Contested concepts of gendered citizenship in Western Nepal : Dalit women as actors and targets in social mobilization courses

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Contested Concepts

of Gendered Citizenship

in Western Nepal

Dalit Women as actors and targets

in social mobilization courses

Inga Ferber

Date of Submission: 09/30/2015

Institution: Graduate School of Social Science

Program: Research Master International Development Studies

Thesis supervisor: Sean Higgins

Research assistant: Sujata Paudel (Feminist Dalit Organization)

Second reader: Courtney Vegelin

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2.4. Research methods ...28 2.4.1. In-depth interviews ...28 2.4.2. Document analysis ...30 2.4.3. Participant observation ...31 2.4.4. Focus groups ...32 2.4.5. Participatory methods ...32 2.5. Analysis of data ...34 2.6. Research locations ...35 2.7. Sample groups ...38 2.8. Ethical considerations ...39

2.9. Conclusion – How the different methods complement each other ...42

3. Context chapter: The historical construction of Dalit women as citizens ...45

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3.3. Citizenship as membership: How Dalit women have been constructed as multi-layered members………. 47

3.4. Citizenship as practice: How Dalit women have been expected to perform citizenship over time ...49

3.5. Citizenship as relationship: How Dalit women have been expected to engage with the state over time...51

3.6. Conclusion ...54

Chapters 4 – 6: Discussing the research findings ...56

4. Creating social mobilization courses: How international experts and national policy-makers intend to produce Dalit women as citizens ...57

4.2. Citizenship as multi-layered membership: How international and national actors locate Dalit women in imagined communities ...58

4.3. Citizenship as practice: How international and national actors expect Dalit women to perform citizenship ..61

4.3. Citizenship as relationship: How international and national actors expect Dalit women to interact with the state ...64

5. Enacting social mobilization courses: How local bureaucrats and social mobilizers intend to produce Dalit women as citizens ...69

5.2. Citizenship as membership: How local actors locate Dalit women in imagined communities ...70

5.3. Citizenship as practice: How local actors expect Dalit women to perform citizenship ...73

5.4. Citizenship as relationship: How local actors expect Dalit women to interact with the state ...75

6. Negotiating social mobilization courses: How participating Dalit women evoke alternative notions of citizenship ...80

6.2. Citizenship as membership: How Dalit women imagine and experience their communities ...81

6.3. Citizenship as practice: Conceptualizing the nature and participation of citizens...83

6.4. Citizenship as relationship: Envisioning state-citizen interactions and assigning responsibilities...87

Conclusion ...91

7.2. Major findings ...91

7.3. How this study demontrates the value of gender perspectives ...96

7.4. Policy recommendations ...98

7.5. Recommendations for further research ... 101

References ... 103

Appendix... 110

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Introduction

In this chapter, I will describe briefly how my research evolved. As Dunne et al. (2005) argue, research “begins with a concept and ends with a text” (11). In between there are various stages in which the researcher has to find the focus and intention of the research, has to formulate research questions and develop a strategy to address these questions (Dunne et al. 2005:24-26).The process of this study will be described in the first part of the introduction. After this, I will discuss how this study is positioned within the academic literature on gender and citizenship, and how it contributes to the academic debates on participatory governance as well as citizenship in Nepal. The introduction will end with a reflection on the challenges of this research, followed by an overview of the different chapters.

“The process begins with a conceptualization”…

Research usually starts with an initial idea or question that is related to the researcher’s “area of interest” (Dunne et al. 200: 24-25). This research started to evolve when I investigated different programs that use participatory approaches for the empowerment of women. One of the programs that caught my interest was the “Local Governance and Community Development Program” (LGCDP) in Nepal.

In 2008, the government of Nepal introduced the LGCDP with the support of various international development organizations. The reforms aim to reduce poverty at a national scale through the introduction of participatory local governance (Government of Nepal 2008). The governance reforms are accompanied by a “Social Mobilization” program that aims for “empowerment and social transformation” so that “disadvantaged groups” can participate in governance (Government of Nepal 2009: 5). In order to achieve this, the program claims to make use of the Reflect approach. This approach combines Freire’s (1972) conceptual and political ideas on critical pedagogy with Chamber’s (1983) methods of Participatory Rural Appraisal.

