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Women's empowerment in challenging environments: a case study from Balochistan

Ruth Paterson

To cite this Article Paterson, Ruth(2008) 'Women's empowerment in challenging environments: a case study from

Balochistan', Development in Practice, 18: 3, 333 344 To link to this Article: DOI: 10.1080/09614520802030383 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09614520802030383

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Development in Practice, Volume 18, Number 3, June 2008

Womens empowerment in challenging environments: a case study from Balochistan

Ruth Paterson
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This article offers strategies for womens empowerment in conservative, tribal, and religious environments, based on an innovative programme in Pakistan. Mainstreaming Gender and Development (MGD) encouraged participants to build on their communities strengths, minimised resistance among families and communities by including them in the development process, and succeeded in building a cadre of women activists. Drawing on its experience, the author questions the importance of collective action, suggests that the selection of participants should be based on aptitude rather than socio-economic status, and highlights the potential for womens empowerment in challenging environments.

KEY WORDS : Gender and Diversity; Civil Society; Methods; SE Asia

. . . to really bring about change, advocacy for gender-fair development must be homegrown. It is not just a matter of entering the spaces between the weave, but also of growing in that space, and evolving from the vast and rich fabric of everyday life. (Iqbal 1999: 89)

Introduction
There is a range of literature elaborating on the theory and practice of womens empowerment, written by those genuinely committed to feminist social change. However, it leaves many questions unanswered. For example, most literature mentions that challenging power relations will create resistance, but does not propose strategies for minimising or addressing resistance. The literature suggests beginning with womens own understandings of their lives, but gives few insights into how programmes should operate in a religious environment, or the role of religion in womens empowerment. Most womens empowerment strategies promise to develop womens self-esteem and increase their household bargaining power without looking inside the home at how the household dynamics function and might change. How can programmes have a positive impact on household dynamics?
ISSN 0961-4524 Print/ISSN 1364-9213 Online 030333-12 # 2008 Oxfam GB Routledge Publishing DOI: 10.1080/09614520802030383

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The experiences of an innovative programme in Pakistan suggest some interesting strategies for understanding issues of gender equality within a cultural and religious context, and preparing women to raise gender-related issues in a highly religious public discourse; broadening the empowerment process to include emotional as well as rational and analytical development; and building on strengths and opportunities rather than on the analysis of problems. In particular, the programme Mainstreaming Gender and Development (MGD) shows how women can engage with their families and tradition to support redened gender roles.

Context
Mainstreaming Gender and Development focused on six districts of Balochistan, Pakistans largest, poorest, and least populated province. Most of Balochistan is arid, and rural livelihoods have been undermined by a series of droughts and the declining water table. The increasing politicisation of religion and prominence of madrassas (religious schools) in Pakistan is very evident in Balochistan, where tribal identities dominate. Religious rhetoric is pervasive in public discourse; individuals or organisations that transgress public norms risk potent accusations of being unIslamic, often without theological foundation. The common practice of marrying cousins helps to maintain family identity and networks, and to reinforce tribal identity. Gossip is a particularly powerful form of social control in Balochistan. Prospective in-laws assess young mens and womens marriageability according to reports of their behaviour and familys reputation from community members. As a risk-prevention strategy, womens actions and mobility are limited: family honour is judged by womens behaviour. Most women do not move outside their home, other than to attend school or visit relatives, and they only do so when accompanied by a male relative. NGOs in Balochistan generally have a poor reputation. Only a handful of the several thousand registered NGOs are working on social development, and many of those are primarily subcontractors to international organisations. In particular, NGOs are seen as places where men and women work together, contravening social norms which allow women little interaction with men outside their own family. While Balochistan is typically seen as conservative, backward, and traditional, it is a society in ux or rather, a complex web of societies undergoing a variety of changes. Literacy rates are low, at less than 40 per cent for men and 20 per cent for women (IPRI 2005), but there are still scores of rst-generation literates aspiring to participate in the modern world that they see on television. Others are disenchanted and look to tradition or religion for a sense of purpose. The gap between traditional and modern aspirations is widening. Chasms are developing between sects, tribes, young and old, traditional and modern, thereby increasing misunderstanding and conict. For young people, the changes present opportunities and challenges, as well as disappointments; there are numerous difculties, including the poor quality of education and high rates of unemployment among educated people. Operating in an environment that is widely understood to be highly conservative, tribal, and patriarchal, MGD provides lessons in social change in what would seem to be unpromising environments. Although there are many forces for change in Balochistan, there are also strong conservative and religious forces trying to limit women from redening their roles. Most NGOs are limited by actual resistance, lack of genuine understanding of or commitment to feminist social change, or lack of strategies to facilitate change effectively. In this context, MGD appears radical and provides salient lessons for other programmes in Balochistan and in other challenging environments, addressing a gap in womens empowerment practice and theory. 334 Development in Practice, Volume 18, Number 3, June 2008

