DevISSues - Gender Justice

NOVEMBER 2020 VOL . 22 – NO. 2

Gender Justice

From the Editorial Board Gender Justice This DevISSues focuses on ‘Gender Justice’: giving a wide view how our research, thinking and teaching as a community is connected to 1) gender justice as an issue 2) why we do not have it and 3) things that might help bring it about.

A definition (to paraphrase Oxfam International, Gender Justice and Women’s Rights) is - full equality between men and women in all walks of life … jointly and equally, in terms of policy, in structures … for individuals and society overall. It is a human right – one of dignity, freedom and no fear, indispensable for human progress.

Others focus on why we do not have it (e.g. underlying power structures) and that to achieve it requires a systemic redistribution of power, opportunities and access for all people/all genders: dismantling structures such as patriarchy, homophobia and transphobia (paraphrasing, Global Fund For Women, What is Gender Justice). My daughter would just say – ‘justice for the gender inequality that has been…’

This edition’s contributors underline this perspective in quite different ways.

In two very personal pieces, Kater and Madzivanyika note how oppressive personal situations (e.g. about weight, sexual preferences or pressures to conform) challenged their sense of self-worth. Kater used her skills to respond, creating an award-winning animation using various film techniques and actors to analogize the links between various forms of meat and the dehumanization of women. For Madzivanyika, some of the traumas of feeling unworthy have been helped through a new ‘tribe’ – one met through discussions within a ‘listening’ ISS community.

Colophon DevISSues is published twice a year by the International Institute of Social Studies, PO Box 29776, 2502 LT The Hague, the Netherlands Tel +31 (0)70 4260 443 or +31 (0)70 4260 419

Solera and Cortez note how their connections as Latin American women in Holland have given them new strength to speak out against gender violence, discrimination and a general lack of rights, through participating in various campaigns as scholar activists. It has also reinforced their humility within an environment in which many cannot work from home or self-isolate and who have to keep working despite great challenges brought by the current pandemic.

Fax + 31 (0)70 4260 799 www.iss.nl DevISSues@iss.nl Editor Jane Pocock Editorial Board Lee Pegler, Sunil Tankha, Sandra Nijhof Design Ontwerpwerk, The Hague Cover images Alexandra Koch and Gerd Altmann from Pixabay Production De Bondt Grafimedia Circulation 6,500 The text material from DevISSues may be reproduced or adapted without permission, provided it is not distributed for profit and is

This theme of justice, and its gender underpinning, come out in different ways through other contributions. For example, our Rector notes the importance of knowledge co-creation in all our activities as a community (e.g. Focus on ISS). We also highlight many alumni and projects (ISS news) which bring serious commitment to sustainability and to voice. Yet in our knowledge processes, we also look back on basic concepts and question the ‘development question’, asking ourselves whether de-growth is a positive and more equitable way to go (staff-student discussion). If agroecology and local level initiatives are seeds for such change, then social relations (the who in production), distributional outcomes and issues such as care play a more central role. Marx was right, social relations are fundamental (to development – sic). Development is nothing without gender justice.

We hope you enjoy this edition of DevISSues and find that it also gives space for open, respectful discussion based on listening to each other.

attributed to the original author or authors, DevISSues and the International Institute of Social Studies.

ISSN 1566-4821. DevISSues is printed on FSC certified paper

Lee Pegler, Chair, DevISSues editorial board

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Rector’s Blog COVID-19, ISS and co-creating knowledge

Inge Hutter, Rector ISS

First of all, I hope you are keeping well and healthy in these COVID-19 times. Here in the Netherlands we are seeing an increasing number of infections, especially among the younger population, and are hoping we will not need to go into another lockdown.

collaboration with undocumented people, socially marginalized groups, people from the African diaspora and social partners, aiming to produce both academically and societally relevant research on COVID-19 coping mechanisms in The Hague.

These are worrying times, strange times, challenging times.

And in these times, I feel that the knowledge and experience that the ISS community co-creates is more necessary than ever. Let me give some examples on how we try to do this, with our teaching, local participation and research: In September, 126 students started their MA in Development Studies. Students from all over the world joined our online introduction programme, forming a fully connected online 2020-21 batch. It was amazing, and so nice, to see all of them in a zoom meeting at the opening of our MA programme. ISS teaching and support staff are now working hard to fit our teaching into the current online context and are developing innovative ways of teaching. 60 students have already physically arrived in The Hague and we will do our utmost to offer them, and the students yet to arrive, classroom education in January. In the meantime, we take this opportunity to develop and improve our online teaching, making it easier to share our knowledge globally.

As a last example, we need look no further than ISS’ 68th anniversary which we celebrated on 8 October. No crowds in our aula, no cortege of professors strolling through the building during this year’s Dies Natalis, yet we still had a great celebration with over 350 people in the online ISS community. Under the guidance of a professional journalist and film crew, three speakers debated three current global crises in what we now call ‘Studio ISS’: COVID-19, climate change and racism as tackled by the global Black Lives Matter movement. Debating these crises, Wendy Harcourt, Murat Arsel and Aminata Cairo discussed how they are interconnected, how we can cope with them, what changes we need to see in society, what local and global society will look like after the corona pandemic and what we can do to change and build a ‘new’ post-COVID-19 society.

We also share our knowledge locally. We have recently developed four small research projects on local engagement, the Local Engagement Facility projects.

In true ISS style, researchers are co-creating knowledge in

This debate, and the other examples discussed above, are but a starting point for further action, in our research, teaching and engagement in these difficult COVID-19 times.

A last wish to you: please keep healthy and take care of yourself and your loved ones.

Contents

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The feminist struggles in Latin America

8

The birth of ‘Carne’

14

ISS news

7 Where are they now?

21 New books

11 A manual of sexualities

22 ISS publications

20 Staff-student dialogue

23 Student life

17

Focus on ISS

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The feminist struggles in Latin America don't stop during the COVID-19 pandemic During an academic retreat in late August, we reflected on feminist struggles in Latin America during the COVID-19 pandemic. We recalled that the last time we had seen each other in person was during the International Women’s Day march in Amsterdam, as part of ‘Feministas en Holanda’, a collective of self-identified feminists from Latin America living in the Netherlands.

Above: Performance by Feministas en Holanda, denouncing feminicides in Latin America, during the International Women’s Day march in Amsterdam, the Netherlands on 8 March 2020. ©Feministas en Holanda

T

he beginning of ‘Feministas en Holanda’ goes back to the summer of 2018, when we joined a group of other Latin American women to protest outside of the Argentinian Embassy in The Hague to demonstrate in favour of the decriminalization of abortion. Even though the bill that could have decriminalized abortion in Argentina didn’t get passed, the protest was a moment for feminist women from Latin American living in the Netherlands to gather and see and recognize each other face to face. It was there where we realized that there were many of us and that we weren’t alone in our struggles; on the contrary, we embraced each other and from that day on the movement continued to bloom, both online and on the streets.