As I am interested in Freire’s (1972) ideas on critical education as well as bottom-up approaches to the civil and political empowerment of women, the LGCDP caught my attention. The Reflect approach sees development as “political process” and "seeks to help people in the struggle to assert their rights, challenge injustice and change their position in society" (Archer and Newman 2003). It seems rather unusual that a government, supported by mainstream international development

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5 organizations, adopts a radical approach to development. In fact, Freire (1972) himself would criticize such an attempt as “false generosity” (44).

Based on this paradox, I was curious how the social mobilization courses unfold. What are the motivations of different actors, from the local to the national level, to participate in this program and what do they try to achieve? And how do these different understandings of the participating actors transform the political Reflect approach into a concrete process at the local level? These considerations were motivated by the underlying question of what the social mobilization courses mean for marginalized citizens. Which role do and could the courses play for marginalized citizens in their attempt to practice citizenship?

From the initial interest towards finding a focus and intention..

Motivated by my initial interest, I conducted some further research on the context of the program. I realized that to speak of marginalized citizens in general would homogenize a group of diverse citizens. Even though this applies to all countries, this is especially true for Nepal which is “one of the most diverse countries in the world" (Shields and Rappleye 2008: 266). Deep socio-economic inequalities exist along the lines of caste, gender, ethnicity and regions (Shields and Rappleye 2008: 266; Pherali 2013: 54).

Acknowledging this diversity, I decided to focus on one of the most marginalized groups of citizens, namely Dalit women. Members of the Dalit community, who constitute around 14% of the total population, have in average one of the highest illiteracy and poverty rates and lack representation in political, social and economic institutions (Aasland and Haug 2011: 185; Lawotti 2008). The situation is especially worrying for Dalit women who suffer from discrimination based on both caste and gender (Sangraula 2002).

The LGCDP should be seen in the international context of participatory governance reforms that are promoted by international and national development organizations since the 1990s. Similar programs have been introduced around the world, both in North America and Europe as well as in the global South, such as in India, Brazil and South Africa (Fischer 2012).

At the national level, the LGCDP is introduced into a context of political and social change. In the last 25 years, Nepal experienced two democratic movements in 1990 and 2006, and a civil war from 1996-2006. Since the end of the civil war, Nepal’s political parties have negotiated a new

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6 constitution. The participatory governance reforms are thus introduced at a time during which Nepal reconstructs its wider political and social system.

Within the contexts of international reform efforts and national change, Dalit women become targets of social mobilization courses (Government of Nepal 2009). International experts, national policy-maker, and local bureaucrats, course coordinators and social mobilizers intend to mobilize Dalit women to participate. In this study, I aim to investigate as what kinds of citizens the different actors encourage Dalit women to participate.

Nevertheless, I do not only want to portray Dalit women as targets but actors in social mobilization courses. I will thus also explore how Dalit women negotiate the courses by articulating and practicing their own notions of citizenship.

From the intention towards formulating research questions

After clarifying the intention of the research, I formulated the following main research question: How do international, national and local actors who develop and implement social mobilization courses intend to produce Dalit women as citizens, as compared to the notions of citizenship that participating Dalit women articulate and practice themselves?

In order to answer this question, the study addresses three sub-questions:

1. How do international development experts and national policy-makers intend to produce Dalit women as citizens while creating social mobilization courses?

2. How do local bureaucrats, course coordinators and social mobilizers intend to produce Dalit women as citizens while enacting social mobilization courses?

3. Which notions of citizenship do Dalit women who participate in social mobilization courses articulate and practice themselves?

From the research questions towards developing a strategy to address them…

The research questions were addressed during a 5-month fieldwork in Kathmandu and the Palpa district of Western Nepal. I used qualitative methods (in-depth interviews, focus groups, document analysis and participant observation) to reveal the understandings of international experts, national and local policy-makers as well as course coordinators and social mobilizers. Supported by the Feminist Dalit Organization (FEDO) in Palpa, I studied how Dalit women articulate alternative

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7 notions of citizenship over a period of four months. To do this, I combined qualitative (in-depth interviews and focus groups) and participatory methods.