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Programme overview
The Institute for Development Studies and Practices (IDSP) was founded in the late 1990s by a group of men and women who had worked in Balochistans emerging NGO sector. They wanted to create a space where dominant development paradigms could be challenged; as a result, a critical and theoretically well-grounded generation of activists developed. IDSP designed MGD as a two-year programme to develop a cadre of women development professionals in Balochistan, to increase womens public engagement, and to bring more women into the organisation. MGD took 20 young women from six districts through a year of intensive personal and professional development, based on residential sessions in Quetta and practice sessions in their districts. The women were then expected to replicate the programme for another 15 women in their own districts, with support from IDSP. IDSP selected participants for MGD on the basis of the womens motivation to promote change in their community; the criterion was basic literacy, without regard for their nancial or class status. This allowed for socio-economic diversity among participants and among the communities in which the participants worked, in addition to linguistic, religious, and tribal diversity. It may be argued that since development budgets are tight, the money and energy that are available should be channelled towards the poorest in society, because they miss out in other spheres. Womens empowerment strategies are often seen as one dimension of development interventions that are frequently criticised for not working with the poorest of the poor. However, if far-reaching feminist social change is the ultimate objective of a womens empowerment programme, programme designers should consider whether drawing potential change agents from a common class background will best meet the programme objectives. If one of the preliminary objectives is to develop a cadre of change agents, does the organisation want them to be seen by the community as a group of poor women or as a group of women selected on the basis of their ability and clarity of thought? To be effective, social change needs to have deep roots across society. As each of the women from MGD develops her sphere of support and her network of allies, the inclusion of women from across the socio-economic spectrum has broadened the programmes impact. Developing trust within communities and families to gain permission for the young women to participate, and for the rst cohort to live in Quetta with IDSP, was a challenge. In Balochistan personal and kinship relationships are primary. Families were encouraged to come to the IDSP ofce, to meet with staff and students, and even to stay in the hostel. The young womens families often gave permission for them to participate once they had received assurances from particular staff members a fact which put an additional burden of responsibility on those staff. Several participants spoke of their trepidation on entering IDSP, being unable to imagine a learning environment not controlled by strict discipline and corporal punishment. Almost all spoke of the amazement that they felt on their rst experience with IDSP. They mentioned the sense of equality between participants and staff, and the friendly, caring environment. Some mention their surprise at seeing women and men sitting, talking, and laughing together. A few spoke of their initial disapproval of IDSP staff breaking the strict social codes with which they had been brought up. Most adapted quickly nding an environment which addressed the issues that arose from their interaction with their schools or home environments. This article is based on conversational interviews with 23 participants, 21 current and former staff, and 20 people from outside IDSP, as well as project documentation and the written daily reections of programme participants. Development in Practice, Volume 18, Number 3, June 2008 335