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The multiplicity of struggles of Latin American women has also brought boundless ways of fighting back and resisting.

Agustina Solera is a researcher in Latin

There would later be periodic meetings and events where we would discuss and reflect on issues that affect women in Latin America as well as those problems that affect Latin American migrant women in the Netherlands, and how we could take action. ‘Feministas en Holanda’ became a space of encounters, where we could organize our rage but also defend our joy. Where we could denounce the multiple struggles that affect Latin American women as a result of the ‘colonial/modern gender system’ (Lugones, 2007) and take to the streets to chant and dance along to the batucada.

Some of the most pressing issues that women face in Latin America include feminicides and disappearances, gender and sexual violence, racial discrimination, the lack of access to sexual and reproductive health services and rights, violence targeted against environmental defenders and activists, poverty, and the precarization of work and employment for women. The multiplicity of struggles of Latin American women has also brought boundless ways of fighting back and resisting. Examples include the feminist performance ‘Un violador en tu camino’ (A rapist on your path) in Chile, denouncing violence against women and state violence, the #EleNão movement (Not him) in Brazil against Jair Bolsonaro’s sexism and fascism; the #NiUnaMenos (Not one woman less) movement that started in Argentina against gender-based violence and feminicides and quickly spread to other Latin-American countries; or Mexico's #MiPrimerAcoso campaign denouncing sexual harassment and violence even before #MeToo. We are witnesses and participants of a plural, broad feminist movement, composed of diverse groups: indigenous women, black women, disabled women, trans women and women from different social classes, generations and sexual orientations, among many others who join

forces to fight against patriarchy and sexist violence, against racism and coloniality, against the way of life imposed by neoliberal capitalism, against extractivism and religious fundamentalisms. Young women, with new and creative forms of expression and resistance, join these long-standing struggles.

Importantly, the COVID-19 pandemic has not stopped the feminist struggles in Latin America. While the pandemic has clearly shown us the interconnections between different systems of oppression and its effects on marginalized communities, women and racial and ethnic minorities, it has also magnified and deepened several social inequalities, including gender inequality.

The massive scope of the virus highlights the unequal access to basic services like safe water, sanitation and hygiene, as well as public services such as health and education, access to affordable housing, food and decent work. Quarantine became a privilege accessible only to those who have a house, who could lock themselves up and work remotely.

Moreover, in many cases, seeking refuge from the danger of the virus meant being locked up in a situation no less dangerous for some women: a situation of domestic violence and abuse.

Restrictive measures taken around the world to fight COVID-19 intensified the risk of domestic violence and increased women’s workload at home. During the pandemic, gender-based violence did not decline, quite the reverse: recent data shows that during the COVID-19 pandemic, violence against girls and women, particularly domestic violence, has intensified. According to reports, domestic violence and feminicides have escalated during quarantine around the world (UN Women, 2020). In Latin America, cases of domestic violence have doubled, in some cases tripled (Bartels-Bland, 2020). The place of

American Social Studies and a visiting researcher at ISS.

Brenda Rodríguez Cortés is a PhD candidate at ISS working on issues of gender and sexuality.

greater risk for victims of gender violence is their own home, and the most likely perpetrator is their partner. Protection of life during the COVID-19 pandemic requires that we stay inside our homes.

However, this puts many women in greater risk by living 24/7 with their abuser. Unfortunately, due to social distancing and protective sanitary measures, women’s shelters soon reached full capacity, thus preventing women from seeking refuge.

Moreover, household and care work activities that primarily fall on women’s shoulders - have also increased since the outbreak of the pandemic. Women now have to ensure total hygiene, continuously clean the house, look after their children and elderly relatives, and assist children in virtual schooling, overburdening them even more. The most is being asked of those who have been guaranteed the least (Maffia, 2020). The quarantine made visible what had already been problematized by feminists before: essential work is not only carried out within the framework of wage contracts, it also includes work outside of that order such as care work, community work,

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Right: International Women’s Day march in Amsterdam, the Netherlands on 8 March 2020. ©Feministas en Holanda

parenting and looking out for vulnerable people. In many cases these are low-paid or unpaid jobs (such as those carried out by women in their own homes) since they are not even recognized as such. The pandemic has brought the domestic sphere to centre stage. Many of the issues that feminist movements had already been denouncing, and that were not visible precisely because they were in the realm of the intimate, today emerge strongly.

We see that all of this work is essential for society to continue and, above all, for life to be preserved.

The COVID-19 pandemic has also disrupted the already limited access to sexual and reproductive health services that women have in Latin America. A UN policy brief reported that an additional 18 million women in the region would cease to have access to contraceptives because of the pandemic (UN, 2020). The ongoing lockdowns, lack of access to birth control and family planning, in addition to an increase in gender-based and sexual violence, could lead to an estimated 600,000 unintended pregnancies in the region (Murray and Moloney, 2020).

Despite having some of the most strict lockdown measures in the world, feminist groups in Latin America put their bodies on the line and went out on the streets to demand justice for social problems that existed even before the pandemic and those that have intensified because of it.

• In Mexico for example, women and family members of victims of gender and sexual violence and disappeared women, together with the support of feminist collectives, have occupied the headquarters of the National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) since early September as a response to the inability of the government to provide access to justice and the impunity of such crimes.

‘Feministas en Holanda’ became a space of encounters, where we could organize our rage but also defend our joy.

• In Quito, Ecuador, as in other cities in the region, hundreds of women went out on the streets on 28 September, International Safe Abortion Day, to demand access to legal and safe abortion.

• In Colombia, feminist collectives started the campaign ‘¡Estamos Putas! ¡Juntas somos más poderosas!’ to support cis and trans women sex workers who have been affected by the coronavirus-related ban on sex work during the lockdown.

These are just some examples of how the feminist movements in Latin America continue to transform society and to enact social change and social justice, even throughout a pandemic. As two migrant women, feminists from Latin America living in Europe and working in academia, we acknowledge our privileges and choose to use our voices to amplify those of our compañeras back home and make visible their struggles and contributions.

The enormous efforts by women who, collectively, support victims of gender violence, accompany women to

abortions, report police brutality, look for disappeared people and fight extractive industries, were being made before the COVID-19 pandemic and will continue to be made. We hope that now women’s fundamental contributions become even more visible and valued by the whole of our society.

