Muslim Women and Development Action Research Project

The starting point of the project was to privilege women's voice as authoritative in describing their own condition and in asserting how this condition can be changed. The starting point of the action research was the social situation of predominantly poor women living and struggling in conditions of material scarcity. These women's lives provided the objective location from which to begin to learn about beliefs and practices.

The action research was undertaken in partnership between research associates recruited from the Netherlands and partner organisations in selected North African countries. Partner organisations chose two research associates from their organisations to participate for the duration of the project. These personnel worked in teams with the research associates recruited in the Netherlands, both in their own countries and in the Netherlands. In addition, partner organisations were responsible for dissemination of project results and policy advocacy. Many of the Dutch research associates were also from ethnic minority communities settled in the Netherlands.

The process entailed cultural exchange and mutual learning between the research associates from the Netherlands and research associates from the selected African countries. In the selected countries, the research associates listened to women's voices in rural and urban locations over a period of one year. The social context of women's lives in these localities was mapped by using participatory research enabling women to define their own criteria for status and power. In-depth interviews, life histories, and focus group discussions were carried out with women from different stages of the life cycle: young girls who are unmarried but have attained puberty and do not have children; women of childbearing age and with children; and older women past childbearing age. All the research associates were trained for a period of four weeks prior to commencing the field work in the selected countries.

The project produced:

• Country resource books and a synthesis report - For each country a resource book was compiled. The book contains general information; analysis of the findings according to the main themes of the research by site; comparison between sites/ classes/ ethnic groups/ age groups; analysis of significant themes arising from the particular country context; general conclusions and recommendations; and selected interviews/life history. The synthesis report contains an overall analysis of the findings and emergent issues from the six countries and the Netherlands.
• Policy guidelines on themes researched - The policy guidelines address existing policy initiatives on the themes researched. They were developed on the basis of existing policy initiatives in the context of insights gleaned from the action research.
• Videos of exchanges between women as support to the resource book - Fatusch Productions made a video ("We Cannot Dream Alone") capturing women speaking about their lives and researchers talking about the learning process.
• Publication of Islamic Ethics, Gender and Human Rights - A publication by Dr. Riffat Hassan, an eminent Islamic scholar, was prepared based on the information and insights developed through the project. The publication was expected to make significant contributions in the field of women and development at the global level.

Gender, Women, Rights.

The project aimed to establish women as knowers and the context of their lives as something that has to be known if people are to understand how society and culture work. It also aimed at bringing to light the hidden histories of women's negotiation in everyday struggles for survival and emancipation.