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Personal development
Developing a sense of self The understanding of empowerment at IDSP focuses on what Jo Rowlands (1997) denes as personal empowerment: something internal that women can develop and strengthen, which is not dependent on others. Almost all participants credit the self-awareness module as a turning point in their life the rst time that they thought, or had licence to think, about themselves and who they are. The women had spent 10 15 years in an education system which punishes difference and creativity and rewards rote learning, and in social situations which do not encourage girls and young women to think critically. IDSP gave staff and participants licence to express and explore their feelings, and vocabulary and space to discuss their ideas. Each day began with writing a reection on the previous day, and sharing it with the group. The participants were also encouraged to keep a diary for more personal reections. Through the selfawareness module, the participants began to reect on their own personalities, to clarify their aspirations, and to understand how they related to others. According to Batliwala, empowerment is not merely a change of mind-set . . . but a visible demonstration of that change which the world around is forced to acknowledge, respond to, and accommodate as best it can (1993: 10). The participants of MGD also stressed the importance of action, because the community and Allah will judge them on their actions, not on their thoughts. However, they consider action as being dened by how empowerment is used and reinforced, rather than being its essence. Managing emotions Participants and staff alike said that they understood empowerment to start from within; to involve learning about ones self from many perspectives, and learning to harness ones rational and emotional resources to achieve desired ends. Many participants said that they used to get very angry, irritable, or upset; through MGD they learned to understand and manage these emotions without suppressing them. Increasing their own understanding of their self and their reactions to other people and issues helped the women to develop a sense of agency. Most empowerment literature implies that the process of empowerment is primarily rational based on analysing ones self and situation and experiential learning about ones own agency through individual and collective action, and possibly creative expression. I found little reference in the literature to including an exploration of participants emotional and non-rational dimensions. Gender and Islam The MGD module on gender began conventionally, discussing participants experiences of gender roles. The participants reected on how each of their families differed, and they discussed changes in gender roles over time with older family members. These discussions led the women to question gender roles and stereotypes, by exposing their socially constructed and ever-changing nature. MGD differed from most accounts of womens empowerment programmes because of its grounding in Islam. Kabeer writes that when arguments for gender discrimination on the basis of biological difference fail, culture is the obvious next line of defence, moving the dispute from facts to values (1999: 7). In Balochistan, gender discrimination is based on popular understandings of biological difference and Islam. Through MGD, the women learned to discuss and challenge gendered roles on both bases, to powerful effect. Their 336 Development in Practice, Volume 18, Number 3, June 2008

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language at times suggests that women and men have complementary roles, but also stresses that women can do anything that men can do. The participants read and discussed translations and interpretations of the Quran, comparative religion, and the politics of religion with each other and with respected scholars. They learned that womens rights and active participation in society are not contrary to Islam, and that the Quran emphasises mens and womens equal value and moral responsibility. They learned to critique interpretations that curtail womens mobility or consider women to be of less value than men, and they gained condence in their own interpretive abilities and the language and ability to discuss religious interpretation with their communities. Most participants and staff did not seem to be Islamist in the sense of structuring their entire way of thinking and their activism around their interpretation of Islam, understanding the world through their religion. Rather, most seem to derive their understanding of the world, their aspirations, and their values through a range of authors, from personal experience, and from local cultures. Islamic interpretation is important for justifying their decisions to themselves and to others, but it does not appear to be the primary source of guidance as they redene their roles as young women. As with conventional empowerment programmes for women, learning how gender roles are socially constructed and ever-changing gave the participants a sense of agency. It also validated their taking actions that they could justify morally but that contradicted current social norms. Operating in an environment where Islam is ubiquitous in public discourse, the women of MGD were empowered by understanding and being able to discuss gender roles using Islamic interpretation; they learned to operate within and redene a highly religious public discourse. Critical thinking and changing ideas of development The initial modules encouraged participants to think critically about themselves in the context of their families and societies. MGD also gave these women skills to critique and form their own opinions about tradition, culture, and religion, as well as education, politics, history, and development. These skills are unusual in their communities, particularly among women. Critical thinking and analysis is a core part of most strategies for womens empowerment. However, MGD is unusual in that critical analysis formed a basis for valuing indigenous culture as a foundation for social transformation. MGD encouraged the women to develop universal values from their local environment, where others apply universal values to judge local practice (Kamal and Sayed 2005: 67). In Balochistan, education and development are generally associated with cars, urban life, and devaluing illiterate people and tradition. Education offers young men and women a ticket out of their family and community. Many families rely on remittances from urban or overseas relatives the cash economy requires some engagement with urban life. However, they also feel a loss of tradition and culture as young people move to urban areas. It is not surprising that communities view education and development programmes with mixed feelings. IDSP, and MGD in particular, helps young people to value life within their community and to improve it. Barkat Shah (interview 18 July 2005) explained that most communities have very strong, self-sufcient and sustainable systems . . . We should build on those things . . . build the faith of people in the positive things in their community [rather than encouraging their dependence on others]. Many participants said that their families and community members were astonished by MGD activities that focused on learning about and promoting indigenous culture. This approach created space for discussion and made the participants seem less threatening when talking about other issues such as promoting change in gender relations. Most Development in Practice, Volume 18, Number 3, June 2008 337