Bibliography Bartels-Bland, E. (2020) ‘COVID-19 Could Worsen Gender Inequality in Latin America and the Caribbean’, The World Bank, in https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/ feature/2020/05/15/covid-19-could-worsen-genderinequality-in-latin-america-and-the-caribbean.

Lugones, M. (2007) ‘Heterosexualism and the Colonial/ Modern Gender System’. Hypatia 22(1), 186-209.

Maffia, D. (2020) ‘Violencia de Género: ¿La otra pandemia?’ in El futuro después del COVID-19. Argentina Unida. In https://www.argentina.gob.ar/sites/default/files/ el_futuro_despues_del_covid-19_0.pdf.

Murray C. and Moloney, A. (2020). ‘Pandemic brings growing risk of pregnancy, abuse to Latin American girls’, in https://www.reuters.com/article/us-healthcoronavirus-latamgirls-trfn-idUSKCN24W1EN. UN (2020), ‘Policy Brief: The Impact of COVID-19 on Women’, in https://www.un.org/sites/un2.un.org/files/ policy_brief_on_covid_impact_on_women_9_april_2020. pdf.

UN Women (2020) ‘COVID-19 and ending violence against women and girls.’ In https://www.unwomen.org/en/ digital-library/publications/2020/04/issue-brief-covid-19and-ending-violence-against-women-and-girls.

ISS Alumni

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Where are they now?

Marine Assahira

Judith Marshall

Hishmi Jamil Husain

Genevieve Partington

Study programme MA in Development Studies, Major in Governance and Development Policies Year of graduation 2018 Country of origin Brazil Current occupation Program Officer at IDH Sustainable Trade Initiative focusing on value chain development.

What made your time at ISS special? ISS has broadened my understanding of the world and has challenged my prejudices, not only through the critical studies provided but also by allowing me to be in contact with students from all over the world with the huge ambition of solving complex development issues.

What is your most memorable moment at ISS? The moment that I understood how privileged I was in being together with so many unique colleagues during ‘The Making of Development’ final presentation.

What does ISS mean to you now? An invitation for questioning.

Study programme MA in Development Studies Year of graduation 1972 Country of origin Canada Current occupation Workplace literacy trainer (Mozambique), Labour education on global issues and Southern Africa projects coordination (Canada).

How did the study contribute to your career?

It deepened my knowledge of global systems and of the discourses and key institutions that drive the concept and practice of development. It laid good foundations for embarking on my PhD. What was your overall experience at ISS? It gave me the opportunity to process the learning and the questions that had emerged in the three years I had spent working in the resettlement towns of a Volta River Project in Ghana.

It allowed me to reflect on the impact of major infrastructure on rural societies; themes I have continued to research and write about.

The diversity of the staff and students at ISS meant that comparative studies were built into every discussion.

Study programme Universalization of Social Securities for the Poor Year of graduation 2005 Country of origin India Current occupation Head Biodiversity, Corporate Sustainability at Tata Steel.

What made your time at ISS special? 1. Exposure to the world’s the best teaching and research community.

2. Unity in diversity.

3. ISS approach to respect and the promotion of a multicultural society.

What is your most memorable moment at ISS? The International Food Festival to support Tsunamiaffected communities in 2005.

What does ISS mean to you now? For me ISS is a global village with extraordinary, eminent teaching and high-quality research in development studies.

Learnings from ISS have sharpened my skills and knowledge about sustainable development. This has helped me to persue my passion to contribute and serve society.

Study programme MA in Development Studies: Social Justice Perspectives with specialization Women and Gender Studies Year of graduation 2013 Country of origin Ghana Current occupation Regional Gender Coordinator at Oxfam for a project on gender-based violence.

What made your time at ISS special? The fact that ISS was a global village. So many nationalities and so much to learn from each other due to the diversity.

What is your most memorable moment at ISS? My most memorable moments at ISS were at Oude Molstraat. We were a small community of ISS students and we enjoyed learning and sharing with each other. We shared everything: from food, books, beers, laughter and tears throughout our stay.

What does ISS mean to you now? ISS means a place of multiculturalism and diversity.

It was an amazing personal development and academic experience. I made some of the awesome friends I have in my life over there.

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Animation as a form of manifesto –

The birth of ‘Carne’ In 2019, as part of the ISS’ Brazilian Film Festival, ISS showed two films on gender, one a short animation film called Carne (Flesh), for which the director, Camila Kater, was present as speaker and commentator.

Since then Carne has been become an international hit. It was selected in festivals such as Locarno International Film Festival, IDFA International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam, Annecy International Animation Film Festival and Toronto International Film Festival, and has received 48 international awards so far, two key ones being Best Documentary Short at 61st ZINEBI - International Festival of Documentary and Short Film of Biobao (2021 Oscar-qualifying documentary prize), and General Award at 12th Leiden International Short Film Experience.

T Camila Kater is a Brazilian director, stop-motion artist and animator

he production of Carne involved collaboration between Brazil and Spain, represented by the producers Lívia Perez (Doctela) and Chelo Loureiro (Abano Producións).

Besides directing the film, Camila wrote the script with co-writer Ana Julia Carvalheiro and animated the first segment of the film.

We ask Camila to discuss the issue of Gender Justice – its reflection in Carne and her life.

In 2016 I started to write a short film project inspired by my own experiences and family stories related to being and becoming a woman. Analysing situations in which I had felt devalued since childhood, I realised that the majority of them were associated with my gender and my body.

Diets were a recurrent topic at home: my mother used to buy many fitness magazines and my aunt tried out the famous Atkins low carb diet. I heard countless conversations during which it was pointed out that someone had lost weight … and it was meant as a compliment. As a result, I remember being very concerned about my body from the age of 6 and I went to see a nutritionist when I was 11. I went through my childhood and adolescence despising my body and if you have learned that you are primarily a body, you start to despise yourself. I was not a fat child, but I was convinced that I was.

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me to support the metaphors I had previously created.

To bring my ideas to life, I decided to interview real people and make an animated documentary in which five women, each one representing a stage in life, would share their own personal stories about their relationship to their body and how other people perceived them. The investigation process was essential to decide which subjects I wanted to approach, taking into account that I would interview Brazilian women and my desire to integrate diversity and intersectionality within this.

It was important to raise subjects that are often considered private and kept silent in our society.

Women are seen as females before they are seen as human beings, our bodies are the most exploited by mass media and we are constantly subjected to oppressive white, hetero, patriarchal standards. Nevertheless, inequalityproducing structures such as race, gender identity, sexual orientation, class, professional position and age can operate together, creating very different experiences; privileges for some and disadvantages for others1.

The association between a woman's body and meat, as an object of consumption, came naturally and I decided to extend the comparison to meat cooking points as a representation of women's stages of life.

I called this animation film Carne (Flesh).

