Event summary: Despite frequent calls for transformative approaches, water research remains often apolitically and technically framed with the risk of exacerbating gendered inequalities in access to and control over water. This talk will highlight learnings from two research-for-development projects in Nepal and India, and introduce an approach to transformative engagements drawing from critical pedagogy and feminist political ecology. This approach aims at opening up space for dialogues on shifting and reproducing gender norms, roles and relations with marginal smallholders, researchers and development partitioners.

About the speaker: Stephanie is researcher at the Department of Urban and Rural Development at SLU with interests in feminist political ecology, local water governance, agrarian change, gender and development research and transformative pedagogy. She holds a four-year project grant to conduct research on “Farmer-managed irrigation systems in the context of out-migration in Nepal” funded by FORMAS (Swedish Research Council). She holds a PhD in Human Geography from the University of Cologne, Germany, and was a postdoctoral fellow at the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) in Nepal and the CGIAR program “Water, Land and Ecosystems”.

This event is part of the monthly seminar series titled ‘Gender, Research and Action in the Global South.’ Drawing from diverse backgrounds and countries of expertise, this multi-disciplinary seminar series provides a space for discussing approaches and nuances of research on gender in relation to environment, development and beyond. The topics will range from reflections on the potential of researchers in impact generation through their gender sensitive studies, analysis of data needs and methodologies for gender research, as well as broader discussions on gender inequalities in development. We aim to open an honest dialogue of both the successes in gender research and practice as well as the risks and challenges. If you are interested, you can sign up to the mailing list to find out about future events. Please, write to marina.korzenevica@ouce.ox.ac.uk.