This article describes the Markets for Afghan Artisans (MFAA) programme, delivered by Afghan non-government organisation, Zardozi, which has developed an effective approach to facilitating market access for very poor women in the informal, handcrafted garment industry, successfully addressing the multiple barriers faced by women, and developing full business cycle support, customised to their s…
This article draws on research with women handicraft producers in Bangladesh in order to analyse processes of empowerment. It explores the practices and social relationships embedded in the activities of four Southern Fair Trade Enterprises (SFTEs). Attention is drawn to the kinds of change which the women producers feel they are achieving and how such change was linked to Fair Trade employment…
Fair Trade and organic certification production of coffee and other commodities is popularly seen as beneficial to producers in many ways. However, gender analysis of Fair Trade is important for assessing the gains and losses for women and men specifically, which result from compliance with globally set codes of conduct. This article presents a case study of coffee production and trade in Ugand…
Oxfam has been involved in sustainable livelihoods and enterprise development since the 1960s, gaining practical experience in setting up businesses that deliver social as well as economic development. Since we believe that gender inequality is one of the greatest barriers to poverty eradication worldwide, over the last three years we have been piloting an innovative Enterprise Development Prog…
Women in Africa are both important beneficiaries and key facilitators of the modern off-grid lighting revolution. Affordable products using technologies like micro-solar power and light-emitting diodes (LEDs) can replace fuel-based lighting enabling women and men to save money, reduce indoor pollution, and operate their small enterprises with reliable, clean lighting. This article discusses n…
This article discusses the connections between political conflicts and situational irony and their relationship to the media. The focus is on a continuum of ironic events that started from the crisis following the publication of the Muhammed cartoons in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, which led to a satirical comic strip being published on the web pages of Kaltio, a small cultural journal…
This article explores the ways in which migrants use the internet to maintain family relationships and how the difference in digital knowledge and skills between men and women serves to transform the power dynamics in the family sphere transnationally. It examines the intersection of the research areas of transnationalism, digital inequality and family. While the discussion of digital inequalit…
This article analyses the increasing emphasis on multi-stakeholder approaches in the development of public broadcasting policies. The European Commission, in particular, reinforces this trend, having pointed to the necessity of third parties being involved in procedures that allow public broadcasters to expand activities to new media markets. The articles research question is twofold. First,…
The digital transformation of the broadcasting industry forces public service broadcasting (PSB) companies to restructure and rethink their offerings. Characteristic today is a keener attention to the preferences and behaviours of audiences, and the importance of the link between the concept of public service and the role of audience participation. PSB companies are engaged in a reconsideration…
The webdocumentary positions itself as documentary re-mediated for the internet age. Not only does the name webdocumentary consciously reference film and television documentary but it is possible to trace continuities in representational strategies, purpose and production practices that situate the webdoc within the documentary tradition. In spite of this family resemblance, however, the webdoc…
In July 2009, the Special Olympics Great Britain National Summer Games for athletes with learning disabilities were held in Leicester. Uniquely the Games achieved considerable television news coverage. This article offers a preliminary analysis of television representations of the Games. National TV coverage of the Paralympics is now established, but Special Olympics and sport for people with…
Based on participant observation and in-depth interviews, this article analyzes the ways that male residents in a drug treatment program signified a masculine self through compensatory manhood acts. I analyze four strategies of identity work that men used during group accountability sessions called games: (1) signifying masculinity through aggression; (2) subordinating women and nonconvention…
In most states in the U.S. it is legal to carry a concealed handgun in public, but little is known about why people want to do this. While the existing literature argues that guns symbolize masculinity, most research on the actual use of guns has focused on marginalized men. The issue of concealed handguns is interesting because they must remain concealed and because relatively privileged men a…
In this article, we investigate the states role in the reproduction of relations of male dominance between separated parents through custody law. We argue that three logics shape the current operation of family lawdurability, gender neutrality and present/future temporalitysuch that custody law is not simply a mechanism of dispute resolution between parents; it is also a vehicle for the di…
Research has consistently revealed gender differences in attitudes toward science and technology. One explanation is that women are more personally affected by particular technologies (e.g., biomedical interventions), so they consider them differently. However, not all women universally experience biomedical technologies. We use the concept of technological salience to address how differences i…
This study explores whether gender stereotypes about math ability shape high school teachers assessments of the students with whom they interact daily, resulting in the presence of conditional bias. It builds on theories of intersectionality by exploring teachers perceptions of students in different gender and racial/ethnic subgroups and advances the literature on the salience of gender acros…
This article discusses how performance-management systems may be conceptualized as tools with a life cycle consisting of several stages. Studies on public-sector performance management generally concern the question of how management can design these systems or address dysfunctional effects when they are used. This article, however, argues that the research in this field should cover the entire…
This overview aims to stimulate conceptual and practical discussions to help unlock the full potential of realist evaluation in health systems research. Based on a structured literature search, this review maps how the concepts of realist evaluation are applied in health systems research and which methodological problems are encountered. We found a great diversity in the depth of application of…
Bridging the current divide of opinion about experimentalism would help protect an evaluation brand currently under threat in international evaluation circles. In order to help settle a lingering and unnecessary controversy, this opinion article describes the policy force field that triggered the recent surge of interest in experimental methods in development evaluation; digs up the historical …