Engendering Knowledge in Organisations. Negotiating Development in Local and Translocal Social Spaces

Abstract

"The paper looks at sites of production and negotiation of development knowledge which constitute translocal spaces and interfaces within organisations and their environment. Taking a gender approach, it assumes that there is a gendered structure of knowledge and that organisations are gendered with regard to conceptualisations and policies. Other dimensions of analysis are that of 'women in organisations' (as actors and members), as well as typical interfaces between different levels of organisations and their environment, i.e. clients and social reality of everyday life. The (global) knowledge society is discussed with regard to its gendered organisation and the issue of legitimate carriers and vertical coherence of social knowledge is addressed, looking at NGOs as knowledge producers which are supposed to contribute valid gender knowledge. The bureaucratic management of knowledge in organisations is studied as leading to technocratic, authoritarian modes, excluding gender knowledge and rendering accumulation of experience and learning impossible. The analysis is based on the study of the 'development world' especially in and regarding (West) Africa. In particular, development of local communities and decentralisation (especially referring to the case of Senegal) shows how female spaces are dwindling. No interfaces exist where women's livelihood-oriented and crosscutting knowledge and experience could be brought into the new formal political structures. There is a process of increasing informalisation of organisations of women, providing room to manoeuvre on the one hand, but also exclusion and marginalisation on the other. Men mainly organise themselves in formal groups, women usually in informal ones, thus diminishing their access to formal institutions and also the production of knowledge from their side - such as alternative modes of accumulation between men in the formal and women in the informal sectors. This hinders the upgrading and (resulting) lack of promotion of gendered forms of social cohesion and security. However, global networking and knowledge production are taking place not only in women's organisations and movements, but also in migration and other translocal spaces, with the internet possibly contributing to more horizontal exchange and enabling diversity." (author's abstract)