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participants developed a sound interest in and commitment to further understanding and promoting their culture, as well as recognising negative aspects and promoting social change. The role of tradition and culture in peoples lives is generally not mentioned in the womens empowerment literature, or not as a source of strength. Many programmes claiming to empower women teach or encourage women to do local handicrafts in order to generate an income. Handicraft work is assumed to be culturally appropriate, to value womens indigenous knowledge and skills, and to require few inputs and time constraints, thus enabling it to t around womens schedules. However, this is using a dimension of culture more for convenience than as a foundation for physical and intellectual development. Some people who oppose modernity see cultural revival as an alternative, particularly for women. Promoting womens traditional roles is used to discourage their entry into modern, urban life, where men are trying to establish roles for themselves. Islamists see opportunities for women to increase their welfare by supporting a traditional, patriarchal framework. Whether for income generation, to limit women, or to increase mens responsibility towards women, tradition is generally seen as contrary to and preceding modernity. In contrast, IDSPs approach echoes Talal Asad, who said when one talks about tradition, one should be talking about, in a sense, a dimension of social life and not a stage of social development (quoted in Saba 1996). Many strategies for womens empowerment begin by identifying inequalities and understanding problems; an approach combining Freirean techniques with feminist insights. In contrast, MGD tried to encourage the participants to look for and understand the strengths and possibilities that they already have within themselves, their community, and governance system, and to use these to create new ones. For example, the women were encouraged to nd role models within their own communities, and to take advantage of new provisions for Citizen Community Boards, which can access government funds for small-scale development projects. The participants developed critical-thinking skills and recognised problems and injustices while developing a sense of agency. Empowerment programmes may benet from building on the participants strengths and opportunities, rather than analysing their disempowerment. The next section looks at the womens engagement with their families and communities and shows how their approach was highly successful in reducing tension and resistance, by making others feel valued and included in a process of learning.

Building alliances working with family and tradition

MGD was designed to help the participants to be agents of change within their families and communities, rather than to isolate them from their environment. Theory sessions were interspersed with a range of challenging but structured activities to help the women to engage with their families and communities.

Learning to communicate Many participants said that they learned to communicate through MGD, and to share their experiences and ideas rst with each other and with IDSP staff, and then with their families and communities. Many participants explained that they were largely silent before joining MGD; they had felt some dissatisfaction with the messages they were receiving through their families, community, and education, but did not have the space, the audience, or the language to express their thoughts. Religion and tradition severely limited the power of girls and young women their societies least powerful people to articulate divergent opinions. 338 Development in Practice, Volume 18, Number 3, June 2008