Positioning the study into wider academic debates

This study is inspired by a range of scholars who approach citizenship through a gender perspective (Kabeer 2011, 2012; Yuval-Davis 2011, Nyamu-Musembi 2005). Similarly to their work, this study elicits the notions of citizenship that are articulated and practiced by women within a non-Western society (Kabeer 2011, Ndwega 1997). By pointing out the disjunctions between these notions and Western discourses on citizenship, the universal relevance and applicability of Western notions of citizenship become challenged (Croussouard and Dunne 2015; Nyamu-Musembi 2005). While applying the perspectives of scholars on gender and citizenship to the case of social mobilization courses in Nepal, the study intends to enrich both the global debate on participatory governance as well as the literature on participation and citizenship in Nepal.

How the study contributes to the academic debate on participatory governance

While analyzing the notions of citizenship that different actors employ who are involved in participatory governance reforms in Nepal, this study contributes to the academic debate on participatory governance. Participatory governance is seen as an attempt to combine the concept of participatory development that has been discussed in academic literature since the late 1970s and good governance that has become a dominant concept in the 1990s (Cornwall 2002; Gaventa 2004: 25-28). With the reintroduction of the state into the academic debate, participation is now often associated with the concept of citizenship (Cornwall and Gaventa, 2000: 51). Nevertheless, as much as the perspectives on participatory governance differ, so do the notions of citizenship. One of the branches within the literature takes an instrumental perspective on participatory governance. Citizens participate to articulate their needs and hold officials accountable. This leads to more efficient service delivery and state performance (Ackerman 2004; Blair 2000; Devas and Grant 2003, Foley and Martin 2009). The instrumental perspective is based on a de-politicized neo-liberal notion of citizenship. While treating governance as a technical process, citizens are conceptualized as “users” or “consumers”, and the state is easily replaced with private service providers (Paul 1992: 1047; Swapan 2013: 19, World Bank 2003). This study contributes to this branch by re-introducing power into the analysis. By discussing how the

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neo-8 liberal notion is mobilized by various actors to produce Dalit women as citizens, the political nature of this notion is made explicit.

A second branch within the literature discusses participatory governance as an alternative to representative forms of democracy which can enhance democracy and innovation (Bucek and Smith 2000: 4-8; Fung and Wright 2001: 5). This branch resembles the civic republican notion of citizenship by stressing the importance of “deliberation” to find innovative and democratic solutions (Fung and Wright 2001: 19-20). In addition, through deliberation, citizens are expected to develop a mutual understanding and to start identifying with the community as a whole

(Eguren 2008: 314, Fischer 2006: 22). Scholars within this branch enrich the academic debate by demonstrating that governance reforms have the potential to introduce new notions of citizenship and to change the self-understandings of citizens. This study contributes an intersectional

perspective to the democratic innovation branch. The study demonstrates that notions of

citizenship privilege citizens with certain identities, and exclude others. This challenges scholars within the democratic innovation branch who discuss the interaction between the state and “ordinary citizens” (Eguren 2008: 322; Fung and Wright 2001:7; Wampler 2008: 62). It also encourages scholars within this branch to discuss more explicitly for which groups of citizens the new forms of governance could be more democratic and innovate, and which groups could become marginalized.

A third branch of literature discusses the potential of participatory governance to lead to redistribution in favor of poor citizens and social justice (Silver et al. 2010; Gaventa 2004). In this study, I follow the recommendations of scholars from this branch to pay more attention to the participation of marginalized citizens within particular local contexts (Hickey and Mohan 2004; Rodgers 2012). I also share the concern of social justice scholars to reintroduce power into the analysis (Gaventa 2004; Cornwall and Coelho 2006). At the same time, I attempt to overcome one weakness of the social justice approach. While explaining why marginalized citizens cannot participate, social justice scholars usually conclude that these groups “lack” something. These attributes include inter alia “skills and confidence”, “agency”, “resources”, “cultural capital”, “social influence”, “information” and “awareness” (Cornwall and Coelho 2006: 8; Cornwall and Gaventa 2000: 59; Gaventa 2004: 37; Silver et al. 2010: 455-456). These scholars conclude that

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9 social mobilization courses could help marginalized citizens to overcome their “lack” and, as a consequence, their exclusion (Cornwall and Coelho 2006).

