-progress will include preliminary findings and tentative conclusions based on the data gathered and analyzed by April 2019.

Significance
This study offers a unique opportunity to examine the range of strategies that Indian women employ to support their own and each other’s personal and professional growth outside of educational institutions and networks from which they have traditionally been excluded. In systematically exploring the knowledge-building and -sharing processes utilized by two independent women’s organizations, we seek to understand their mechanisms of success, facilitate an exchange of learning and resources, and develop a theory of action to be adapted for use by women’s organizations within and across marginalized communities in India. This study marks the beginning of longitudinal research to study women elevating themselves and their organizations, families, and communities through contextually relevant means across diverse settings.

Authors

• Nicole Mittenfelner Carl, University of Pennsylvania

• Sharon Ravitch, University of Pennsylvania

• Taylor Hausburg, University of Pennsylvania