It starts chronologically in childhood as the ’rare’ stage and progresses to old age as the ’well-done’ stage. The body ages and goes through several transformations through time and, if you are a woman, society diminishes this evolution, as if you

stop being a woman when you are in menopause. At this stage you are no longer sexualized and you stop being an object of consumption.

Later, I read The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory, a book written by Carol J. Adams and published in 1989, that associates male dominance with meat consumption.

In her theory, Adams points out that women and meat are treated as absent referents in our society: the meat is disconnected from the dead animal and simply becomes food, and the woman is mischaracterized from a human being and becomes a body. The book helped

1 https://time.com/5786710/kimberle-crenshaw-intersectionality/

After deciding on the topics, I created the five profiles. For the rare stage, I wanted to interview a woman who had been fat during her childhood and talk to her about fatphobia during this period.

For the second stage (medium rare), I wanted a woman to discourse on her puberty, concentrating on the experience of her first menstruation. The medium stage would be a young trans woman talking about sexual harassment and her transitioning experience. For the medium well-done stage I wanted a lesbian woman facing perimenopause, sharing observations about her sexual life and the body transformation she had been through. The last, but not least, stage (well-done), would be a woman who had been an iconic figure in her youth and whose profession related to the body, and would include her reflections on aging and her career.

‘…if you learn that you are primarily a body, it means you despise yourself.’

Across this spectrum of stages, I wanted to portray themes related to racism, focusing on the relation between hyper-sexualization and colourism. I was especially interested in reflecting on the obstetric violence against women of

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colour. I first came across these themes in my research, and they developed, changed and were joined by other topics during the interviews.

Along with co-writer Ana Julia Carvalheiro and the Brazilian producer Lívia Perez (Doctela), I found real women who had similar stories to the five profiles I had created. Two of them are famous women in Brazil: Raquel Virgínia is a vocalist and composer with the band Bahias and Helena Ignez is an iconic actress from the Cinema Novo and Cinema Marginal, two movements in third world cinema during the 60s and 70s in Brazil. Lívia Perez suggested Rachel Patrício, Valquiria Rosa was a friend's suggestion and Larissa Rahal is my sister's friend.

In terms of the animation techniques and sensorial dimension, I decided that the animations in the film should use five different styles. The testimony of the first protagonist, Rachel Patrício, for the rare stage, is about being fat during childhood and how important it was to be accepted

at school by her gym teacher and her classmates, whilst at home she had to deal with her mother who was a nutritionist and did not accept Rachel's body. Her story inspired me to try unusual materials and experiment with animation, so I chose to animate her testimony over a dinner plate; it was my canvas, a white screen, with oil paint combined with stop-motion.

The next segment of Carne is animated by the artist Giovana Affonso and represents Larissa Rahal's testimony and the medium-rare stage. For this I chose to use watercolours to explore the topic of her first menstruation and fluid puberty.

The third stage, medium, is animated by the artist Flavia Godoy based on Raquel Virgínia's reflections on the hypersexualization of black women and the several acts of violence that she had faced for being transgender. I chose 2D digital animation along with virtual image decomposition via glitches and datamash

‘…meat is disconnected from the dead animal and simply becomes food, and the woman is mischaracterized from a human being and becomes a body.’

to symbolize all this ’bad energy’ as she called it.

The fourth stage, medium well-done, is animated by the artist Cassandra Reis and portrays Valquiria Rosa, a black lesbian woman facing perimenopausal body transformations, whose doctor wanted to remove her uterus because she would not have children. I chose natural clay as a very flexible material to elucidate her body's deep changes.

The fifth and last stage, well-done, is animated by the artist Leila Monsegur and is narrated by Helena Ignez, a 79-year-old iconic actress. She reflects on the struggles with her body since childhood and on her relationship to it nowadays, in a beautiful transcendent speech. I chose to use a freer animation technique: direct painting over a real 35mm strip to represent Helena's liberty and her association with the cinema's analogue era.

I think that animation can give a sensorial dimension to real testimonies and it can be a wonderful medium with which to approach sensitive topics. There is a special connection between the real stories and the animators, it is somehow printed on the film. Carne is a collaborative work that gave me confidence as a director and animator, but also gave me the opportunity to meet these amazing women and learn with them. I cannot assume that I'm totally comfortable with my body today, but I certainly respect and admire her more.

All pictures are stills from the film ‘Carne’

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Navigating Identities:

A manual of sexualities

W

hen I came to the Netherlands, I carried with me a dream and five reversible ponchos. Fashion has always been an interest of mine; for a brief moment I had hoped to be a fashion designer but with sub-par sewing skills and an untrained eye for colours, I benched the idea for another life.

I hoped by coming to the Netherlands I would find my tribe. Coming from Zimbabwe, ideas of tribes, kinship and totems were very important in my day-to-day life back home – where I felt like an outsider secretly trying to fit in.

Let me attempt to unpack my thoughts, starting with a discussion on the

Josh Madzivanyika is an MA student at ISS

complexities of personal and socially constructed identities. When I was 5 years old, I watched Titanic (1997) and for a long time I wanted to be Rose Bukater.

The fantasy morphed into a reality the more I replayed the movie and recited her lines. The idea of embodying a fictional character was exciting, it showed me I had a penchant for the theatrical. In hindsight I realize how unhappy I was in my own skin, mind and body; I was a child hoping to become someone else. In my twenties I still catch myself vicariously living a role in a movie, usually I’m a movie critic – quickly unravelling the plot and spoiling the movie for myself and anyone within earshot.

Mitupu/Isithemo (Totems) are one of Zimbabwe’s oldest known traditions.

They are used to identify different clans and define their social identity (Totems & Traditions, 2020). Knowing my totem and the legends attached to it was an integral part of my childhood. My totem is Zhou/ Nzou/Ndlovu (the elephant) and my clan’s name in Nyandoro. There is evidence of interracial marriages by the clan with Portuguese, Middle Eastern and Jewish traders, however the tracks end

The unavailability of a manual on sexuality means that you learn things through trial and error.

after the defeat of the Portuguese in the 17th century (Nehandawedande, 2009).

As a child, I met the elders of the Nyandoro family. Watching them at family gatherings performing all the rituals and customs almost naturally, I knew I was an imposter.

My sexuality distanced me from the family.

In as much as I felt like an outsider, I saw them as operating within a hivemind, incapable of making their own decisions.

At the time I saw social etiquette and norms as an identity/personality and all I wanted to do was to run away from that!

I lived in Zimbabwe, where identity was

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shaped by the political rhetoric of Mugabe and his political party – the Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front.

