“Nowadays there isgender”: “Doing” global gender equality in rural Malawi

Abstract

This article analyzes the intersection of psychology with global development policy and practice, reviewing how gender as a concept is negotiated and understood amongst men and women in rural Malawi. We argue that gender, considered from a psychological perspective, has been narrowed down to meet the standards of global policy actors. By empowering individuals to “self-actualize,” policy implementers expect social and economic spin-off effects such as lower birth rates, higher education levels, and poverty reduction. The focus on individuals acts to obscure the broader structural power inequities, is especially prevalent in rural Malawi. To explain this, we use Haslam’s idea of “concept creep,” on how psychological concepts tend to affect other institutional traditions. The everyday understandings of gendered life described here show how gender is a fluid concept that shifts according to cultural, social, and ideological norms.

Making meaning of empowerment and development in rural Malawi—International individualism meets local communalism

“…A serious turn is thus called for in both psychological and development practices, to incorporate context sensitivity and decolonial approaches. Many critical, decolonial and feminist perspectives in psychology reveal and challenge how primarily Western psychologized theories, practices, and concepts are exported to places and spaces outside the psychological field and affect individuals and groups (see Adolfsson & Madsen, 2020;Bhatia & Priya, 2018;Dhar, 2020;Dirth & Adams, 2019;Kessi & Boonzaier, 2018;Kiguwa & Segalo, 2019). For further and future studies, we emphasize the need for researchers as well as activists and development practitioners to "take seriously knowledges embedded in communities" and the proactive methods of resistance and community-empowerment, and work with people-not on them (Segalo & Fine, 2020, p. 8).…”

“…Nearly one third of Malawian girls aged 15-19 have been or are pregnant (NSO Malawi & ICF, 2017), and one out of two quit school before completing primary education (UNESCO, 2013). Many NGOs concentrate-in line with the SDG5's global agenda-on empowerment as a way of equipping women and girls with tools for making "better choices" and "achieving better lives" (Adolfsson & Madsen, 2020). NGO activities focus on behavior change training in vocational skills, cash transfer programs, HIV prevention, education, and family planning (Baird, Chirwa, McIntosh, & Özler, 2010;Watkins & Swidler, 2013).…”

Toward Culturally Sensitive Development Paradigms: New Shifts, Limitations, and the Role of (Cross-) Cultural Psychology

“…Psychologists study people: they study cognition, motivation, and action. There is extant psychological research on development priorities ranging from climate change (e.g., Bury et al, 2020; Leviston & Walker, 2021; Ranney & Clark, 2016), to gender equality (e.g., Adolfsson & Madsen, 2020; Kosakowska-Berezecka et al, 2020; Sudkamper et al, 2020), to peacebuilding and conflict resolution (e.g., Kang et al, 2020; Upegui-Hernàndez, 2008). This knowledge could be leveraged to advance development priorities by amplifying commitment and action toward development goals among citizens.…”

The slippery and the sane: Decolonizing psychology through a study of the Indian girl-child

“…Even Western feminism traditionally positioned and homogenized the third-world woman as an object (instead of a subject with agency) that was perpetually oppressed, ignorant, traditional, and backward (Mohanty, 1984). More recently, Adolfsson and Madsen (2019) found that, in rural Malawi, attempts by Non-Government Organizations (NGOs) from the Global North to introduce the concept of gender equality have backfired. NGO intervention caused further surveillance of the bodies of young girls, who then began to feel shame and feared the fiscal fine if they did not follow the standards of gender equality set by the NGOs (Adolfsson & Madsen, 2019).…”