Malmö University Publications
Change search
CiteExportLink to record
Permanent link

Direct link
Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association-8th-edition
  • vancouver
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf
Leadership, Voice, and Visibility Strengthening African women’s voice and representation: A case study of the African Women Development Fund’s social justice writing workshop for women writers.
Malmö University, Faculty of Culture and Society (KS).
2020 (English)Independent thesis Advanced level (degree of Master (Two Years)), 20 credits / 30 HE creditsStudent thesis
Abstract [en]

Despite recent gains in areas such as school attendance and literacy, the struggle for women’s rights and equality in Africa remains constant. Alongside the socio-economic barriers holding down millions of women, is the fight against the gender bias and stereotyping which puts women in the backseat of decision-making, policy-driving, or leadership roles. This dissertation project is a case study of a women’s social justice writing workshop run by the African Women’s Development Fund (AWDF), a Pan-African grant-making organisation. Convened three times since 2014, it brings together women from across the continent for a residential camp to sharpen participants’ skills in writing and communicating about social justice issues. This research project attempts to examine the workshop in the context of media for development theory and strategies, which see the media (print, electronic and new media) as the fundamental strategies that drive the process of communicating. (Manyozo). It also looks at its relevance in the context of gender inequalities in media representation in Africa in line with Beijing 1995’s global call. Although to a very limited scale, the study suggests that the workshop has played a small, yet significant role in conceptualising and implementation of a communication for development strategy that emphasizes capacity-building. Harnessing the power of storytelling, the five years since the workshop, has seen many of the African women who participated, produce local content, confidently representing and analysing “our own issues for ourselves in our diversities.” Through their writings, radio shows, news stories, blogs and public speaking engagements, they are joining powerful agents of change in bringing transformation to the struggle to combat gender stereotypes and inequality, which is still far from over.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Malmö universitet/Kultur och samhälle , 2020. , p. 45
Keywords [en]
social justice, storytelling, representation, communication, development
National Category
Social Sciences
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:mau:diva-21974Local ID: 31611OAI: oai:DiVA.org:mau-21974DiVA, id: diva2:1481882
Educational program
KS K3 Communication for development
Supervisors
Examiners
Available from: 2020-10-27 Created: 2020-10-27Bibliographically approved

Open Access in DiVA

fulltext(681 kB)256 downloads
File information
File name FULLTEXT01.pdfFile size 681 kBChecksum SHA-512
50d9b91b22abe54aacf56f3b962d9006dc4d676a7f3af5ccc517625b61908c6ef9be064c7f51f169e06b684d1792651f648c6b11632c63c9a80d5b9f8c36f73b
Type fulltextMimetype application/pdf

By organisation
Faculty of Culture and Society (KS)
Social Sciences

Search outside of DiVA

GoogleGoogle Scholar
Total: 257 downloads
The number of downloads is the sum of all downloads of full texts. It may include eg previous versions that are now no longer available

urn-nbn

Altmetric score

urn-nbn
Total: 228 hits
CiteExportLink to record
Permanent link

Direct link
Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association-8th-edition
  • vancouver
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf