Development work focused on gender equality usually concentrates on easily measurable practical needs, but rarely on structural change and social justice. The purpose of the present research is to analyze a women’s grassroots organization’s (MBUP) role in promoting social change through Self-help groups, a medium commonly used to give women access to credit. The analysis explores how collective action can bring about structural change to oppressive gender norms. Drawing on a power-conscious feminist approach, the study involves 32 in depth qualitative interviews. The findings show that MBUP is promoting social change and women’s rights in certain ways, namely in creating social awareness in women, access to information for women, and active citizenship in women. However, the organization is limited in encouraging systemic change through the promotion of collective struggle. Moreover, while the organization is inclusive and displays diversity in the entirety of its structure, its critical introspection remains limited.

Development work focused on gender equality usually concentrates on easily measurable practical needs, but rarely on structural change and social justice. The purpose of the present research is to analyze a women’s grassroots organization’s (MBUP) role in promoting social change through Self-help groups, a medium commonly used to give women access to credit. The analysis explores how collective action can bring about structural change to oppressive gender norms. Drawing on a power-conscious feminist approach, the study involves 32 in depth qualitative interviews. The findings show that MBUP is promoting social change and women’s rights in certain ways, namely in creating social awareness in women, access to information for women, and active citizenship in women. However, the organization is limited in encouraging systemic change through the promotion of collective struggle. Moreover, while the organization is inclusive and displays diversity in the entirety of its structure, its critical introspection remains limited.

Development work focused on gender equality usually concentrates on easily measurable practical needs, but rarely on structural change and social justice. The purpose of the present research is to analyze a women’s grassroots organization’s (MBUP) role in promoting social change through Self-help groups, a medium commonly used to give women access to credit. The analysis explores how collective action can bring about structural change to oppressive gender norms. Drawing on a power-conscious feminist approach, the study involves 32 in depth qualitative interviews. The findings show that MBUP is promoting social change and women’s rights in certain ways, namely in creating social awareness in women, access to information for women, and active citizenship in women. However, the organization is limited in encouraging systemic change through the promotion of collective struggle. Moreover, while the organization is inclusive and displays diversity in the entirety of its structure, its critical introspection remains limited.

Development work focused on gender equality usually concentrates on easily measurable practical needs, but rarely on structural change and social justice. The purpose of the present research is to analyze a women’s grassroots organization’s (MBUP) role in promoting social change through Self-help groups, a medium commonly used to give women access to credit. The analysis explores how collective action can bring about structural change to oppressive gender norms. Drawing on a power-conscious feminist approach, the study involves 32 in depth qualitative interviews. The findings show that MBUP is promoting social change and women’s rights in certain ways, namely in creating social awareness in women, access to information for women, and active citizenship in women. However, the organization is limited in encouraging systemic change through the promotion of collective struggle. Moreover, while the organization is inclusive and displays diversity in the entirety of its structure, its critical introspection remains limited.

Thesis (M.A.)--Miami University, Dept. of History, 2008. / Title from first page of PDF document. Includes bibliographical references (p. [26-29]).

No description available.

On January 31, 1911, the Homemakers' Clubs of Saskatchewan became an official organisation under the direction of the University of Saskatchewan. Established to provide isolated rural women with companionship, access to education, and the opportunity to carry out community service, Homemakers' Clubs appealed to thousands of farm women because they provided the means by which they could improve themselves, their farm homes, and their communities. Its appeal also lay in the fact that the organisation remained non-political and non-sectarian, focusing instead on women's primary responsibilities to their homes and their families. To that end, Homemakers' Clubs embraced a domestic ideology that institionalised notions of gender and celebrated women's roles in the home. Given that the nature of farm women's work was not restricted to the household, however, Homemakers' Clubs allowed rural women to redefine an urban domesticity to include their farming responsibilities. Moreover, in a setting where gender lines were often blurred and the division of labour was not always strictly defined, membership in an organisation that reinforced gender roles, promoted family and community life, and embraced a traditional mandate provided farm women with a level of respectability and femininity that was often lost in a farming setting. Finally, the domestic ideology under which the Homemakers' Clubs operated allowed its members to find recognition and validation in their work, and, in their goals to elevate home life, to legitimise their work, and to adjust domestic ideology to include their farming responsibilities, the organisation became a space in which its members discussed, debated, explored, and, in some cases, challenged common perceptions of women; they subtly challenged the status quo and demanded validation and recognition for their work in and contributions to their farms and communities. As such, an organisation that may outwardly appear to be a traditional women's organisation devoted strictly to the exchange of recipes and household advice, was, in actuality, quietly political and provided farm women with a sense of identity that enabled them to contribute fundamentally to their rural homes, families, and communities.

