‘Gender and Development’ (GAD) is currently seen as the dominant theoretical model within international development for promoting social justice and equality for women. As a consequence, many development organisations are undertaking gender mainstreaming. The most interesting fact about the vast number of analyses about gender mainstreaming is the consistency with which they tell of GAD influenced policies failing to implement GAD approaches in practice. This should raise suspicion rather than simple condemnation. It is time to ask: ‘How are, often very progressive, gender policies and strategies consistently silenced across the range of organisational contexts?’ This thesis focuses upon the contemporary process of gender mainstreaming in development organisations – a term that specifically refers to a ‘process of organisational change’ that aims to explicitly develop the ‘use of GAD approaches within all projects and programmes’ of development institutions in order to achieve ‘a vision of development that creates gender equitable social change’ in society. Moreover, it takes an approach that specifically details the ‘organisational process’ element of change inferred in the term. As such, this thesis uses the literature of organisational culture as a lens to make previously unnoticed and submerged sites of conflict and acts of resistance visible, allowing an understanding to be gained of how gender mainstreaming has so consistently faced a policy-practice impasse. It develops this analysis using an in-depth case study of Oxfam GB and demonstrates that the process of gender mainstreaming in the organisation has resulted in the removal of ‘responsibility for’ implementing GAD approaches among staff in the organisation. It goes on to highlight that the unwillingness of development organisations and practitioners to recognise gender mainstreaming as an explicitly feminist and political process of change directly couched at the level of the organisation and not just at the level of the actual development project (or society more widely) has resulted in the ‘process of organisational change’ becoming rationalised and technical rather than personal and politically charged. In reaching this understanding of gender mainstreaming, the thesis develops an awareness of organisational change processes and highlights that ‘norms’ and ‘values’ in organisations are often confused. This confusion has led to an ineffective process of change in institutions as well as a poor conceptualisation and practice of gender mainstreaming in international development.

This thesis examines the roles of migrant networks in the migration and subsequent economic integration of Senegalese men and women in France, Italy and Spain. It challenges the assumption that networks are invariably sources of assistance in the migration process and examines the factors responsible for variations in their influence. In doing so, it uses quantitative methods and analyzes recently collected longitudinal data within the framework of the Migration between Africa and Europe (MAFE) project. Migrant networks -– members of the respondent’s personal circle that have international migration experience – are conceptualized as a form of individual-level social capital that may or may not shape specific outcomes. The thesis contributes to the literature by adopting a longitudinal view of the migration process and considering both migration behaviour and migrants’ labour market trajectories at destination. In doing so, it bridges two areas of research that have mostly developed separately. Second, the intersections between migrant networks and gender, insufficiently studied so far, are here examined in detail. Furthermore, the role of networks in different forms of female mobility – often confounded in previous work - are here analysed separately. Last but not least, the thesis makes a methodological contribution by operationalizing migrant networks in a more dynamic way than previous work. Findings suggest that migrant social capital has a large influence on migration behaviour, while playing a lower and more ambivalent role in migrants’ labour market outcomes at destination. Furthermore, several dimensions are found to shape the extent and channels of networks’ influence. First, men and women do not rely on the same ties in their migration process. Also, women migrating independently of a partner make a different (and greater) use of their migrant connections than those joining their spouse abroad. Migrant social capital is found to work along gender lines: only access to male migrant networks increases the migration likelihood or the job prospects at destination for prospective male migrants. On the other hand, female networks play a crucial role in independent women’s migration process. However, while they greatly increase women’s likelihood of moving to Europe on their own, they also lead them to lower-status jobs. Last, the context of destination was found to shape the operation of migrant networks. In France, where a socio-economically diverse Senegalese community has long been established, pre-migration ties at destination lead to better economic opportunities. In contrast, migrant networks in Italy or Spain appear to channel male migrants into street-selling activities. Thus, bonding social capital in the form of migrant networks appears to reproduce the ethnic niches developed at destination and the gender-segmented nature of the labour market.