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Engaging families IDSP found activities to engage the womens families, a process which was critical to the programmes success and to enabling the women to promote social change. MGD activities such as learning about and recording many aspects of indigenous culture required the participants to engage with their families and communities. Following an exercise in one district where participants cited Indian movie stars and sportsmen as role models, the mentors responded by assigning each participant the task of writing a 100-year family history, hoping that they would nd people to admire and emulate in their own families. One of the participants recalled, When we sat to discuss our family history, my grandfather became very emotional; he was very much happy and astonished . . . to recall the history and see it as a document for my family. The family-history exercise helped to draw the participants and their families together through the learning experience to facilitate conversation on changing social values and cultural practices, and to develop a shared sense of history. Many participants were rst-generation literates. Whereas formal education tends to devalue nonliterate peoples knowledge and skills, the family-history exercise, and other activities such as recording folk traditions, songs, poems, and medicines, restored their status and valued their knowledge. Many participants also shared their reections and diaries with their family members, and used and discussed mentoring techniques initiating unusually personal discussions. Some participants said that they have family members who have learned so much through this process that they appear to have been through MGD themselves. These exercises have created space within most of the womens families for discussions between family members and on topics that would not have been discussed in the past. A number of the women stated that their father or other relatives will come to them for advice or to talk through decisions, where previously they would have been excluded from decision making altogether. Most families or key family members in most families became supportive of their daughters activities. Opposition to the womens participation in MGD was common among relatives and community members putting considerable pressure on the participants and their families. IDSP found that if the women have strong family support, they can survive [criticism from community] (Barkat Shah, interview 18 July 2005). The profound change in decision-making processes that some women were able to facilitate within their families is evident in the renegotiation of several marital engagements. In most tribes in Balochistan, fathers, brothers, husbands, and sons have the authority to make decisions for and about women, including the level of education that they will receive, whether they work, and where they are permitted to go. Marriage represents a major shift in a womans life, from living under the authority of her father or other male relative and with her birth family, to living under her husbands authority within his family. Although the choice of spouse is critical to a womans future, she is expected to play a passive role in the arrangement process and not to . By interobject to any proposals supported by her family, or to communicate with her ance vening in decisions over marriage, these young women are challenging one of the most fundamental powers that men in their community have held. Kabeer and Subrahmanian (1999) write that poor and marginalised people are often dependent on relationships of patronage rather than solidarity to ensure their survival. For women, claiming autonomy and dening their own priorities is often dependent on sacricing the protection of hierarchical familial relationships (1999: 202). The MGD activities have been redening familial relationships so that they are increasingly relationships of mutual solidarity rather than patronage so that families support the women in their activities, rather than threatening to cut them off from familial support. However, families operate within wider kinship Development in Practice, Volume 18, Number 3, June 2008 339

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and community networks that are based on varying degrees of mutual solidarity and patronage. Family support for the women often comes at some cost to the familys own support networks. The women in MGD tried to address the concerns of relatives and community members by inviting them to visit IDSP and to meet with the staff to see for themselves the environment in which the women were operating. Activities such as the collection of folk songs and indigenous medicines helped to allay relatives and communities fears that the womens education and participation in MGD would undermine their culture and alienate the women from their communities. The strength of the MGD approach was that after the process of personal empowerment had begun developing self-awareness and a sense of agency in the safe IDSP environment and surrounded by like-minded people the women worked on developing support within their own families. There are lots of examples of peoples families becoming their strongest supporters even in the face of intense community opposition. Thus, the site of womens empowerment was themselves, but they developed increasing spheres of support, beginning with IDSP, the other interns, outwards to their families and key members of their community. Claiming public space Requirements that the young women engage in public activities were particularly challenging to their families and communities. The participants of each district invited their families, communities, local dignitaries, and government ofcials to an initial seminar, where each of the participants gave a presentation on topics of self-awareness or gender. The experience was challenging but exhilarating for the participants, and astonishing for many of the audience members. Few had seen women give public presentations, and fewer had imagined that their own daughters and sisters were able to speak articulately and knowledgeably. The participants then met with a wide range of people and organisations in order to develop a social, demographic, and economic prole of their district. The womens brief was to gather information and to learn from the people they met non-confrontational strategies designed to elicit support. MGD used research as a way to initiate conversations with community members, political leaders, and government ofcials. In a culture where women rarely move beyond their home, relatives homes, and schools, and where they rarely travel unaccompanied by a male relative, the young women met with nazims (mayors) at the three levels of local government, with women councillors, local organisations, and government departments, and visited households to learn about the issues of importance to women. This taught the participants about their local area, as well as how to approach and speak to people, and how to explain and justify their moving about their community without male escorts. The women were encouraged to look for allies within the different organisations with which they interacted, people who would support and assist them. Many of the ofcials whom the participants met became rm supporters of their work, although others felt threatened, particularly when the women identied mismanagement or questioned the principles and ethics behind district development plans. One participant recalled her local nazim berating her for speaking in public. The following year the same nazim asked why they had failed to run recruitment seminars for the programmes second phase in his own village. He was now upset because he felt that the women from his own community were missing out on this opportunity. The women ended their rst eld-practice session by running a public seminar with the other participants from their district, assessing their experiences, what they had learned in IDSP, and what they had learned about their district, including the key issues that they had identied. They arranged venues with support from local government or political leaders, and the seminars were attended by between 30 and 100 men and women. The primary issues that they identied were 340 Development in Practice, Volume 18, Number 3, June 2008

