Doctoral Dissertation Research: Gender and Development in Uganda

University Of Chicago, Chicago IL

Investigators

Abstract

University of Chicago doctoral candidate Erin Moore, supervised by Dr. Jennifer Cole, will investigate the circulation, uptake, and transformation of global "girls' empowerment" discourses, resources, and practices. She will do so in order to shed light on how the personnel of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) carry ideas related to gender and development back and forth between international human rights arenas, on the one hand, and Ugandan families, on the other. This project asks: How do the participants of girls' empowerment programs take up and renegotiate their messages? What are some of the effects and unintended consequences for social reproduction in the families and communities in which these programs intervene? To answer these questions, Moore will conduct twelve months of ethnographic study with girls' empowerment NGO personnel, participants, and their families in Kampala, Uganda. The research will utilize social science methods, including domestic participant observations, interviews, focus groups, and analyses of mass-mediated girls' empowerment campaigns. Findings from this research will contribute to a social scientific understanding of gender, adolescence, and economic development. This project will also inform policymakers, assist international development workers, and contribute to the training of a graduate student.