This study portrays marginalized citizens differently. Instead of conceptualizing them as excluded subjects who lack something, Dalit women are seen as conscious actors. While doing this, the study encourages social justice scholars to take a more nuanced look at social

mobilization courses. Instead of assuming that the courses are necessarily empowering for Dalit women, I explore how Dalit women are positioned as citizens within the courses. Comparing this with the notions that Dalit women would like to practice themselves, it becomes obvious that program managers, policy-makers, course coordinators and social mobilizers intend to produce Dalit women as different kinds of citizens than desired by Dalit women. This study thus

demonstrates that Dalit women do not lack agency to practice citizenship but that they aim to use their agency differently than expected by other actors.

How the study contributes to the academic debate on citizenship in Nepal

Within the debate focusing on Nepal, most scholars take a liberal approach while discussing citizenship of marginalized groups. One group of scholars analyzes how the legal status of marginalized citizens changed due to certain historical events, such as the constitution building process or the signing of international treaties (Jones 2011; Laczo 2003; Tamang 2011). Another group analyses how activists from marginalized groups claim access to rights and political participation (Becker 2015; Gellner 2007). Within this literature, most academics concentrate on either women in general (Laczo 2003, Becker 2015), or indigenous minorities (Jones 2011). With a few exceptions of mainly Nepali scholars (Kharel 2007: Vishwakarma 2002), the group of Dalits “is in danger of being forgotten” by academics (Gellner 2007: 1827). This study shows the relevance and potential to pay more attention to the voices of Dalit women. While exploring how Dalit women articulate and practice alternative notions of citizenship, this study helps to realize that the liberal notion is certainly not the only and probably not most appropriate notion to explore the participation of marginalized citizens.

The approach of this study is similar to Gray (2015) and Tamang (2002) who explore how women have been constructed as citizens within dominant discourses. Gray (2015) and Tamang (2002) analyze how the Nepali state, in concert with international development organizations, constructs the categories of women and citizens over time. Nevertheless, this study takes one step

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10 further by contrasting the dominant constructions of the state with the understandings of Dalit women themselves. This avoids portraying women only as subjects on which a certain notion of citizenship is imposed. It demonstrates that Dalit women are also conscious actors who negotiate the dominant constructions of citizenship.

Other scholars pay more attention to the local level and analyze how Dalit women resist discrimination and renegotiate social structures within their daily life (Nightingale 2011; Panta and Resurrección 2014). On the one hand, the studies help to portray Dalit women as active agents at the local level. On the other hand, by examining their agency in their role as farmers or participants in development, the scholars follow the tradition of granting women a role in

development and agriculture but not politics (Tamang 2002). In this study, I intend to counter this tendency by discussing the agency of Dalit women as citizen.

By comparing the notions of citizenship that different actors employ, I join a small group of scholars who highlight the disjunctions between the understandings of Western actors and marginalized citizens. Other scholars compare the understandings of Western NGO workers and marginalized people with regard to participation (Masaki 2010; Pant and Standing 2011) as well agency and empowerment (Leve 2007). This study provides a more multi-layered and nuanced analysis by also including the understandings of Nepali policy-makers and NGO workers at both the national and local levels.

Facing and negotiating challenges

For the purpose of clarity, in this chapter I presented my research as a linear process. Nevertheless, in reality the research was a more dynamic process. I followed Dunne’s et al. (2005) advice no to pick a research strategy out of the “toolbox” but to develop it in conformance with my own ontological and epistemological assumptions (26). This led to some adjustments in theory, as will be discussed in the following chapters. Even though a dynamic research process is “less certain”, “it is in facing and negotiating those uncertainties that we become researchers” (Dunne 2005: 26). The research was driven by my concern to portray Dalit women as both marginalized and active citizens. While intending to write about Dalit women as citizens, someone cannot ignore the stigma, discrimination, and social exclusion with which Dalit women are confronted in Nepali society. Nevertheless, to portray Dalit women as passive victims of social exclusion would also not

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11 do them justice. Instead, it is important to explore how Dalit women try to overcome exclusion, embrace alternative notions of how their ‘community’ or ‘participation’ should look like and find ways to practice their citizenship.

In addition, the study tries to avoid homogenizing and generalizing the group of Dalit women while giving voice to some of them.

