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Politics, Power and Gender Justice in the Anglophone Caribbean: Women’s Understandings of Politics, Experiences of Political Contestation and the Possibilities for Gender Transformation
In an attempt to investigate global strategies for advancing democratic governance, women’s rights and gender equality in the Anglophone Caribbean, the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and the Institute for Gender and Development Studies, UWI, St. Augustine campus (IGDS) have collaborated to undertake the proposed research, Politics, Power and Gender Justice in the Anglophone Caribbean: Women’s Understandings of Politics, Experiences of Political Contestation and the Possibilities for Gender Transformation. The study will be conducted over a period of 24 months, and will take place in Dominica, Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago in partnership with the following: IGDS, UWI, Mona campus and IGDS, UWI, Cave Hill campus.
The research project examines four strategies to promote democratic governance, women’s rights and gender equality. First, women’s political leadership is explored for the extent to which it creates greater governmental will and capacity to more actively and effectively transform gender relations both within and outside of the state. Second, quota systems are assessed for their impact on effective women’s participation and leadership in representative government. Third, the usefulness of National Gender Policy documents for promoting gender equality is evaluated. Finally, the impact of feminist movement-building on women’s capacity to be effective transformational leaders within democratic political life is investigated.
Each of these factors can expand the spaces for realising women’s rights and gender equality, create greater capacity (among women and men) to achieve transformed gender relations, and shift the gender ideologies that present resistances to women’s effective political participation and leadership. Together, they reflect a core set of historical struggles waged across the Anglophone Caribbean. This project documents the history of struggle in three Caribbean nations. It focuses on specific countries where these struggles appear to have been won. Trinidad and Tobago provide an appropriate case study for examining the impact of women’s contemporary political leadership, Guyana for exploring the impact of quota systems, Dominica for exploring the impact of national gender policies, and the Caribbean Institute for Women in Leadership (CIWiL) for evaluating the impact of feminist advocacy on women’s rights, effectiveness and representation in democratic governance. CIWIL on facebook.
These cases thus investigate four global strategies for advancing democratic governance, women’s rights and gender equality. They offer insights into transnational, regional and national alliances between states, international organisations, NGOs and feminist movements, and demonstrate the relevance of national case studies for understanding regional and global experiences. Indeed, both regional and national case studies are essential if we are to understand how democracy, the state and politics are/can be sites for renegotiating gender relations in different twenty-first century contexts. To this end, the project will undertake two phases of research. The first phase will focus on a regional and historical review of each of the four strategies. The second phase will be based on ethnographic case studies in three countries and of the CIWIL experience.
