ABSTRACTThis article shares insights from research into the economic opportunities and obstacles that Vietnamese transgender men and women face in a fast-growing economy mainly composed of small and medium-sized enterprises. The findings demonstrate that gender norms lead to economic inequality between trans men and women. They also show that small businesses and entrepreneurship play an important role in creating legitimate and satisfying employment for transgender people.

ABSTRACTPeacebuilding sets out to respond to societal breakdown in times of violent conflict, but the needs and experiences of people with diverse sexual orientations and gender identities (SOGI) have been notably absent from peacebuilding research, policy, and practice thus far. Individuals who fall outside the binary categories of women and men, or who do not adhere to heterosexual norms, confront a spectrum of violence that transcends conflict itself. War and displacement function to add layers of vulnerability, precariousness, and danger to lives already under threat. This article draws on primary research conducted with refugees, activists, service providers, and lawyers in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Colombia, Nepal, and Lebanon, as well as a survey of published research from around the world. We argue that it is essential to broaden the debate on gender in peacebuilding and humanitarian response so that it includes diverse SOGI issues. We then elaborate on possible ways that humanitarian and peacebuilding work can better address these issues in future.

ABSTRACTIn recent years, LGBTQI rights have become central to debates around international development, human rights, refugee protection, and diversity. Yet research and experience in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) reveals significant problems with LGBTQI as a way of identifying individuals who do not conform to heterosexual and binary gender norms, in order to support their rights. In this article, we draw on experience of working to advance gender and sexual rights to illustrate the shortcomings of LGBTQI identity categories, and use findings from the Centre for Transnational Development and Collaboration’s (CTDC) four-year programme of research into LGBTQI rights in the MENA region to support our argument further. This research identified major problems in policies and debates on the rights of individuals whose sexual orientation and/or gender identity differs from the norm. In response to this, CTDC has developed a tool to address rights in programme development and advocacy, using a new approach, Sexual Practice and Gender Performance (SPGP), for work in the MENA region.

ABSTRACTThis article considers how patriarchal power relations between men and women are produced and reproduced within extractive industries, and examines the idea that the ‘supernormal profits’ to be made there encourage the development of ‘supernormal patriarchy’. By looking at the sites where extraction takes place and relationships between men and women within these sites, we show the extreme and exaggerated gender roles and relations that are found here. We nuance this account by highlighting the need to recognise that patriarchal power is not felt equally by all women and men. Exploring the different roles women adopt in the extractives context we demonstrate the fluidity of women’s identities as workers, ‘whores’, and wives with a focus on transactional sex. The article demonstrates the importance of not seeing women merely as victims of patriarchal relations, or making assumptions about how these relations operate, or the form they take. Better understanding of the range of gender roles adopted in the extractives and the supernormal patriarchal relations that produce and reproduce these is needed by policymakers. This will enable them to promote gender equality and natural resource justice, as part of an agenda to redistribute wealth gains from natural resource extraction.

ABSTRACTIn Chhattisgarh state, nearly half the land area is covered with forests that are essential to the livelihoods and culture of the indigenous communities there. Tree felling has escalated in the past decades, with natural forests replaced by teak plantations. The article narrates the struggles of AAS, an organisation of indigenous women, for restoration of land and forest rights to the indigenous communities. It shows the importance of people’s organisations and their struggles for natural resource justice. Women have challenged the state, using a range of strategies.

At birth and death, and each day in between, human needs for water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) are near-constant. In the most intimate and personal ways, WASH offers ‘life-giving or life-threate...

ABSTRACT Within Oxfam, we continue to question how we could have better integrated gender equality in the Ebola response, and how to improve our gender mainstreaming in future emergencies. Why did gender mainstreaming in the Ebola response prove particularly challenging? How did the Ebola response differ from previous emergencies? What did we need to know to improve our response to the outbreak? Are there new ways in which we should approach gender mainstreaming? What lessons have we learned that we can carry forward in our work? Most importantly, what recommendations can we offer beyond those already provided in existing guidelines? In this article, we reflect on our experience as non-medical specialist practitioners involved in the response, to help us answer these questions.

ABSTRACT The way women’s issues have been conceptualised and acted on in the context of water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) has changed over the past four decades. The discourses and trends in development studies – from the Women in Development approach of the 1970s to Gender and Development in the 1980s – were mirrored in the WASH sector. The WASH sector has contributed to, and been shaped by, debates on women’s needs and, latterly, on gender perspectives based on a combined argument for equity and efficiency. In addition, in the last decade, the WASH sector has developed its own distinctive initiatives, such as menstrual hygiene management and, recently, specific WASH considerations relating to gender-based violence. This paper assesses whether the result of this sector-specific response has been a dilution or distillation of gender issues. It concludes that the WASH sector has not disregarded the goals of women’s empowerment and gender equality; rather, it has contributed to understandings of how resources – such as infrastructure and services – underpin that empowerment. This allows an important recognition of the value and impact of WASH-sector priorities and actions for the wider well-being of women.