The name is indicative of its objective: to craft a national identity founded on ‘Patriotic History’ where members of the party give themselves the mandate to protect Zimbabwe from any perceived foreign threats. Mugabe used his platform to construct queer identities and their existence as western imports (Youde, 2017). I remember several instances when he described gay men as worse than pigs and dogs, arguing that the natural world was based on the same ideologies of heteronormative selection. His message was clear in 2015 when he proclaimed to the UNGA, ‘We [Zimbabweans] are not gays!’ (Buchanan, 2015): that was his fight against LGBTQ+ rights and recognitions.

It was a fight against me.

From a young age, through television, I saw my entire existence being denied because of my sexual orientation; reduced to an abnormality that had to be exorcized or medicalized. The constant public berating shaped the social discourses around me, I saw myself as the product of a brood parasite – a cuckoo laid among reed warblers. My family saw I was different but still took care of me.

I knew I was different but could do no more than stay out of sight. I knew that if I stayed in people’s peripheral vision, they would remember me, or bother me. But hiding in the shadows never worked: my personality emerged, my flamboyance bubbled up, my mannerisms became more pronounced and soon I was the one noticeable thing in a crowded room!

My choice to come out of the closet was my form of identity-building and resistance – a counterattack against the psychological invalidation within homophobic discourses. It made me a social pariah, it also made me a great friend to other queer people.

In my late teens I found myself navigating the gay dating scene and the insurmountable feeling of loneliness I felt

From a young age…

I saw my entire existence being denied because of my sexual orientation

as a result of unreconciled relationships with my family. I naively thought that the moment I landed in the Netherlands, the man of my dreams would swipe right out from under my Tinder profile and I would not feel the same loneliness I had felt back home: I would be validated, appreciated and I would live happily ever after. The swipes and taps came … I was still single.

On whichever part of the non-hetero­ sexual spectrum one identifies (or does not identify), one can easily become enamoured with a certain kind of sadness. Mine was linked with my notion of self-worth, being unhappy with my skin, my hair, my weight, my voice: the list continued to grow as I listened to the disembodied voices on social media. It’s the same apps and platforms that promote the image of an ideal gay man; users hunt for people that closely resemble that ideal. It was in the Netherlands that I saw how my skin

Binah, Emanation of knowledge. ©Mohrbacher

could be weaponized and simultaneously turned into a sexual currency (Han and Choi, 2018). I had a few options: I could allow the body-shaming to fully absorb me, thus altering how I see myself, or I could acknowledge that my body isn’t the problem, it’s the unresolved life-long traumas that manifest as low self-esteem and the faulty perceptions I have about myself.

My search for a tribe landed me within the walls of ISS where I met people in, out and around the queer spectrum – each with a beautiful story hidden behind a nervous smile. Within the Sexual Diversity committee we established our own queer safe space sessions – they were a unique way to share the experiences, ideas and assumptions we each held about identities within the LGBTQA+ spectrum.

They offered an opportunity to disrupt and transform the dailiness of tertiary education, to question the oppressive isms of society that silence our voices and allow a form of expression of solidarity that cannot be defined by words. Safe space meetings were more than just shared lunches, they were actualized by each one of us taking the time to build robust relationships with each other. It was in these sessions that

Themed article

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La Grande Tromperie (The Great Deception). ©Pontiroli, 2019

my definition of concepts of sexuality, identity and mental health were interrogated and expanded.

Opening oneself up to learning from others is easier said than done. We have been conditioned to think that we either have the right or the wrong answer, using these polarities as armaments to win personal and mundane battles. Listening to my contemporaries share their personal experiences provided me with answers to questions I couldn’t ask Google. Clinical psychology encourages psychologists to actively listen to their clients’ problems, one thing it never emphasized was how beneficial it is to listen. One of the rules we had within the safe space was to never interrupt the one speaking, quite a simple task you would think.

The unavailability of a manual on sexuality means that you learn things

through trial and error. Many queer people don’t have mentors or family members to help them navigate the nexus between internal discourses and external norms. The safe space granted me the opportunity to read parts of other people’s manuals; learning how to troubleshoot a long-distance relationship from a pansexual, how to partition kindness from a bear or how to reboot my self-image from an ally.

My identity is only limited by my imagination: who I am transcends my heritage, my sexuality, my assumptions and my experiences. It oscillates on its own spectrum, not fixed to a specific point of reference. Actively listening to other LGBTQA+ persons and to my intuition has been a beacon guiding me to shore, past the tempests and rough tides of life.

Bibliography Buchanan, R. (2015) Robert Mugabe tells UN General Assembly: ‘We are not gays!’ (Independent). Available at: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/ robert-mugabe-tells-un-general-assembly-we-are-notgays-a6671316.html.

Han, C. and Choi, K.-H. (2018) ‘Very Few People Say “No Whites”: Gay Men of Color and the Racial Politics of Desire’, 38(3), pp. 145–161. doi: 10.1080/02732173.2018.1469444.

Mohrbacher, P. (2015) Binah, Emanation of Knowledge.

United States: Angelarium. Available at: https://www. angelarium.net/treeoflife#/binah/.

Nehandawedande (2009) ‘Nhari Ine Ndoro’. Wordpress (MASVIKA MUDUNHU RACHIEF NYANDORO). Available at: https://nehandawedande.wordpress.com/2009/05/03/ nhari-ine-ndoro/ (Accessed: 8 October 2020).

Pontiroli, B. (2019) La grande tomperie<br>. Santa Monica, USA: CoproGallery.

Totems & Traditions (2020) (ZimSculpt). Available at: https://zimsculpt.com/about/about-shona-sculpture/ history/totems-traditions/ (Accessed: 8 October 2020).

Youde, J. (2017) ‘Patriotic history and anti-LGBT rhetoric in Zimbabwean politics’, 51(1), pp. 61–79. doi: 10.1080/00083968.2016.1276850.

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ISS news

ISS news alumni awards EUR events PhD projects research staff students

ISS online education fairs students These online fairs to be held in November and December are for prospective students interested in studying at ISS and include virtual booths for a chat with study advisors, videos and information materials.

MA in Development Studies starts online ISS The 2020-2021 MA programme made a great online start in September.

Over 120 students from more than 40 countries attended the Introduction Week and are now well into their coursework.

ISS alumnus new Chancellor University of the Philippines alumni

ISS alumnus appointed Foreign Secretary of Nepal alumni

ISS alumnus Dr Jose V Camacho has been elected the new Chancellor of the University of the Philippines Los BaĂąos. He graduated from the Economics of Development programme in 1995.

Congratulations to ISS alumnus HE Bharat Raj Paudyal who was recently appointed Foreign Secretary of the Government of Nepal. Bharat Paudyal graduated from the MA in Development Studies programme in 2000.