Overview of chapters

After explaining my theoretical approach in more detail in the next chapter, I will elaborate on my methodology. After this, I will provide a short historical overview about the dominant constructions of citizenship in relation to Dalit women in Nepal. This is followed by three chapters on my research findings. Firstly, I will analyze how international development experts and national policy-makers intend to produce Dalit women as citizens while creating social mobilization courses. Secondly, I will analyze how local policy-maker, course coordinators and social mobilizers position Dalit women as citizens within social mobilization courses. Thirdly, I will explore how some Dalit women negotiate the courses while articulating alternative notions of citizenship. At the end of the thesis, I will summarize the main differences with regard to the different actors’ notions of citizenship. In addition, I will give some policy recommendation as well as suggestions for further research.

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1. Theoretical Chapter

1.1. Introduction

In this study I want to explore how Dalit women participate in social mobilization courses and which relevance these courses have for Dalit women. These questions are addressed through the conceptual lens of 'citizenship'. On the one hand, this decision derives from the fact that the official social mobilization program addresses potential participants as “citizens” and refers to “citizen mobilisation” (Government of Nepal 2009: 6). This causes the questions as which kinds of citizens Dalit women are expected to be mobilized and where, how and for what they are expected to practice their citizenship. On the other hand, exploring the role of Dalit women as citizens avoids “casting the excluded as passive victims of structural forces and other people’s agency”. Through the concept of citizenship, it can be explored how Dalit women intend to exercise their “political agency” (Lister 2007: 52).

I attempt to understand both how other actors structure the participation of Dalit women, and how Dalit women use their agency to negotiate these structures. With regard to the former, I want to explore how other actors intend to produce Dalit women as citizens through the social

mobilization courses. This requires analyzing which notions of citizenship are evoked by

different actors and discussing if and how Dalit women can practice these notions. With regard to the agency of Dalit women, I want to analyze how Dalit women who participate in the courses articulate and practice their own notions of citizenship. I also intend to understand if and how the notions of citizenship that are articulated by Dalit women allow these women to participate as equal citizens.

In the first part of the chapter, I present different concepts and perspectives from scholars on gender and citizenship. In this context, I explain how these perspectives help me to conceptualize notions of citizenship and social mobilization courses in a way that allows analyzing their

relevance for Dalit women. I also explain how, while drawing on the concept of intersectionality, I can avoid homogenizing Dalit women in my analysis.

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13 The second part reflects my attempt to account for the structural aspects of notions of citizenship, while acknowledging the agency of actors to sustain and transform these notions. I discuss how Critical Realism, the Strategic-Relational Approach (SRA), Constructivism and Critical

Discourse Analysis offer useful perspectives to approach my research topic. At the end, I show how the different perspectives can be combined into a theoretical framework that accounts for the different aims and challenges of this study.

The theoretical framework evolved through a dialectical process between mobilizing theories and interpreting research findings. While I first employed the SRA and Critical Realism to approach my research topic, I recognized the limits of the theoretical framework to account for the agency of Dalit women. This encouraged me to draw upon scholars on gender and citizenship. Their perspectives informed my decision to mobilize the SRA for its insightful conceptualization of structures but to complement it with a constructivist view on the embedded self. The table below provides a short overview about the aims and challenges of the research, and the theoretical perspectives that help to address the challenges.

1.2. Gender and Citizenship

1.2.1. Notions of citizenship

In general, a notion of citizenship is constituted by normative beliefs about all relationships, behavior and activities, entitlements, and obligations that an individual, group, or entity should have or do based on the status of citizenship. Scholars on gender and citizenship provide different perspectives and concepts through which we can analyze different notions of citizenship. I will use the concepts to analyze the aspects of notions of citizenship that influence how Dalit women can participate as citizens. In the remainder of this section, I will present five concepts of

different gender scholars. I will also discuss how these concepts inform my research.

Citizenship as patriarchal discourse

Lister (2001) makes us aware that “citizenship has always been gendered in the sense that women and men have stood in a different relationship to it" (323). Traditional Western notions of

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14 qualities of impartiality, rationality, independence, and political agency” (324). While claiming to be gender-neutral, these characteristics are in reality traditionally associated with a male identity. This relegates women to the private sphere which traditional notions have constructed as

apolitical (Lister 2001: 323-324).