On January 31, 1911, the Homemakers' Clubs of Saskatchewan became an official organisation under the direction of the University of Saskatchewan. Established to provide isolated rural women with companionship, access to education, and the opportunity to carry out community service, Homemakers' Clubs appealed to thousands of farm women because they provided the means by which they could improve themselves, their farm homes, and their communities. Its appeal also lay in the fact that the organisation remained non-political and non-sectarian, focusing instead on women's primary responsibilities to their homes and their families. To that end, Homemakers' Clubs embraced a domestic ideology that institionalised notions of gender and celebrated women's roles in the home. Given that the nature of farm women's work was not restricted to the household, however, Homemakers' Clubs allowed rural women to redefine an urban domesticity to include their farming responsibilities. Moreover, in a setting where gender lines were often blurred and the division of labour was not always strictly defined, membership in an organisation that reinforced gender roles, promoted family and community life, and embraced a traditional mandate provided farm women with a level of respectability and femininity that was often lost in a farming setting. Finally, the domestic ideology under which the Homemakers' Clubs operated allowed its members to find recognition and validation in their work, and, in their goals to elevate home life, to legitimise their work, and to adjust domestic ideology to include their farming responsibilities, the organisation became a space in which its members discussed, debated, explored, and, in some cases, challenged common perceptions of women; they subtly challenged the status quo and demanded validation and recognition for their work in and contributions to their farms and communities. As such, an organisation that may outwardly appear to be a traditional women's organisation devoted strictly to the exchange of recipes and household advice, was, in actuality, quietly political and provided farm women with a sense of identity that enabled them to contribute fundamentally to their rural homes, families, and communities.

Starting from the standpoint of antiracist feminists in Southern Ontario, Canada, I examine the everyday social organization of antiracist feminist activism. Using key concepts from institutional ethnography and other critical research methods, I explore how women of colour activists engage, contest and modify existing social relations within women’s organizations to craft antiracist feminist organizational change. I describe how women of colour negotiate their antiracist, feminist and social justice commitments in ways which both respond to, and are constitutive of, contradictory social relations within women’s organizations. An analysis of in-depth interviews with women of colour activists reveals dialectic processes of accountability in their everyday antiracist feminist practice. Activists are accountable, on the one hand, to hierarchical relations within the daily practices of women’s organizations, and, on the other hand, to other feminist, antiracist and social justice activists. I describe how relations of accountability, named respectively, organizational accountability and activist responsibility, socially organize women of colour’s everyday experience of antiracist feminist activism. In particular, I argue that organizational accountability must be understood as relations of hierarchical answerability within the organization that extend outside the organization, while activist responsibility needs to be seen as the relations by which activists become accountable to other activists in the enactment of an explicitly antiracist feminist praxis. I describe further how women of colour creatively and consciously do antiracist feminist activism by mobilizing and negotiating both sets of relations of accountability to develop antiracist feminist social and organizational change. I highlight the importance of everyday activist work by revealing the ways women of colour seize the potential for crafting antiracist feminist change through relations of accountability. Significantly, this study offers a conceptualization of everyday antiracist feminist activist practice as a negotiation of relations of accountability.

Starting from the standpoint of antiracist feminists in Southern Ontario, Canada, I examine the everyday social organization of antiracist feminist activism. Using key concepts from institutional ethnography and other critical research methods, I explore how women of colour activists engage, contest and modify existing social relations within women’s organizations to craft antiracist feminist organizational change. I describe how women of colour negotiate their antiracist, feminist and social justice commitments in ways which both respond to, and are constitutive of, contradictory social relations within women’s organizations. An analysis of in-depth interviews with women of colour activists reveals dialectic processes of accountability in their everyday antiracist feminist practice. Activists are accountable, on the one hand, to hierarchical relations within the daily practices of women’s organizations, and, on the other hand, to other feminist, antiracist and social justice activists. I describe how relations of accountability, named respectively, organizational accountability and activist responsibility, socially organize women of colour’s everyday experience of antiracist feminist activism. In particular, I argue that organizational accountability must be understood as relations of hierarchical answerability within the organization that extend outside the organization, while activist responsibility needs to be seen as the relations by which activists become accountable to other activists in the enactment of an explicitly antiracist feminist praxis. I describe further how women of colour creatively and consciously do antiracist feminist activism by mobilizing and negotiating both sets of relations of accountability to develop antiracist feminist social and organizational change. I highlight the importance of everyday activist work by revealing the ways women of colour seize the potential for crafting antiracist feminist change through relations of accountability. Significantly, this study offers a conceptualization of everyday antiracist feminist activist practice as a negotiation of relations of accountability.