ISS news

Top journals in Development Studies and Anthropology research The 2020 Journal Citation Reports ranks Development and Change 11th in the category Development Studies.

The Journal of Peasant Studies, edited by Professor Jun Borras, has seen its impact factor increase and has held on to its top position in the categories Development Studies and Anthropology.

Application MA programme 2020-21 now open students

In Memoriam Martin Doornbos We were very sad to hear that Emeritus Professor Martin Doornbos passed away on 7 July 2020.

We remember Martin as a highly appreciated colleague and a very kind person, a true gentleman. Our thoughts go to Martin's wife, sons and further family and friends.

Daniel Msonda Former student Daniel Msonda passed away during a short holiday in July. Originally from Malawi, Daniel was based in Myanmar for the UNFPA. He graduated from the Mundus MAPP programme and was at ISS in 2008/2009. Our thoughts are with his family and friends.

Enrique GarcĂ­a Ayaviri ISS was sad to learn of the passing away of Enrique GarcĂ­a Ayaviri on 31 July in La Paz, Bolivia. Enrique studied at ISS in the 1970s. As a former ISS student, he always motivated Bolivian young people to pursue studies in the Netherlands and particularly at ISS. Maureen (Mo) Pagaduan We are very sad to share the news that ISS alumna Maureen Pagaduan from the Philippines passed away in August. Mo studied Women and Development at ISS. She was a retired professor in community development at the University of the Philippines. Our sincere condolences go out to her husband, other family members and friends.

The ISS admission team is now available to accept your application and answer any questions you may have about the programme.

Alumna Krishna Mathoera new Minister of Defence in Surinam alumni A graduate of the Mundus MA in Public Policy programme run jointly by ISS and FHR Lim A Po Institute for Social Studies, Krishna was appointed to serve as Minister of Defence in the new government of President Santhoki.

Jos Hilhorst ISS was sad to learn that former ISS rector, Professor Jos Hilhorst passed away on 27 September 2020.

Jos Hilhorst joined the ISS in 1962 and was rector from 1975-1976. Our thoughts are with his wife, his children and grandchildren.

Sandro Sideri We were very sad to hear of the passing away of Emeritus Professor Sandro Sideri in October. Sandro joined ISS in the 1960s and remained here until his retirement in the 1990s. Our thoughts are with his wife, daughter and other family.

Rosario Basurto Carillo We were very sorry to hear that ISS alumna Rosario Basurto Carrillo recently passed away.

Rosario, from Peru, did both a Diploma and an MA in Women & Development at ISS in 1991 and 1992/1993. Our deepest condolences go to her family and friends.

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ISS news

Highlighting Brazilian women cacao workers research

PhD defences PhD

Isabelle Desportes (5 November 2020) Repression Without Resistance: Disaster responses in authoritarian low-intensity conflict settings An ISS research project investigating global value chains (GOLLS) highlights a Brazilian musical initiative which is bringing the hardships, loves and stories of current and former women cacao workers to life.

Unwanted Peoples and Boundaries of Citizenship event

68th Dies Natalis ISS

ISS and the Conflict and Resilience Research Institute recently organized a series of 4 online seminars examining 'unwanted communities' such as the Banyamulenge and Rohingya. The recordings are available on the ISS website.

Tanmoy Majilla (18 September 2020) Essays in Empirical Development Economics Over 500 people from all over the world registered for the livestreamed debate on COVID-19, climate change and #BLM hosted by journalist Marcia Luyten. The debate was a lively discussion between Aminata Cairo, Murat Arsel and Wendy Harcourt.

ISS chairs SAIL platform ISS ISS is proud to chair SAIL â&#x20AC;&#x201C; the platform in which Dutch organizations focusing on international higher education, research and capacity building are organized.

Aleksandra PiletiÄ&#x2021; Cum Laude (17 September 2020) Varieties of Urban Capitalism: A multiscalar analysis of neoliberal restructuring in and through New York City, Johannesburg and Stockholm

Focus on ISS

ISS Research Groups The ISS research programme, Global Development and Social Justice, consists of four cross-cutting research themes. Each of these research themes are explored and analysed through different perspectives by four research groups.

Four themes

Four research groups

Migration & diversity

Environment & climate change Development Economics

Political Ecology

Civic innovation

Governance, Law and Social justice

Conflict & peace

Social protection & inequality

O

perating within the framework of the research programme and contributing to the overall research objectives of the institute, the research groups bring together academic staff, post-docs and PhD researchers for day-to-day interactions, discussions on future research directions, exchange of ideas, seminars, and discussion and implementation of research plans and projects. While the research themes are expected to be dynamic and may change as new themes may be added, the research groups provide a relatively more stable administrative and intellectual home for our researchers.

Together, the four research groups mobilize the intellectual capital that is present at the institute for research activities that are undertaken by staff within or across the groups, depending on the nature of the research topic. The four research groups reflect the diversity of research at ISS in terms of research foci and methodological approaches.

Development Economics

T

he Development Economics research group is a lively and diverse group of development economists. We apply an interdisciplinary approach combined with a variety of theoretical perspectives to answer pressing questions about poverty, inequality and growth but we also extend our analyses to the study of institutions, conflict, gender, health and well-being as well as social norms and sustainability. Our research also looks at how sanctions impact targeted countries, the political economy of social protection and how conflict impacts fiscal capacity. We further analyse financial depth and inward investment, processes behind deglobalization, as well as the impact of natural resources on conflict, but also happiness, democratic development and growth.

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Focus on ISS

Continuation of Development Economics The research we employ is innovative not only in terms of content, but also in terms of methods. We are experienced in compiling large datasets and constructing indicators such as the Indices of Social Development. We employ experimental and quasi-experimental impact evaluation techniques to assess

social programmes and reforms across the world for their transformative potential. We also have a network of experts in research synthesis in the form of systematic reviews and meta-analyses. All these efforts have one common goal: to put people at the centre of an inclusive development process.

To achieve our objectives, our research involves innovative projects such as the use of drones to assess environmental damage, the use of SMS messages to increase psycho-social well-being or the use of lab-in-the-field experiments to assess intuitive help and punishment or adjustment to conflict settings.

In short, we are a thriving and collaborative group of engaged economists. We provide an economic perspective to development processes around the globe. We like to think outside the box and to combine different approaches and views to address recurring development questions and challenges from new perspectives.

Political Ecology

T

he Political Ecology research group brings together researchers from a variety of disciplinary and geographical angles working on how resource scarcities are created and contested. We approach resources in a broad sense, not only natural and physical resources, but also social and economic – our work focuses on land, food, water, the environment, disasters, conflicts and climate change, but also on subjects less conventionally associated with ecology such as social policy, population and demography, gender, or children and youth.

