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- All Subjects: Capacity Building in Community Development
- Creators: Mook, Laurie
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ABSTRACT
Food insecurity is a global concern and is acute in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa as well as pockets in the global North. In the lush green spaces of “God’s Own Country”, the state of Kerala in India, about 379,000 women are engaged in farming in about 75,800 groups. Spearheaded by Kudumbashree, the State Poverty Eradication Mission (SPEM) the women farmers, along with women who co-own other micro-enterprises, totaling approximately 4.5 million members in all, are part of a quiet revolution. Through a powerful statewide network of tens of thousands of well-trained community-based educators, SPEM facilitates non-formal education in farming, other livelihoods, and gender-based oppression. Boosted by this non-formal education and abundant informal learning, the women group farmers have taken matters into their own hands. Rather than wait for their male family members to rescue them from economic hardship, the women farmers learn to grow nutritious food both for family consumption and for sale. In the process, they are creating pathways for the practice of food justice in their families, villages, and the entire state. The study focuses on two women’s farming groups, one from the highly marginalized Adivasi (ancient inhabitants, or tribal population) and one from the general population. The primary research question is: “How do women in collective/group farming initiatives learn to build capacity for food justice?”. The study found the building of a robust set of capacities such as effective leadership, participatory decision-making, and shared power critical to community development, thereby generating income, financial literacy, and a sense of empowerment. The findings also suggest that the women farmers are making steady gains in the arena of women’s agency and empowerment in harmony with their families, aided by 50,000 community educators who focus on building awareness about gender-based oppression and ways to combat it. This study pertains to two concerns in community development: 1) The role of the “invisible” learning dimension in capacity building and 2) food justice. The study is relevant to communities everywhere, including food-insecure pockets both in the global south and the global north.
Keywords: Learning, capacity building, the practice of food justice, women’s empowerment.
ContributorsMAHALINGAM, MAHALAKSHMI R (Author) / Mook, Laurie (Thesis advisor) / Knopf, Richard (Thesis advisor) / Schugurensky, Daniel, 1958- (Committee member) / Larsen, Dale (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2022
Description
This study examines the roles and impacts of U.S. foundation grantmaking for women, as well as the influences of the foundations’ institutional characteristics on their grantmaking practices by employing a mixed-methods research design. In the first quantitative phase, this study explores three major research questions: (1) How has foundation grantmaking for women changed in the U.S.? (2) Whether and how foundations’ institutional characteristics are related to their grantmaking activities for women? (3) Whether and how foundation grantmaking for women has influenced women’s status? To address these research questions, I collect and analyze data on the U.S. foundation grants for women during the period between 2005 and 2014 from the Foundation Center and data indicating women’s status at the state level from various sources. The second qualitative phase focuses on examining the second and third research questions further by employing a comparative case study approach. Specifically, I conducted semi-structured interviews with directors or staff of the selected five foundations supporting women’s causes. The results show that foundations supporting women’s causes have focused more on their advocacy role than their charitable role by distributing their grants to programs for women’s rights/studies. Additionally, a foundation is more likely to give grants for women’s rights/studies when the organization is younger, with a higher total giving size, in the Western region, in the state of liberal ideology, or an independent foundation. Furthermore, a state with a larger amount of foundation grants for women (per woman) reveals a higher women’s status. The case study findings indicate that differences exist in how foundations implement their grantmaking decisions for women and how foundations assess their grantmaking impact on women. It also shows some evidence that foundations’ grantmaking decisions and impact assessment strategies for women are affected by the foundations’ institutional characteristics such as women’s leadership. This dissertation sheds light on our understanding of current trends of U.S. foundation grantmaking for women that was less focused and makes both theoretical and practical contributions to the nonprofit sector by suggesting a framework to assess the impact of foundations in society.
ContributorsHan, Hyunrang (Author) / Wang, Lili (Thesis advisor) / Shockley, Gordon E. (Committee member) / Mook, Laurie (Committee member) / Robichau, Robbie W. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2022