Le phénomène du sans-abrisme évoque la plupart du temps des images d’hommes, seuls, exposés dans les espaces publics et pratiquant la mendicité. Or, le sans abrisme se conjugue également au féminin. Cette thèse de sociologie propose d’interroger l’expérience des femmes sans abri à partir des modalités d’accueil et des pratiques de catégorisation des sexes observées dans les dispositifs d’accueil et d’hébergement à Saint-Etienne et à Montréal. Au croisement de la sociologie du sans-abrisme et de la sociologie du genre, ce travail vise à comprendre d’une part la place des femmes sans abri dans le monde de l’assistance et d’autre part, comment l’assistance participe à fabriquer le genre des individus qui y ont recours. Au moyen d’une ethnographie comparative, je montre que, si au Québec l’itinérance des femmes est devenue un problème public, en France, les femmes tendent à être accueillies et prises en charge avec les hommes (mixité des sexes) et « comme » des personnes singulières. L’observation de cette différence de traitement des femmes en France et au Québec a permis l’élaboration de deux grammaires de l’assistance : celle de la « personne » qui tend à désexualiser les individus et qui souligne la nécessité de reconnaissance de la singularité des êtres accueillis, faisant du genre et des catégories de sexes des « petits troubles » situés à la marge des situations et celle de la « vulnérabilité de genre » qui insiste explicitement sur les violences multiples dont les femmes sans abri sont l’objet et qui induit une forme de justice sociale basée sur la reconnaissance de la différence de l’expérience des femmes. / Homelessness often evokes images of lonely men, exposed in public spaces and begging. However, the phenomenon of homelessness also includes women. This doctoral dissertation in sociology proposes to investigate the experience of homeless women based on the welcoming methods and gender categorization practices observed in day centers and shelters in Saint-Etienne (France) and Montreal (Canada). At the crossroads of sociology of homelessness and sociology of gender, this work aims to understand the place of homeless women in the world of assistance and how assistance contributes to the making of gender in/for people who use it. Drawing on a comparative ethnography, we demonstrate that, while in Quebec women's homelessness has become a public problem, in France, women tend to be welcomed and cared for among men (“gender mixity”) and "as" singular people. The observation of this difference in the treatment of women in France and Quebec has led to the elaboration of two grammars for assistance: (1) a grammar of "person" who tends to desexualize individuals and who emphasizes the need to recognize the singularity of the people being welcomed, making gender and gender categories of the "small troubles" located at the margin of situations (2) and a grammar of "gender vulnerability" which explicitly insists on violence undergone by homeless women, and implies a form of social justice, based on the recognition of the difference of women’s experience.

The childlike character of ideal femininities has long been critiqued in feminist literature, from Mary Wollstonecraft (1792) to Susan Faludi (1992). Yet, despite the partial gains of feminism the ‘woman-child’ continues to be a prominent subject-position in fashion photography of the West. This thesis builds upon earlier feminist critiques of the infantilisation of women by considering the meaning of childlike femininities in the period spanning 1990 to 2015. In particular, it questions whether representations of childlike femininities can shed their dehumanising, ‘second sex’ connotations and be resignified to a more progressive end in the contemporary context. The possible appeal of ‘girly’ subject-positions to women, following several waves of feminism, is explored through reception studies carried out with female participants in focus groups, as well as theory on the ‘female gaze’. Images were principally drawn from three British fashion magazines: Vogue (UK), i-D, and Lula. Drawing on the work of Michel Foucault and Judith Butler, this thesis demonstrates the ways in which discourses on childhood, girlhood and womanhood overlap and intersect to produce the figure of the ‘woman-child’ in the fashion media and beyond. This subject-position is shown not to be singular but rather as appearing in a number of guises. The many permutations of childlike femininity are subsumed into four overarching categories: the Romantic woman-child; the femme-enfant-fatale; Lolita style; and the Parodic woman-child. This thesis thereby contributes to existing debates in fashion studies by considering in greater detail the different discourses on childhood and femininity that come into play when women are positioned as childlike. A multi-faceted visual methodology is employed, combining visual analysis of imagery with experimental reception studies. Reception studies were conducted in focus groups with female participants and provide insight into the way these women made sense of the ‘woman-child’. In addition, they provide an indication as to whether the participants liked or disliked childlike femininities in the fashion media, thus pointing to the possible investments women might have in childlike subject-positions. Finally, including an element of social research served to challenge and/or reinforce the researcher’s own readings of the imagery, pointing to new avenues of research and expanding the discursive field of enquiry. This aspect of the thesis makes a methodological contribution to literature on the reception of still media imagery in fashion studies, magazine studies and feminist media studies.

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