Indeed, it is this integration of political ecology with themes of social reproduction, intersectionality and feminism(s), with rigorous investigations into issues of poverty, inequality and social exclusion, and with systemic consideration of processes of capitalist socioeconomic development and structural transformation, that makes our group particularly distinctive, cutting edge and internationally recognized.

Our activities also feature a strong element of scholar activism.

The urgent, pressing issues of concern that motivate us include: • Climate change and environmental disasters such as food, water and energy crises, in particular working in collaborations with critical NGOs; • Community-organized alternatives such as movements for food sovereignty, agro-ecology, open-source agriculture and technology, land reform campaigns and degrowth initiatives, through partnering with farm and food movements; • Inequality and social justice including racial and gender discrimination, through cooperating with trades unions, migrant

and refugee organizations and global South institutions; • Employment crises and universalistic approaches to social policy.

We emphasize the necessity of approaching these issues from a political economy angle that focuses on the interaction between local, national and global sources of power within contemporary capitalism, including how policies shape distributional and other conflicts within and between societies.

Our multi-scalar analysis covers rural and agrarian societies as well as urban and metropolitan conglomerates in their interdependence at regional and global levels.

Focus on ISS

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Civic Innovation

T

he Civic Innovation research group consists of a group of international scholar-activists committed to social justice.

Our research is concerned with the mechanisms that marginalize and impoverish underrepresented people in dominant development and academic paradigms – and how to

counter these processes for progressive social change by combining expertise from different disciplines. Through published work and project partnerships, we aim to explore and generate social action in fields ranging from social movements to frugal innovation and many topics in between.

©Richard Toppo

In our research, we co-create diverse forms of knowledges together with people and communities. Here, the ‘civic’ part of the research group’s name reflects both the current understanding of civic as ‘being part of the community’ and our critical engagement with the term’s historical origin which excluded marginalized people. These concerns translate into participatory and collaborative research approaches that counter the exclusion of people’s own voices and representations. Such transformative methodologies allow us to continuously expand our expertise and ensure the societal relevance of our research.

Our academic work addresses mainstream development interventions and challenges its assumptions. It explores alternatives and relates to existing innovations. Our team forges collaborations with institutions in the South and develops modules relevant for students and other constituencies dealing with contemporary social challenges.

Governance, Law and Social Justice

R

Our research is explicitly multidisciplinary and draws on a range of disciplines, including political science, political economy, public administration and management, international relations, international law and anthropology.

Thematically, the group’s research initiatives are concerned, amongst others, with topics such as: • the political economy of crisis management; • the role of causality and complexity in political economy analysis; • human rights, conflicts and peace building; • social movements; • legal mobilization; • citizenship and migration;

©Anna K. Voss

esearchers in the Governance, Law and Social Justice group carry out research projects on the various ways in which the organization of society, reflected in governance and legal frameworks, impacts development processes. Our research is informed by concerns of how and to what extent prevalent governance and legal arrangements help or hinder social justice. Our researchers aim to produce internationally leading research outputs that are socially committed and societally relevant. Research questions are therefore not formulated only with academic debates in mind, but also speak to the concerns of wider audiences. We attempt to disseminate our research findings not just through academic journals and books published by academic presses, but also use media that target general audiences.

• climate and disasters; • development assistance and humanitarian action.

On all these issues, we aim to collaborate in global partnerships, with a particular focus on partners in the global South.

We aim to ensure societal relevance by combining research initiatives with capacity development activities in the global South and with our active involvement in public and policy debates within and beyond Europe. As part of our societal outreach, we actively maintain strong links with organizations outside academia, including civil society, non-governmental organizations and international institutions.

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Staff-student dialogue

What is, and isn’t, * degrowth?

Dr Julien-François Gerber and MA student Arca Arguelles-Caouette discuss degrowth.

Julien-François (J): There is something very obvious about degrowth: we need to decrease our use of resources and rethink the kind of society we want. At a very basic level that’s what degrowth is about. But it’s also about redistributing resources better. We need to have a collective discussion about what is required and what is unnecessary.

Arca (A): I agree. But it also involves collective, bottom-up activism; initiatives and every-day practices that are already happening. I think it’s also an invitation to critically rethink our lifestyles and our societies. And it problematizes growth as tied to deeply racial, gendered and extractive hierarchies and dependencies.

Degrowth brings in a new unit of analysis which moves away from the rational individual to really thinking about communities. And this brings in more thinking about who is included and excluded in communities.

J: I agree. What I like about the word ‘degrowth’ is that it strikes at the core of capitalist modernity: the idea that more is better, that we need more stuff, more technological progress, that it’s never enough. Degrowth is meant to trigger discussion about this, to go beyond the notion of sustainable development. For degrowthers, sustainable development is an oxymoron because ‘development’ is

typically associated with endless growth, something that can never be sustainable.

A: Do you have any examples of degrowth in practice?

A: I would also argue that sustainable development and degrowth build from a different logic; for one thing degrowth criticizes growth and it also goes beyond the agency of the individual. Degrowth also advocates values or ethics around well-being which can include sharing, caring, nurturing, horizontality: it re-questions our social relationships.

J: There’s a lot to learn from historical and non-western societies that were often non-growing. Cuban agriculture of the 80s is a more contemporary example: all its relationships with the ex-USSR were cut and it had to completely rethink the way it organized its economy. It was the largest-scale transition to agro-ecology witnessed so far and it was pretty successful.

Sustainability indicators were going up, agroecological production was doing well and health indicators were also on the up. Unfortunately, at the end of the 90s it went back to a normal growthbased model.

J: Many degrowthers would also embrace the circular economy, but they would add that we also need to problematize growth.

Many circular economy thinkers believe that we can continue to expand the economy as long as we recycle; degrowth argues that we also need to stop unnecessary consumption and production.

A: Indeed. Degrowth doesn’t just look at consumption but also at the problem of production: why do we still have extractive economies, or overdimensioning, over-producing and over-consuming systems?

J: Right. Degrowth is not just about less consumption and less production while everything else remains the same. That already has a name, it’s called a recession. Degrowth is not a recession; it’s a rethinking of the economic and social structures that we live in.

A: My research looks at the reappropriation and sharing of peasantdriven technology on the peasant cooperative L’Atelier Paysan in France.

Related to degrowth are the ideas that knowledge(s) and know-hows should be accessible to everyone. The peasant farmers learn how to build, assemble, fix and repair. They create and test tools and technologies that are adapted to their farming grounds and their practices, and advocate more ecological and resilient farming models. This is a concrete case of degrowth in an industrialized country.

However, degrowth is also relevant in the global South.

