UNRISD Gender Team Maximizing Research Impact

UNRISD’s gender team will be engaging directly with three of UNRISD’s main constituencies this month to maximise the impact of knowledge generated in the Institute. In a variety of events UNRISD researchers will be key participants in conversations with researchers and students; with UN policy makers and international experts; and with academics and civil society representatives. In each case, they will have the opportunity to share the results of cross-disciplinary UNRISD research on care; on the relationship between transnational corporations and women’s empowerment; and the role of feminist economics in the social and solidarity economy. While much of our research is conducted in the South, it is UNRISD’s location in Geneva which allows it to bring Southern perspectives into mainstream international debates via events like these.

What is a Transformative Approach to Care, and Why Do We Need It?

- Gender Seminar Series at The Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva
- Thursday, 9 October 2014, 12:30 - 13:45

Valeria Esquivel, UNRISD Research Coordinator for Gender and Development, will share with an audience of doctoral students and gender researchers a conceptual introduction to care, focusing on how different understandings of the term affect the way policy makers approach the issue. She will highlight an alternative, progressive way of framing care so that policies and practices can be transformative, in the sense of supporting carers—predominantly women—and lightening their care burdens, while challenging the notion that this work is intrinsically “female” and of lesser importance than work seen as “productive”. The presentation is based on an article with the same title which will be published in the Gender & Development journal in November 2014.

For more details, see the Graduate Institute website.

Women's Empowerment and Gender Equality: The Role of Transnational Corporations (TNCs)

- UNCTAD World Investment Forum, Palais des Nations, Geneva (13-16 October 2014)
- Tuesday, 14 October 2014, 15:30 - 17:30

UNRISD Director, Sarah Cook, will join a panel of distinguished discussants in a Dialogue on Investment and Gender. The Dialogue is intended to provide a platform for policy makers, executives and international experts to discuss the role of investment by TNCs for women's empowerment and gender equality in developing countries, including relevant policy dimensions and future research directions. Welcoming remarks by Mukhisa Kituyi, Secretary-General of UNCTAD, will be followed by an introductory presentation by Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, Executive Director of UN Women.

For more details, see the UNCTAD World Investment Forum website.

Feminist Economics from the South

- "Homo oeconomicus, mulier solidaria". Can solidarity economy be feminist?”: Conference at The Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva (16-17 October 2014)
- Thursday, 16 October 2014, 10:00-11:00

Valeria Esquivel, UNRISD Research Coordinator for Gender and Development, will argue for a radically globalized understanding of feminist economics that enables Southern researchers and practitioners to produce situated, transformative knowledge, relevant to local realities. She will present the methodological and political challenges faced by feminist economists when producing this kind of knowledge. She will also highlight a selection of concepts developed in the South that can be used to build bridges between feminist economics and social and solidarity economy.

For more details, see the Graduate Institute website.

Photo credit: Andrea (via Flickr) CC BY 2.0