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different in each district; they included unhygienic water, violence against women, lack of employment opportunities for women, reproductive health, the education system, and poverty (IDSP n.d., a: 36). The women were politicised by their experience and their research ndings; the research process also lent credibility to womens voices and concerns that had been excluded from public arenas. MGD differed from many programmes by not using collective action. Collective action usually refers to action in the public sphere, where womens collective strength is seen as the most important transformatory resource at their disposal (Kabeer 1994: 253). Collective action is understood to have several values. First, by working together, womens condence is bolstered by being part of a shared project and having opportunities to try new roles such as group leadership, or to experiment with new ways of organising. Second, some argue that structural change requires collective or mass action. The women in MGD gain strength and condence from learning with and supporting each other and developing learning networks within IDSP and with their families and communities. They position themselves as learning from and working for the family and community, rather than presenting themselves as opponents. Working individually or at most in small groups, they do not appear to present a threat in the same way that visible collective action might. There are plenty of issues in Pakistan that probably require collective action to change such as discriminatory laws and these are being challenged by womens groups in the major cities. However, there are also numerous opportunities for women that have not been realised, including the right to access a wide range of university courses, to get government jobs, and to form womens Citizen Community Boards. If the goal is feminist social change, the question is whether change in a conservative environment such as Balochistan is most likely to begin through collective action or through women negotiating and role-modelling alternatives within their own communities. Most of the women in MGD have generated strong support from within their family and a network of supporters in their community and in other organisations, a different form of collective strength that is less exclusive and threatening than traditional collective action. I am not arguing against womens collective action or political campaigns; I am suggesting, however, that they do not necessarily have to be at the heart of programmes for womens empowerment. My contention is that when womens empowerment programmes focus on collective action and political campaigns, they may fail to pay sufcient attention to the skills and support needed by women in their own homes. The role of the family may be particularly prominent in Balochistan; however, people everywhere live within families and kinship relations to some degree. Rather than leaving the dimension of empowerment within close relationships largely unexplored and unsupported, the womens empowerment literature should look at this as a crucial site for sustainable and deep social change. MGD offers strategies for women to take their families through a learning process and to initiate social transformation from this most fundamental site of social reproduction. Challenging the mobility myth and leading by example Norms restricting womens mobility were one of the most pervasive problems that the women in MGD faced. Limitations on womens mobility dramatically restrict their participation in schools and employment, and their political and social engagement, contributing to a sense of isolation and powerlessness. Many endured insults and some had stones thrown at them as they travelled to the IDSP centres each day, but this was outweighed by the self-afrmation and condence that they gained from learning and working with other young women. When they were challenged, the women would explain that they had work to do in the community, Development in Practice, Volume 18, Number 3, June 2008 341