Staff-student dialogue

ISS publications

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New books

J: Yes, that’s true. Many of the fundamental degrowth ideas come from the global South. For example, what the Sri Lankan scholar, Ananda Coomaraswamy, said about postindustrialism in 1914 resembles degrowth. Two of the forefathers of degrowth, Ernst Schumacher and Ivan Illich, were both influenced by an Indian economist, Joseph Kumarappa, who was very much a degrowth thinker.

The critique of growth also applies to many sectors of so-called developing countries, where the ideology of growth has taken solid root. Having said that, the first economies that need to degrow are the industrialized economies as they account for the lion’s share of the global use of resources.

Did the people you worked with in France have links with the degrowth movement there?

A: Most of my encounters were with peasant farmers. Our discussions did not explicitly talk about degrowth, but more on thinking critically about technology.

Some of the peasant farmers I met were also interested in less intensive, organic farming and in practices that are less harmful to the soil.

I’m trying to expand my understanding by following some of the ideas put forward by feminist political ecology

scholars. These scholars ask questions about who can access and use technologies, where they are used and who’s included in their development.

Degrowth should include such contributions and think about who is included in the notion of community.

J: We also need to look at transition.

This is difficult because we are living in a period with one globally dominant system: capitalism. Based on Erik Olin Wright’s ideas about societal transformations, I believe degrowth needs ‘interstitial politics’: building autonomous degrowth pockets within capitalism which would slowly expand and connect with each other.

This requires organizing in different ways and necessarily involves social struggles.

One possible motor for change is the environmental justice movement. This is one of the most powerful socio-political forces right now which is literally fighting the impacts of growth. There is a natural alliance between environmental justice and degrowth.

A: Yes, I agree. Environmental justice understands that climate change, for example, affects people differently and that it deepens social inequalities.

Degrowth needs to understand this and move away from the universalist view of humanity.

J: Clearly, as a young movement, degrowth still has a lot to clarify, which I find challenging and exciting. * The full edited transcript of this conversation is reproduced on DevISSues online.

Encounters after the Soviet Collapse: The contemporary Chinese presence in the former Soviet Union border zone This special issue of the journal Problems of Post-Communism is co-edited by ISS Associate Professor, Dr Oane Visser, Dr Irna Hofman (Oxford University) and Dr Artemy Kalinovsky (University of Amsterdam). It focuses on encounters and perceptions between China and the states along its north-western border to provide deeper insights into the character and consequences of China's involvement in this post-Soviet border region.

Activating space for sustainable development The Task Team on Civil Society Organization (CSO) Development Effectiveness and Enabling Environ­ment has produced a report on the commission­ed study into 'What factors in a country’s environment help or hinder effective CSO participation in SDG-related processes and how is this practically felt/experienced?'

Carried out by ISS, the study focused on identifying factors in a country’s environment that help and hinder CSO participation in Sustainable Development Goal-related processes.

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ISS publications

Development and Change

Working Papers

Development and Change is an interdisciplinary, peer-reviewed journal devoted to the critical analysis and discussion of current issues of development. It was established by the ISS in 1969, in response to the perceived need for a multidisciplinary journal dealing with all aspects of development studies.

The ISS Working Paper series provides a forum for work in progress which seeks to elicit comments and generate discussion. The series includes academic research by staff, PhD participants and visiting fellows, and award-winning research papers by graduate students.

Volume 51, Number 5, September 2020 In Memoriam: Martin Doornbos Ashwani Saith The Unfixed State of Unfixed Land Nikita Sud Risk, Envy and Magic in the Artisanal Mining Sector of South Kivu, Democratic Republic of Congo Nik Stoop and Marijke Verpoorten External Financial Liberalization and Macroeconomic Performance in Emerging Countries: An Empirical Evaluation of the Brazilian Case André Moreira Cunha, Daniela Magalhães Prates and Pedro Perfeito da Silva Security, Resilience and Participatory Urban Upgrading in Latin America and the Caribbean Tina Hilgers Politics of Engagement: Gender Expertise and International Governance Özlem Altan-Olcay Rana Plaza and its Aftermath Contested Understandings in the Global Garment Industry after Rana Plaza Sarah Ashwin, Naila Kabeer and Elke Schüßler Buyer Engagement and Labour Conditions in Global Supply Chains: The Bangladesh Accord and Beyond Chikako Oka, Niklas Egels-Zanden and Rachel Alexander Multi-actor Initiatives after Rana Plaza: Factory Managers’ Views Shahidur Rahman and Kazi Mahmudur Rahman Paradigm Shift or Business as Usual? Workers’ Views on Multi-stakeholder Initiatives in Bangladesh Naila Kabeer, Lopita Haq and Munshi Sulaiman

Populist politics and pandemics: some simple analytics Murshed, S.M., ISS Working Paper Series 664 What the political economy literature tells us about blockades and sanctions Dizaji, S.F., Lis, P., Murshed, S.M. and Zweiri, M., ISS Working Paper Series 663 The myth of global sustainability: Environmental limits and (de)growth in the time of SDGs Arsel, M., ISS Working Paper Series 662 The impact of external arms restrictions on democracy and conflict in developing countries Dizaji, S.F. and Murshed, S.M., ISS Working Paper Series 661 A necessary complement to human rights: a human security perspective on migration to Europe Bilgic, A., Gasper, D.R. and Wilcock, C.A., ISS Working Paper Series 660 Determinants of intended return migration among refugees: A comparison of Syrian refugees in Germany and Turkey Al Husein, N. and Wagner, N., ISS Working Paper Series 659

Student life

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STUDENT LIFE

Students cleaning the common room in the Dorus hostel whilst observing the 1.5 m physical distancing regulations. Photo by Bianca Damati.

So excited after collecting food from Sandy. Photo

by Haharatu Sama.

Relaxing in the ISS Library.

Photo by Chikaodili Orakwue.

Clifford Kudakwashe Mogoto and Basseyanwan Bassey Usoroh on their first day at ISS; registering with Els. Photo by Sandra Nijhof.

During a study trip to Ireland in 2019, students played a kung fu and gravity game: here Amos is defying gravity by staying in the air as his colleague uses kung fu to keep him there. Photo by Amos Z.B Flomo.

Bitesize pieces of ISS research Sharing highlights of ISS research projects and publications Researchers at the International Institute of Social Studies work on finding responses to todayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s global challenges. We constantly look for ways to bridge theory and practice and to combine rigorous academic research with societal relevance that has the potential to drive action. We do this not only by using a critical approach and co-creating knowledge with different actors, but also by taking our knowledge and insights out into the wider world.

Research InSightS shares highlights of ISS research projects and publications in a range of different formats, from Policy Briefs, to infographics and animations.

For more details see www.iss.nl/en/research/research-insights