School of International Development - UEA: Gender and Development

The Gender and Development Theme is concerned with social change, specifically the social and gendered dimensions of poverty reduction, inequality and social injustice. We conduct original theoretical work on gender and development epistemologies, covering relational and subjective approaches to well-being, intra-household relations, inter-generational relationships and shifts in subjective notions of well-being, plus examining linkages between gendered social relations, reproductive rights and wellbeing. There are also several overlapping sub-themes, which comprise land, health, education, ageing, governance and corruption. Apart from research, we have been active in engaging with policy, on the one hand, and training and capacity-building.

Email: devresnews@uea.ac.uk
Phone: 01603 592323

Recent research has seen very exciting interdisciplinary theoretical and methodological innovation. Anthropologists and economists have developed innovative research in Uganda using experimental games combined with survey and ethnography, to test underlying assumptions of intra-household models and Sen’s theory of cooperative conflicts. This has been extended to research on gendered fairness norms using experimental economics and ethnography in four developing countries.

We are also conducting work on land use and rights that methodologically combines historical, ethnographic, participatory and quantitative studies.  Other projects on land have similarly used a combination of methodologies. Policy-oriented analyses of gendered vulnerability and exclusion represent another dimension of our work, while we are also recognised for work on gendered vulnerabilities to HIV/AIDS and the gendered impacts of its treatment.

Inter-school networking, such as between DEV/ODG and the School of Education and Lifelong Learning (EDU), has further strengthened our expertise in research, policy and capacity building on Gender, Women’s Empowerment, and Education. The different aspects of DEV/ODG’s work on gender and development are also reflected in our recent publications.

Sheila Aikman is Senior Lecturer in Education and Development (DEV). Her research interests include gender equality and education. She has carried out research and other work in Latin America, Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa.

Colette Harris is Senior Lecturer in Conflict, Governance and Development (DEV). She works on issues of violence and conflict, governance, post colonial state building, Muslim societies, sexualities, (reproductive) health, migration, and community development/transformative education. She has carried out research in Central Asia as well as Latin America but currently focuses mainly on West and East Africa.

Cecile Jackson is Professor of Development Studies (DEV). Her current research interests include the social relational dimension of wellbeing and the use of experimental methods for analysing conjugal cooperation and conflicts. She has mainly worked in India and Sub-Saharan Africa.

Catherine Locke is Senior Lecturer in Development Studies (DEV). Her recent work has been organised around the themes of reproduction, migration and gender analysis. Her current research is focused on the reproductive lives of male and female migrants in Vietnam.

Nitya Rao is Senior Lecturer in Gender Analysis and Development (DEV). Her present research interests include gendered changes in land and agrarian relations, migration, livelihood and well-being, equity issues in education policies and provisioning, gendered access and mobility, and social relations within environmental and other people's movements. She has mainly worked in South Asia, but also has interests in the Asia-Pacific region and Africa.

Janet Seeley is Senior Lecturer in Gender and Development (DEV). Her main research experience and interests are in the social aspects of HIV and AIDS, migration, the understanding of chronic poverty and social protection. She has worked in Sub-Saharan Africa, South and West Asia.


Research collaborators

Natalia Alvarez Molinero, Lecturer in Human Rights and International Development (DEV)

Bereket Kebede, Senior Lecturer in Economics (DEV)

Bryan Maddox, Senior Lecturer in Education and Development (DEV)

Richard Palmer-Jones, Reader in Economics (DEV)

Elissaios Papyrakis, Lecturer in Economics (DEV)

Arjan Verschoor, Reader in Economics (DEV)


Current and recent postgraduate researchers

Naima Abdallah Besta: Gender analysis of coastal livelihoods in Tanzania

Sophie Bremner: Ideas of Money, Wealth and Exchange amongst Rural-Urban Migrant Adherents to Neo-Pentecostal 'Faith' Movements in Uganda

Arlette Covarrubias Feregrino: Women's Deviation from Gendered Social Norms: Housework Versus Salaried Work in Mexico

Celeste de la Huerta Nunez:  Gender, Risk and Intrahousehold Allocation: A Study of Risk Sharing Within Rural Households in Mexico

Maria Farah Quijano: Rural Livelihoods and Gender

Kathrin Forstner: Sustenance, Identity and Voice: Women’s Experiences in Craft Producer Associations in Southern Peru

Lan Hoang:  Gender relations, Intra-household Power Hierarchies and Social Norms in Migration Decision-Making in Rural Vietnam

Matthew Maycock:  Gender Relations, Constructions of Masculinity and the Maoist Conflict in Nepal

Paramita Muljono:  Gender Dynamics in Indonesian Bureaucracy

Minh Nguyen: Servants of the Socialist Economy

Emmanuel Nyamekye:  An Analysis of Water Vending by Women and Children in Northern Ghana and its Implications on Household Care

Geraldine Terry:  Gender Aspects of Climate Change Adaptation in the Global South