Transnational and Local Concepts of Gender and Social Transformation in International Development Work: Understanding Normative Frameworks through Foregrounding Lived Realities in Ghana

This doctoral thesis analyses transnational and local modes of gender and social transformation in the context of an international non-governmental development programme, which was designed and implemented as well as monitored and evaluated cross-culturally. While being located within a wider public policy discourse on gender and development (GAD), the case studied in this research focuses on programme implementation in Ghana, West Africa. The overall aim of this thesis is to address ‘the cross-cultural question’ in international development work by studying how social actors, especially community members and development practitioners, conceptualise gender within and across socio-cultural spaces. This potentially influences understandings of programmatic success possibly aligned to notions of meaningful social transformation. Through feminist anthropological methods highlighting grounded interpretations by research participants, as well as a documentary study of the development programme and policy documents, this research analyses gender as lived relations and representations. Drawing on qualitative methods including participant observation, interviews and focus group discussions, this doctoral study investigates, in particular, the role of social norms (change) to address questions of gender and social transformation. Transformative elements highlighted in this thesis include alignment of individual needs and aspirations to socio-cultural collective values by linking ideas of women’s empowerment and gender equality to harmony and respect; and alignment of ‘hardware’ and ‘software’ concerns based on ‘open’ conversations drawing on the value and practice of ‘epistemic equality’, especially among development practitioners and community members. Drawing on a feminist transnational analytical and activist approach, this thesis offers reflections on how collaborative processes among feminist development practitioners and community members as part of international cross-cultural development may point to pathways of co-creating knowledge through ‘epistemic communities’. In this thesis, collaboration as part of conscientisation efforts addresses the role of ‘the local’, what it entails/not entails and how it might link to understandings of legitimacy as part of cross-cultural GAD programmes implemented within and across specific socio-cultural locations.