Contextualization of Gender Equality Policies and Local Development: An Example of Good Practice in Vojvodina
Keywords:
gender, local development, rural women, gender policies, contextual analysis, Vojvodina, semiperipheryAbstract
Starting with the assumption that production of relevant knowledge in social sciences supports empowerment, consciousness raising, social inclusion and promotion of positive social change, the author of this text claims that public policies in any domain, as well as in the domain of gender equality, need proper contextualization in order to be successful. That means that any meaningful intervention into the social reality needs to productively connect relevant knowledge and relevant experience. That kind of approach is beyond the normative approach, which at the moment dominates at the semiperiphery, and which produces a chronic "problem of the implementation" of gender policies. The author claims that it is, in fact, a euphemism for the real problem, which is "inadequate contextualization". However, contextualization has two sides: one is the contextualization into the society, and the other one is proper contextualization within "the gender policy field", which has its own development. Strategic thinking about social policies also includes the analysis of public policies and understanding of the continuity of policy interventions in a given field. The author defines "the gender policy field" on the basis of a large comparative study (12 countries in 10 years), which explains the very logic of the development of this field. In the second part of the text, the author is focused on a concrete example of the introduction of gender equality policies in rural areas of Vojvodina. As someone who was directly involved in the major steps of the development of the policies, the author exhibits an insider’s view of how the process was developed and what the new possibilities are. The author is advocating networking strategies and the usage of ICTs (Resource/Information centre, which is being developed) to speed up the process of social learning and support knowledge sharing and dissemination of the lessons learned.
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