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and that they did not require male escort to monitor their behaviour they were answerable to Allah. To some degree, limitations on the womens mobility had already been challenged, with assistance from IDSP staff, to enable the women to travel to Quetta or their district ofces for the theory sessions. However, it was an ongoing challenge for the women to gain the support and trust of their families in the face of widespread community pressure. Where families were reluctant to allow the women to undertake their eldwork, it was generally due to pressure from relatives and community members, rather than inherent objections. Relatives will freeze relations with each other to protest against actions that they disagree with, and some families have greater leverage and ability to withstand community pressure than others. On almost every occasion when families restricted the young womens movement, the young women, with support from IDSP, successfully challenged the restrictions through reasoned argument and persuasion. One intern from the second phase recalled:
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My brother used to drop me [to escort her to the ofce]. When we were invited to Quetta to stay in the hostel, my family was shocked, so I gave them more and more information about IDSP until they agreed. Now my brother says if I can go outside alone, why cant you? I now come to the ofce by myself. Another woman explained I said to my family that the rst step is very difcult, but someone has to take it, so why not me? The women strongly believed in leading by example and felt that it was not acceptable to promote behaviours that they were not following in their own lives. The participants hoped that their own increased mobility will increase the mobility of other girls and women in their communities, and most had begun to see changes within their own families. Being a role model, and hoping to create change through ones example, is a heavy burden. There is a ne balance between being respected for doing things differently and losing support. IDSP participants and staff alike often nd themselves having to balance or choose between personal and professional opportunities and maintaining their relationships with their families. MGD tried to make these choices less stark by helping the participants to bring their families with them on their learning journey, and encouraging synthesis between the theory and participants practical experience. The womens empowerment literature recognises the costs to women of family and community resistance, but is largely silent on strategies to mitigate it. Becoming activists MGD was an intensive course, with requirements and assessment rather than a conventional self-directed empowerment programme. The womens full-time commitment to the programme was expected, and they were at a stage in their lives where this was possible generally posteducation and pre-marriage. MGDs activities were designed to give women exposure to and condence in a wide range of settings, as well as to increase womens opportunities by rolemodelling alternative behaviour. The practical activities increased the womens skills and understanding of their communities as they saw in practice some of the issues that they had studied in theory. The women were unlikely to have initiated this process themselves and required encouragement and support, but many have continued to engage with local government and community leaders, to run public workshops, and to establish Citizen Community Boards. They learned in a variety of shared and collective forums with other participants, with family, and with community members; they took action both independently and with a diverse range of people. Encouraging women to take action and exercise their agency, then to reect on and share the experience with other women, is a common dimension of womens empowerment strategies. 342 Development in Practice, Volume 18, Number 3, June 2008

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Becoming professionals MGD was intended to create a cadre of female development professionals in Balochistan. During theory sessions the afternoons were used for the development of professional skills, including learning to use computers, to write reports and proposals, to understand budgets and basic project nancing, and research skills. The participants had many assignments to complete, including research reports, creative work, and seminars, and an individual presentation to an assessment panel at the end of their internship. These activities and MGDs packed schedule required the women to learn to manage their time and to produce high-quality work. In the second phase of MGD, the rst group were challenged to work with the other participants from their district to replicate the course. The participants managed all accounts and administration for the programme in their districts in the rst district ofces in Balochistan to be run solely by women. In some districts, the participants shared ofce space and resources with staff from other IDSP projects, challenging them to develop professional relationships with young men from their own area. The staff reported their unease and doubts about whether the young women could handle the various cultural, religious, social, familial, logistical and scholastic responsibilities (IDSP n.d., b.: 11). However, the women repeatedly exceeded staff expectations. For example, one of the regional centres where the programme was being replicated was threatened by armed men, who claimed the programme was un-Islamic. The issue was resolved by the young women approaching the mullahs to discuss Quranic interpretation (ibid.: 13). There are numerous examples of mullahs being impressed by the young womens interest in discussing Islam with them, and becoming supportive of the programme, disarming a potent source of opposition.