This study will follow Lister’s (2005) advice to "reconceptualize citizenship in gendered terms” (232). I will analyze how different actors construct a citizen identity for Dalit women, and in how far this identity can be reconciled with the Dalit women’s female identity.

Citizenship as embedded in social relationships

Kabeer (2012) encourages us to treat citizens as “socially embedded” instead of “abstract individuals” (222-223). This requires recognizing that citizens derive their identity from

interacting with others. The cultural norms that define social relationships can differ significantly from the norms inherent in a notion of citizenship. This can hinder the possibility of some

individuals to practice citizenship without threatening their other relationships.

As an example, Kabeer (2011) explains that in South Asian societies, relations are often

structured hierarchically around “caste, ethnicity, gender, and other social identities”. However, marginalized citizens are unlikely to successfully claim their rights from the state – to practice “vertical” citizenship – as long as they do not have “horizontal” citizenship. The latter requires “the ‘inner acceptance of equality’ on the part of all citizens and its outward manifestation in their dealings with each other” (326).

Kabeer (2012) helps to understand the potential relevance that social mobilization courses could have for participating Dalit women. In general, social mobilization is a process that encourages people to act in a certain way. Social mobilization courses are formal programs that aim to mobilize participants to engage in certain activities or to change behavior. For Kabeer (2012), individuals gain their “sense of self and identity” through interaction with others. Through participation in “chosen forms of associational life”, individuals can reformulate their identities and “recast the vision of the community” (223-224). Based on these thoughts, in order to explore the relevance of the courses for Dalit women, I conceptualize the courses as a series of interaction at the local level. While participating in the courses, Dalit women can gain or transform their

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15 identities as citizens. However, I recognize that the interaction within the courses is shaped by formal agendas and programs at the international, national and local levels.

Citizenship as multi-layered membership

Yuval-Davis (2011) encourages us to analyze how different actors construct the communities of which Dalit women are expected to be or to become members. Yuval-Davis (2011) redefines Marshall’s (1950) well-known definition of citizenship as “full membership in a political community”. She argues that citizens are not members of one political community but several communities at different levels. As citizens can be members of “local, regional, national, cross and supranational political communities”, citizenship should be regarded as “multi-layered” (Yuval-Davis 2011: 69).

As Yuval-Davis (2011) explains further, people engage in “politics of belonging” by constructing particular communities and their boundaries. While doing this, actors define if and how Dalit women can become members of particular communities. According to Yuval-Davis (2011) a researcher should denaturalize the constructions of communities and show their implications for particular social groups (20, 2000).

In this study, I analyze how different actors conceptualize the communities of which Dalit women are expected to be or to become members. These beliefs structure the participation of Dalit

women in the sense that they define how Dalit women have to act to be recognized as community members by others. The beliefs also determine at which levels and with whom Dalit women are seen as legitimate to participate by others. The beliefs of other actors are compared with the Dalit women’s own notions of citizenship. I analyze to which communities Dalit women feel to

belong, and would like to belong and how the women define membership within these communities.

Citizenship as performed identity

Butler (2004) draws attention to the social norms that define how Dalit women should perform their identity as citizens. Butler (2004) argues that individuals are “socially viable beings” who depend on the “recognition” of others for their “social existence” (2). Individuals do not have but

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16 “do” a particular identity. “Social norms” define how an individual has to “do” an identity to be recognized by others as such (1-3).

Applying these thoughts to citizenship, a particular notion of citizenship entails social norms that define how an individual has to act and behave to be recognized as citizen by others. While granting recognition to some people, “social norms” withhold recognition to others. As this can have severe consequences for the excluded groups, “social norms” are “bound up with the question of power” (Butler 2004: 2).

Applying Butler’s (2004) ideas to this study, I analyze how different actors define how Dalit women have to perform their citizenship to be recognized as good citizen. I discuss this in relation to other existing norms to see if and how Dalit women can perform their other identities in concert with citizenship. The notions of other actors are compared to how citizenship should be performed from the perspectives of Dalit women themselves. I also discuss how Dalit women reflect on their other identities in relation to citizenship.

