Feminist Participatory Action Research for Change!

Support to Rural, Indigenous, Migrant, Urban Poor Women’s Organisation. 

Feminist Participatory Action Research (FPAR) 2020-2022

“Amplifying Marginalised Women’s Voices and Strengthening Movements for Women’s Rights to Peace and Democratic Participation”

CALL FOR PROPOSALS

DEADLINE [EXTENDED]: Monday, 28 September 2020

APWLD invites grassroots women’s organisations and movements in Asia and the Pacific to take part in this exciting Feminist Participatory Action Research programme tthat aims to develop tools and resources that support rural, indigenous, migrant and urban poor women (RIMUP) to monitor, engage and influence development policies that impacting them.  

Background

In Asia and the Pacific region, the rise of authoritarian and fascist regimes, fuelled by patriarchy and fundamentalisms exacerbate human rights violations of women, including their rights to peace and democratic participation. Women’s voices have been historically ignored in decision and policy-making structures. More recently, women’s rights to peace and democratic participation are severely violated as a result of states’ failure to protect and uphold their human rights to the outright state -sponsored and -sanctioned military violence.

Across the region, the march of neoliberal globalisation intensifies as multinational corporations and their domestic cohorts consolidate their monopoly and control of lands, resources, markets, and cheap labour in pursuit of their never-ending greed and profits. In turn, states are more aggressively wielding the tools of militarism to take over territories, enable massive land- and resource-grabs, and to quell unrest and dissent by women and their communities.

States use military (and paramilitary) power, police and security forces to protect and advance the interests of the ruling political and economic elites, often in collusion with foreign investors’ interests over peoples’ human rights.  In many countries across the region, states are increasingly using open military violence against women, their communities, and entire peoples on behalf of these interests. This includes such practices as the militarisation of territories, forced evictions and displacement, harassment and persecution, and extrajudicial killings, especially when women and their communities resist these forms of oppression and defend their rights.

Militarism paves the way for corporate plunder, depriving women, especially in rural communities including indigenous, migrant and urban poor (RIMUP) women of their rights to land and food sovereignty; denying indigenous peoples’ rights to their territories; and devastating traditional livelihoods which force many women to migrate and engage in low-paying, informal, and often degrading forms of work elsewhere. In urban areas, communities are forcibly evicted to make way for “development projects” and resettled in areas of even poorer living conditions.

The utter reliance by states on militarism is laid bare even during the COVID-19 pandemic sweeping across the world.  Instead of addressing the urgent needs for food, livelihood and services by RIMUP women and their communities suffering from the unprecedented health and economic crisis, states have resorted to militaristic responses driven more by the motivation of social control rather than social protection. In many places, women and men are harassed, beaten, or otherwise maltreated for such infractions as breaking curfew or quarantine in order to obtain food, revealing an unabashed zeal for abuse of power among the perpetrators bred by patriarchal and fundamentalist beliefs.  Strict home quarantines have also led to rising cases of domestic violence and abuse (a less documented aspect of the societal effects of the pandemic). Through it all, states only turn to greater repression instead of instituting the necessary structural reforms to be able to effectively deal with the crisis.

In order to challenge the oppression against women’s rights to peace and democratic participation, strong movements of rural, indigenous, migrant, urban poor women are needed, and they must be supported to build their capacities, document evidence and advocate to bring about change. To address the need to increase, evidence-based advocacy and to have women as vocal and effective advocates in human rights, APWLD will support local organisations to conduct Feminist Participatory Action Research (FPAR) 2020-2022 on Amplifying Marginalised Women’s Voices and Strengthening Movements for Women’s Right to Peace and Democratic Participation.

 

JOIN OUR FEMINIST PARTICIPATORY ACTION RESEARCH! 

8-10 partner organisations will be selected to work with APWLD for 15 months (2020 – 2022) to document the impacts of militarism and the suppression of democratic spaces on women’s right to peace and democratic participation, as well as the actions and strategies that women are taking to defend and advance their rights. APWLD will provide the selected organisations with a small grant to employ a young woman researcher and carry out the research including salary and on-costs with the approximate amount of US$ 13,000. Research partners will need to appoint a mentor to assist the young women researcher throughout the  FPAR process.

APWLD will also support the young women researchers and their mentors to participate in capacity building workshops and provide advocacy or network opportunities. 

Selection Criteria of the Research Partners: 

APWLD will select 8-10 women’s organisations to lead the FPAR on women’s rights to peace and democratic participation. We are seeking non-governmental, non-profit, grassroots-based organisations. APWLD will consider the following when selecting the organisations for this process: 

  • Sub-regional representation;
  • Recommendations/ references from  APWLD members;
  • Diversity of women groups e.g. rural, indigenous, migrant, urban poor and other marginalised women groups in Asia and the Pacific.

Application

Interested organisations shall submit:

  • Completed application form
  • Expression of interest
  • Recommendation / reference letter from at least two other women’s or grassroots organisations

Download the concept note here and the application form here.

Please send completed forms by Monday, 28 September 2020 [EXTENDED] to marjo@apwld.org and patricia@apwld.org or fax to +66(0)53 280 847.