Step 1: Selecting local analysts and key informants
The sampling procedure used to select any local analysts or key informants should
reflect the needs of the research.
Step 2: Introductions and explanations
When interviewing local people to gather data, the researcher should begin by introducing themselves and explaining carefully and clearly the objectives of the research and the tool being used. Check that the local analyst understands and is
comfortable with what is going to be discussed.
Step 3: Using the social relations approach
The framework uses concepts rather than tools to analyse relevant issues. It can
be used to examine an individual institution to highlight how gender inequality is
formed and reproduced in individual institutions; or applied more broadly to focus on several institutions in a particular context in order to examine how gender
(and other) inequalities cross-cut each other through the interaction between different institutions and lead to situations of specific disadvantage for individuals. The
approach has five concepts:
Concept 1 – Development as increasing human well-being
This views development as being about more than economic growth and productivity improvements – human well-being concerns survival, security and autonomy.
Examine how development interventions, at whatever level, contribute to these
broader goals. For example, how will a policy affect a person’s ability to fully
participate in decisions that will impact on their choices and opportunities in life?
How will a programme affect all the activities that contribute to human well-being
(e.g. caring for other people or caring for the environment etc.)? Think broadly
about these activities and include “non-market” activities.
Concept 2 – Social relations
This refers to the dynamic structural relationships that create and reproduce systematic differences in the positioning of different groups of people. They determine
people’s roles, responsibilities, claims, rights, resources and the level of control
over their own and other people’s lives. Social relations include gender relations,
as well as those of class, race, ethnicity etc. The approach suggests that unequal social relations produce unequal relations to resources, claims and responsibilities and
result in poverty. However, social relations (e.g. networks of family and friends)
also enable many poor people to survive. Social relationships based on patronage and dependency may provide poor people with access to resources, but only
by exchanging their autonomy for security. Examine how a development intervention aims to support those relationships that build on solidarity and reciprocity,
and increase autonomy for poor people, and reduce those that produce or maintain
unequal relations.
Concept 3 – Institutional analysis
The approach recognises that inequality is reproduced across a range of institutions
from the macro to the micro level and is not confined solely to the household. Four
key, inter-related institutional locations are used (state, market, community, family/kinship) which produce, reinforce and reproduce social relations, and therefore
social difference and inequalities.
Examine how a change in policy or practice within one institution will affect and
cause changes in the others. Ask how they interact with each other and they change
over time. How do policies at state level affect interventions at household or community level, and vice versa. How will an intervention or change at community
level affect the household?
Five inter-related dimensions of institutional social relationships are identified in
the approach that aid the process of analysing who does what, who gains and who
loses.
• Rules – these may be written or unwritten; formal or informal; expressed
through norms, values, laws, traditions and customs. Examine how rules
enable or constrain what is done, how it gets done, who does it and who will
benefit. How do they change and how can they be changed?
• Activities – these may be productive, distributive or regulative. Examine activities by asking who does what, who gets what and who can claim what? For
example, do particular social groups undertake particular tasks? Do different
activities (e.g. childcare and fishing) get valued differently? If so, why? Do
they get rewarded differently? Does this reinforce inequalities?
• Resources – these might be human (e.g. labour, education), material (e.g.
land, money) or intangible (e.g. networks, goodwill) resources. Examine how institutions mobilise and distribute resources and how the distribution of resources corresponds to an institution’s rules.
• People – institutions are selective in terms of who is allowed in or excluded;
who is assigned resources, tasks and responsibilities; and who is where in
the hierarchy. Examine how these selections are determined by social factors
such as class, gender, ethnicity or social inequalities. Who has which jobs,
for instance? To what degree and in what circumstances do different social
groups mix with others?
• Power – the unequal distribution of resources and responsibilities, combined
with rules that promote and legitimise distribution, ensures that some institutional actors have control and authority over others. Examine who decides
what and whose interests are served.
Concept 4 – Institutional gender policies
Policies are classified according to the degree to which they recognise and promote gender issues. They are not mutually exclusive and one may be a precursor to another. Gender blind policies do not recognise any distinction between the sexes, tend to incorporate existing biases and are often implicitly male-biased. Gender aware policies recognise differences and conflicts between men and women’s needs, interests and priorities. Gender aware policies can be sub-divided into gender neutral policies (do not change existing distribution of resources and responsibilities; target interventions to practical gender needs of both men and women), gender specific policies (take into account gender differences to target practical gender
needs of men and women within existing gender division of resources and responsibilities) and gender-redistributive policies (aim to transform existing distributions,
create more balanced relationships between men and women, address both practical
and strategic gender needs).
Examine which categories development interventions fall under. How can gender
blind policies move towards being gender-aware policies? What problems might be
faced in moving towards gender-redistributive policies?
Concept 5 – Immediate, underlying and structural causes
Examine the immediate, underlying and structural factors that cause the problems
and their effects on the different actors involved in relation to the four types of
institution. This can be presented in matrix form or as a narrative.
Step 4: Ending the process
Check again that the local analysts you have spoken with know what the information
will be used for. Ask the analysts to reflect on the advantages, disadvantages and
the analytical potential of the tool. Thank the local analysts for their time and effort.
Titany answered the question on November 29, 2021 at 11:09