The study of gendered social relations - how women and men are situated historically, structurally and discursively within development frameworks, institutions, policies an movements, and with what outcomes – has been a critically important intervention to the study of development. From early concerns about how to ensure that the benefits of modernisation accrued to women as well as men in the Third World, to current debates about gendered division of labour, institutions and distribution of resources, gender and development has emerged as a strong field of enquiry addressing indicators of gender inequality that pose enormous challenges to development processes at both theoretical and empirical levels. Scholars at Warwick are working on these important issues of gender and development, through research and teaching and through developing vibrant and multidisciplinary networks across countries and regions.

Current Research Projects

Centre for the Study of Women and Gender

Members of the centre have a wide range of research interests and are actively engaged in research both within the UK and internationally. To read about their research click here

PAIS

Dr Juanita Elias was funded by British Council Newton Fund £83,000 for the project 'The everyday political economy of resettlement: Urban design, women's empowerment and the rehousing of low income groups from Jakarta' (with Lena Rethel) see project website here

Women's Activism in the Arab World (2013-2016)
This project, led by Dr Nicoal Pratt and funded by a British Academy Mid-Career Fellowship, examined the significance of middle-class women's activism to the geo/politics of Arab countries, from national independence until the Arab uprisings. It was based on over 100 personal narratives of women activists of different generations from Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon. Some of the research outputs (public lectures and on-line articles) are available on my publications page. The major output is a monograph, which should be published in 2018.

Funded by a British Academy International Partnerships three-year grant, builds new links between the Centre for the Study of Women and Gender at the University of Warwick and the Institute of Women’s Studies at Birzeit University in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. Bringing together scholars of gender from different disciplines and focusing on different regions of the world, this project will explore the shifting conceptualisations of gender in different geographical spaces as well as amongst different social groups within the same geographical spaces. See here for the project website.

Prof Shirin M Rai is currently working on conceptualising depletion through social reproduction and harm.

Law School

Professor Ann Stewart works on issues around gender, law and development. Her recent research has been in two areas; the first is on gender and ageing through her research on caring for older women in African contexts (see the project's website here) and work with HelpAge International to produce a policy discussion document on gender and ageing (further information here). The second area relates to the educational successes of young women in Haryana, India. See the full project website here.

A number of other members work on issues relating to gender.

Professor Shaheen Ali focuses her research on development issues and post colonial societies and the intersection of gender and human rights in Islam and international law.

Dr Laura Lammasniemi works on history of human trafficking; the age of consent in the British Empire and the Indian Feminist Judgements Project.

Associate Professor Solange Mouthaan works on gender-based violence and gender-based crimes in armed conflict, and the restrictive interpretation of criminal law surrounding this area.

Dr Sharifah Sekalala research focuses on global health law and equity, and works on the African Feminist Project, which seeks to establish what constitutes a ‘landmark case’ in the African context. This project examines alternative feminist judgements on legal cases in the context of the specific constitutional and historical situations within Africa.

Dr Ania Zbyszewska has undertaken funded research relating to older women, employment and labour markets, and the relationship between paid and unpaid work relating to care labour.

For further information on the Law School's projects on Gender, please see here.