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Conclusion
There is little literature on strategies for womens empowerment in highly conservative and traditional environments and in religious contexts, and most organisations in Balochistan shy away from addressing issues of gender directly. However, MGD illustrates that programmes for womens empowerment in highly conservative environments can be effective. MGD demonstrated the following lessons: . Womens empowerment is not necessarily a topic that is too challenging for highly patriarchal environments. Societies that are seen as traditional or conservative may embrace change if it is presented in the right way. . Approaches to highly patriarchal societies do not necessarily need to be made through men, but they may need to enable men to feel valued, informed, and welcome. . Culture and tradition can be seen as assets to be built on where confrontational strategies may create resistance. Working to value, build, and strengthen families and communities may ultimately be more empowering than taking women out of their context. Kabeer (1999: 9) writes that cultural contestation will only occur when dissent is possible. MGD creates space for dissent rst to form and be articulated within the organisation through discussions, reection, and seminars, and then to be replicated in families and communities. Through MGD, women are challenging the notion that they are custodians of tradition and culture and cannot participate in modern spheres of economics and governance without sacricing traditional values. MGDs most distinctive strength has been its focus on including the participants families and communities in the learning experience, so that the learners grow with rather than away from their kin. Development in Practice, Volume 18, Number 3, June 2008 343

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Reecting on initiating gender programming in Pakistans Sindh province, Maryam Iqbal wrote: to really bring about change, advocacy for gender-fair development must be homegrown. It is not just a matter of entering the spaces between the weave, but also of growing in that space, and evolving from the vast and rich fabric of everyday life (1999: 89). Iqbal had primarily grown up outside Pakistan but with Sindhi parents and rst language. She used her language skills to engage in conversations on topics of interest to the community, introducing gender awareness slowly over time. The women in MGD were even better placed to develop space and ideas from within their communities. With 100 women from six provinces and nine language groups engaged in creating spaces and initiating discussions, IDSP has a wide network of specialist entry points into communities effective advocates for social change.

Acknowledgements
The author thanks Jethro Pettit, Katie Curchin, the Institute of Development Studies in the UK, and the staff and participants of the Institute of Development Studies and Practices in Pakistan. A fuller version of this article is available from the author. IDSP (idsp@idsp.org.pk) welcomes correspondence.

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References
Batliwala, S. (1993) Empowerment of Women in South Asia: Concepts and Practices, New Dehli: FAOFFHC/AD. Institute for Development Studies and Practices (IDSP) (n.d., a) MDG First Progress Report, unpublished internal report, Quetta: IDSP. Institute for Development Studies and Practices (IDSP) (n.d., b) MDG Third Progress Report, unpublished internal report, Quetta: IDSP. Iqbal, M. (1999) The spaces between the weave: building alliances at the grassroots (Pakistan), in F. Porter, I. Smyth and C. Sweetman (eds.) Gender Works: Oxfam Experience in Policy and Practice, Oxford: Oxfam. Islamabad Policy Research Institute (IPRI) (2005) State Bank Report Paints Bleak Picture Of Education, available at http://ipripak.org/journal/winter2005/doc26.shtml (retrieved 18 August 2005). Kabeer, Naila (1994) Reversed Realities: Gender Hierarchies in Development Thought, London: Verso. Kabeer, Naila (1999) From feminist insights to an analytical framework, in N. Kabeer and R. Subrahmanian (eds.), Institutions, Relations and Outcomes: Framework and Case Studies For Gender-aware Planning, New Delhi: Kali for Women. Kabeer, N. and R. Subrahmanian (eds.) (1999) Institutions, Relations and Outcomes: Framework and Case Studies for Gender-aware Planning, New Delhi: Kali for Women. Kamal, S. and M. Sayed (2005) MGD Program Evaluation, unpublished report, Karachi: Rasta Development Consultants. Rowlands, Jo (1997) Questioning Empowerment: Working with Women in Honduras, Oxford: Oxfam UK & Ireland. Saba, Mahmood (1996) Interview with Talal Asad: modern power and the reconguration of religious tradition, Stanford Electronic Humanities Review 5(1), available at www.stanford.edu/group/SHR/5-1/ text/asad.html (retrieved 14 August 2007).

The author
Ruth Paterson worked for a local NGO in Quetta, Pakistan through Australian Volunteers International. She returned to research the Mainstreaming Gender and Development programme for her MA in Governance and Development at the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex in the UK. She is now a senior programme adviser in the government in Victoria, Australia. Contact details: 10 Frencham Street, Downer, ACT 2602, Australia. , r.paterson@alumni.ids.ac.uk.

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