Conceptual Analysis

Conceptual analysis

2007 – Ongoing

Development of social justice framework for ‘men and masculinities’ work in sexual health and development fields

Institute for

Development Studies, University of Sussex, Global

A shared interest in pushing ‘men and masculinities’ work within the sexual health and development fields to engage more fully with issues of social injustice led to my work the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) on an international symposium on “Politicising Masculinities: Beyond the Personal”. Together with academic staff at IDS, I co-designed and co-facilitated the symposium. It brought together activists, researchers and donors from around the world to articulate a programmatic, political and intellectual agenda for ‘men and masculinities’ work. By the middle of 2011, a book expressing the key debates of the symposium will be published, for which I will serve as co-editor and contributor.

United Nations
Development
Program
Global

For the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), I co-authored its Gender in Development unit’s monograph on “Men, Masculinities and Development: Broadening our work towards gender equality” that was presented at the Beijing +5 conference. I co-facilitated workshops on gender mainstreaming for UNDP/UNICEF staff in Eastern and Southern Africa and gender mainstreaming for UNDP
headquarters staff, with an emphasis on how to address issues of men and masculinity in gender mainstreaming.

2007 – Ongoing

Understanding the role of social movements in ending gender-based violence

United Nations Development Program,
South Asia and Southeast Asia

In late 2007, UNDP, UNIFEM and UNFPA launched a joint program for the Asia region entitled: “Partners for Prevention: Working with Men and Boys to Prevent Gender-based Violence”.  I co-designed and co-facilitated the regional consultative meeting that planned the program and authored a concept paper on the policy implications of work with men to end gender-based violence.
Arising from this, I have developed a qualitative research project exploring the gender politics of social movements, which will be undertaken in three sites within the Asia region in 2011. In Bangladesh and Indonesia, the research will focus on the relationships between existing women’s rights work and emergent work with men on gender equality, investigating the ways in which these relationships are shaping public policy agendas and advocacy on women’s empowerment and gender-based violence. In India, the focus will be on Left progressive social movements, including the Right to Food movement, the Land Rights movement and the Dalit Rights movement. The study will address the extent to which the ‘external’ priorities and strategies and ‘internal’ processes and cultures of specific Left progressive social movements reflect a gendered understanding of the violence and oppression they confront and a gendered response to this violence and oppression in their efforts to change public policy. The study will be completed in the summer of 2011.

2002 – 2007

Articulation of a Transformative Justice approach to responding to child sexual abuse

Generation Five USA

Generation Five, a US-based non-profit working to end child sexual abuse in five generations, recognized the need to link work for individual justice in cases of child sexual abuse (CSA) with work for social justice that can change the conditions that allow CSA to happen. Over the course of five years, I supported Generation Five in developing the principles, processes and practices of a Transformative Justice approach to CSA. This included facilitating local and national-level consultations and co-authoring Generation Five’s briefing paper entitled: “Toward Transformative Justice – A Liberatory Approach to Child Sexual Abuse and other forms of Intimate and Community Violence”.

2005 – 2006

Development of conceptual framework for policy and program initiatives on men, gender equity and health

World Health Organization Global

Having completed a desk review of literature (published and ‘grey’) on issues of men and gender in relation to major communicable and non-communicable diseases, I developed a conceptual framework with which to synthesize the major findings and conclusions of the review.