65 Michel Pimbert
Photo: Peter Reason
46
Box 3. Reversing gender biases
We do not need to include women in the citizens’
juries because they are not farmers.
This astonishing comment was made by a senior
member of one of the key peasant organisations in
Mali, the AOPP (Association des Organisations
Professionnelles Paysannes). As a result, the AOPP
stalled the preparatory process of the Citizens’ Jury
on Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) and the
Future of Farming. It took two months of discussions
and negotiations among steering group members to
convince this senior member of the AOPP that
women do play a major role not only in food
preparation but also in the production of food,
usually by farming small plots of land. In late July
2009, one of the heads of the AOPP threatened to
remove his organisation from the steering group of
the Democratising Agricultural Research initiative
because he was unhappy that the Convergence of
Rural Women for Food Sovereignty (COFERSA) had
been formally accepted as a new member of the
steering group. This decision was eventually reversed
by the AOPP and the larger steering group – but only
after a month of intense discussion, persuasion and
argument on the need for gender justice.
Source: Pimbert and Boukary (2010).
of spaces for participation: invited spaces
from above and popular or citizen spaces.
Examples of the former are government
and donor-led efforts to set up co-management committees and research platforms.
In contrast, citizen or popular spaces are
created by people who come together to
create arenas over which they have more
control, e.g. farmers’ platforms for negotiation and collective action; or
do-it-yourself ‘citizens’ juries’ that allow
ordinary people to judge existing policies
and frame alternative policies. Examples of
such popular spaces include recent citizens’
juries on the priorities and governance of
food and agricultural research in India
(www.raitateerpu.org) and West Africa
(www.excludedvoices.org).5
Whilst there are notable exceptions,
popular spaces are arenas within which,
and from which, ordinary citizens can gain
the confidence to use their voice, analyse
A citizen’s jury evaluating agricultural research, India,
2010.
and deliberate, frame alternatives and
action, mobilise, build alliances and act.
Creating and nurturing such safe spaces is
essential for intercultural dialogue, mutual
learning and embracing the experience,
expertise, fresh thinking, energy and
perspectives of hitherto excluded actors,
including women and youth. But such
popular spaces may also reproduce both
overt and subtle forms of exclusion in the
absence of a conscious social commitment
to politics of freedom, equity and gender
inclusion. The messy process described in
Box 3 is an example of how co-enquirers
ensured gender justice in citizens’ deliberations on the priorities for public research
in West Africa.
Safe spaces for communication and
action not only strive to be inclusive of
gender and difference, they also promote a
culture of reversals from normal practice.
They put the perceptions, priorities, judgement and knowledge of members of
indigenous and local communities centre
stage. These spaces are typically located in
settings familiar to communities (e.g.
villages, fields) and they rely first and foremost on local languages for analysis and
deliberations (outside researchers receive
translations). Last, but not least, such safe
spaces when combined with the use of
enabling participatory methodologies
allow citizens to be directly engaged in the
entire research cycle.
5 Parallel discussions around patient (i.e. non-elite) knowledge in health research also
emphasise the importance of safe spaces. See: Cook (2012).