gisw13_chapters

democratic governance are supposed to take place.Our hypothesis is that the empowerment of theirvoices makes it easier to establish the institutionallinkages necessary to guarantee their rights andentitlements, grounded “in a conception of rightswhich, in a development context, strengthens thestatus of citizens from that of beneficiaries of developmentto its rightful and legitimate claimants.” 12Spaces for participationAmong the wider community of women who respondedto the project’s initial survey, 13 it is evidentthat a huge gap exists between their recognitionof their rights (including the right to assembly andparticipation) and the actualisation of practicesfor the affirmation and defence of those rights. Althoughthe huge majority think that women shouldparticipate in community decision-making processes(98.2% of respondents affirmed this), theirpractice of participation is still very much linked tosupporting political parties and candidates duringelection campaigns. This participation is mostlyinformed by husbands or family members (40.0%)or depends on the information given by neighboursand friends (46.7%). In this sense, the role of theYalodês is significant in terms of the possibility ofaltering structures of power so that informationflows towards and from the periphery, in buildinga “new geography”. In the words of Aminata Diaw,“The transition to democracy is a narrative of theexclusion of women. What is needed is a new geographyto give women space. This new space whichwomen seek is one where there is negotiation betweenthose with power and those without.” 14For this negotiation, an empowered, consistentvoice, able to reaffirm black women’s identityand assure its inclusion in a multiplicity of spaces,is crucial. This means not only occupying existingspaces within the present architecture of powerand governance, but also creating spaces for articulatingnew, more inclusive meanings. The surveyresults show us that this is a most pressing need,as in the communities visited, political spaces exclusivelyfor women are non-existent and/or widelyunknown by the population: 40.8% of the respondentssaid that there are no spaces for the defence of12 Cornwall, A. (2000), cited in Gaventa and Jones (2002) Op. cit.13 This survey was answered by 152 women from four differentsites: one favela in Rio de Janeiro and three communities fromthe periphery of the Baixada Fluminense municipalities. Theparticipation of these women in the survey was facilitated bythe Yalodês, who invited and mobilised women to come to theircentres or, in some situations, took the research team to thewomen’s houses. The survey was conducted in July 2012.14 Cited in Taylor, V. (2000) Marketisation of Governance: CriticalFeminist Perspectives from the South, SADEP/DAWN.women’s rights in their community, and 28.6% saidthat they do not know of any. When it comes to theaffirmation and defence of women’s rights, the mostfrequently mentioned spaces are local residents’associations (44.7%) and religious groups (24.5%)– which are the spaces where most of the Yalodêscarry out their work.The approach taken by Cornwall 15 in her examinationof the kinds of “spaces” in which participationmay occur focuses on the need to understand thesespaces in the contexts in which they are created. Inparticular, as Gaventa notes:[Cornwall] argues for distinguishing, amongstother factors, between “invited spaces” createdfrom above through donor or governmental intervention,and spaces which are chosen, takenand demanded through collective action frombelow. Whatever their origins, however, no newspaces for participation are neutral, but areshaped by the power relations which both permeateand surround them. While attention hasbeen paid to what spaces and mechanisms existfor public participation, more attention, sheargues, must be paid to who is creating thesespaces and why, who fills them, and how the newspaces carry within them “tracks and traces” ofprevious social relationships, resources andknowledge. What prevents long-establishedpatterns of power from being reproduced? Whospeaks, for whom, and who is heard? 16The reflection on spaces of political participationmust be contextualised within the politicaltraditions of each place – by which the concept of“participation” has multiple nuances and meanings.In Brazil, new social policy models were initiatedwith the promulgation of the 1988 constitution,which has created spaces for direct civil societystateinteraction in the form of local councils andpublic hearings. “Local councils serve as spaces fordeliberation and debate in the design and monitoringof social services. In the area of health alone,there are more than 5,000 health councils, almostone for each of 5,507 municipalities, providing alarge-scale case study of attempts to institutionalisedirect forms of citizen participation.” 17 It is clearfor many authors researching the functioning of15 Cornwall, A., Gideon, J. and Wilson, K. (2008) Introduction:Reclaiming Feminism: Gender and Neoliberalism, IDS Bulletin, 39,p. 1-9.16 Gaventa, J. (2006) Finding the Spaces for Change: A PowerAnalysis, IDS Bulletin, 37, p. 23-33.17 Coelho, V. S. P., de Andrade, I. A. L. and Montoya, M. C. (2002)Deliberative fora and the democratisation of social policies inBrazil, IDS Bulletin, 33, p. 1-16.78 / Global Information Society Watch