Citizenship as state-citizen interactions

Rajan (2003) stresses the importance of looking at state-citizen relations. By formulating policies, the state “produces citizens in specific ways and in specific roles: as citizens, taxpayers, (…), consumers, homeowners – individuals” (6). The state does not only produce individuals but also constructs collective identities. By addressing women through certain policies, the state

constructs the category of women. ‘Women’ serves both as a "unitary category and as a differentiated one". While the state assumes equality of women within some policies, in other policies the state differentiates between different kinds of women (Rajan 2003: 2).

Nevertheless, Rajan (2003) argues further that the state does not only produce women, but that women also produce the state. By making demands on the state, women cause certain responses from the state and thus influence the actions and “self-representation” of the state (3).

Drawing on Rajan (2003), I analyze how different actors expect the state to formulate policies for Dalit women and how they expect Dalit women to approach the state. Based on this, I reason how different actors try to produce the categories of Dalit and women, and how they intend to produce individual Dalit women as citizens. I also discuss how Dalit women are expected to shape the

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17 state through their demands. This is compared to how Dalit women prefer to engage with the state and which reactions they expect from the state.

1.2.2. Intersectionality

Another important concept that I use in this study is “intersectionality”. The concept that was developed within feminist studies acknowledges the “situatedness” of knowledge and experience. How individuals understand and experience the world is depending on their “social position”. This position is determined through various categories, such as gender, ethnicity, and class (Yuval-Davis 2011: 3-7). The concept of intersectionality contributes to this study in three different ways:

Firstly,the concept of intersectionality backs the aim of the study to analyze how differently situated actors understand citizenship. As the actors that are involved in social mobilization courses are differently positioned, their notions of citizenship are likely to differ. The concept of intersectionality treats a certain notion of citizenship as one situated understanding among others, which makes it possible to compare notions.

Secondly, an intersectional analysis allows us to discuss the implications of different notions of citizenship for Dalit women. The concept of intersectionality makes us aware that individuals are differently affected by “different social, economic and political projects” (Yuval-Davis 2011: 4). An intersectional analysis thus avoids treating notions of citizenship as neutral which can be practiced by all citizens alike. Instead, while recognizing that people are differently affected by notions of citizenship, we can discuss the implications of the notions for a particular social group, namely Dalit women.

Thirdly, an intersectional analysis as proposed by Yuval-Davis (2011) avoids homogenizing Dalit women. For Yuval-Davis (2011), social categories should be regarded as “mutually constitutive in any concrete historical moment” (7). Experiences of Dalit women thus depend on various other categories, such as age, ethnicity, class, and residence. In addition, understandings are influenced but not caused by social positioning (Yuval-Davis 2011: 7). This perspective sensitizes us not to generalize the findings of an intersectional analysis too quickly. Instead, the concept of

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18 certain time in their life whose experiences are influenced through some similar and some

different social categories.

1.3. The concept of the political

As argued above, I do not only aim to analyze which notions of citizenship different actors employ. I also want to understand which implications these different notions have for Dalit women. For this attempt, I draw on Mouffe’s (2005) wider notion of the political. Mouffe (2005) argues that ideas about “politics”, i.e. how society should be ordered, are always “political”. The latter means that all politics include a “dimension of antagonism” (Mouffe 2005: 9). For Mouffe (2005), every notion of citizenship “is political and based on some form of exclusion. There are always other possibilities that have been repressed and that can be reactivated” (18). From Mouffe’s perspective, evoking certain notions of citizenship can be seen as “conflictual

discursive processes” through which citizens are “produced, regulated and policed” (Crossouard and Dunne 2015: 48).

In this study a wider notion of the political allows me to discuss how the different notions of citizenship intend to regulate the participation of Dalit women. By comparing the notions of citizenship of other actors with the ones of Dalit women themselves, it becomes obvious that other actors try to regulate the participation of Dalit women in ways that are neither easily practicable, nor desired by Dalit women.

1.4. Theoretical perspectives on the structure-agency debate

The following theoretical discussion reflects the attempt to find a balance between agency and structure. While mobilizing different theories, I attempt to analyze both how notions of

citizenship structure the participation of Dalit women, and how different actors use their agency to co-construct these notions.

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1.4.1. Critical Realism

Critical realism is a useful theory to analyze both how notions of citizenship structure the

participation of Dalit women, and how Dalit women use their agency to evoke alternative notions of citizenship.

Critical realism, as developed by Bhaskar, distinguishes between three ontological levels of reality: “the real, the actual, and the empirical”. “Social forms” are located at the “real” level of reality. When individuals orientate their behavior towards “social forms”, these forms are “actualized” through practices. A researcher’s observations of the practices are located at the “empirical” level of reality (Jessop 2005). The threefold ontological perspective on reality informs the study in two different ways:

Firstly, critical realists argue that “social forms” only exist because people invest them with meaning. Nevertheless, a “social form[...]” is not “reducible to the ideas that people have about it” (Jessop 2005: 42). As “social forms” influence how an individual acts, critical realists argue that forms “pre-exist” individuals (44). This grants “social forms” “autonomy as possible objects of scientific investigation” (42). Applied to this study, critical realism grants ontological status to a notion of citizenship and thus allows to examine and compare the notions. Critical Realism also acknowledges that notions of citizenship have “causal efficacy” as citizens orientate their

behavior towards the notions (Jessop 2005: 42). This enables us to discuss how notions of citizenship structure the participation of Dalit women.

Secondly, critical realism recognizes the agency of people to “reproduce or transform” structures through their practices (Jessop 2005). This makes it possible to analyze how the practices of different actors within social mobilization courses reproduce or transform certain notions of citizenship. Critical realism thus acknowledges that the participation of Dalit women is structured through notions of citizenship. Nevertheless, Dalit women have the agency to ‘actualize’

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1.4.2. The Strategic-Relational Approach (SRA)

The SRA complements critical realism as it enables us to discuss the implications of a certain notion of citizenship for Dalit women. Nevertheless, as will be argued in this section, the SRA cannot fully account for the agency of Dalit women.

Jessop (2005) sees structures as “strategically-selective” because structures “privilege some actors, some identities, some strategies, some spatial and temporal horizons, some actions over others” (48). Seeing a notion of citizenship as “strategically-selective” enables us to discuss its implications for Dalit women. A certain notion of citizenship entails beliefs about where, how and in what citizens should participate. While recognizing that these beliefs are “strategically-selective”, the SRA encourages us to analyze if and how Dalit women can practice the notions as

compared to other citizens.

Whereas I mobilize Jessop´s (2005) view on structures for my analysis, I have some reservations with regard to his view on agency. Jessop (2005) argues that individuals can reflect on structures and their “strategic selectivity”. Through this “strategic-context analysis”, individuals choose their “strategies and tactics” to realize their interest (48-49). Looking through this theoretical lens, the participation of Dalit women in social mobilization courses is seen as a ‘strategy’ to realize their interests. This suggests that the women´s interests exist prior to the women´s participation and that the women try to realize these interests while participating.

Nevertheless, during interviews with Dalit women, the respondents could not always identify their interests and tactics that inform their participation. Interpreting the research findings through the SRA perspective runs the risk of concluding that the Dalit women act irrational or

non-reflexive. As this would not sufficiently account for the agency of Dalit women, I employ a constructivist view on identity and interest formation which I will elaborate on in the next section.

1.4.3. Constructivism

Constructivism helps to understand how the notions of citizenship that other actors evoke influence the participation of Dalit women. In addition, through constructivism it can be

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21 explained how Dalit women can co-construct the notions of citizenship that exist in social

mobilization courses.

For constructivist thinkers, “social facts”, such as citizenship, “exist only because people collectively believe they exist and act accordingly” (Finnemore and Sikkink 2001: 393).

“Intersubjective meanings” are seen as “causal, since how things are put together makes possible, or even probable, certain kinds of political behavior and effects” (394). From this perspective, Dalit women are not free to act according to their own notions of citizenship. Instead, they must act according to notions that are shared with others. As an example, a Dalit woman is unlikely to successfully claim rights from the state, if nobody else in her society believes in the existence of rights. The participation of Dalit women is thus influenced by the notions of citizenship that other actors evoke.

Nevertheless, constructivism grants Dalit women agency to collectively redefine the shared notions of citizenship. In this context, constructivism provides a theoretical backing for Kabeer´s (2012) view on the embedded self. For social constructivists, identities and interests are created through participation in shared meanings. The shared meanings are sustained and

“institutionalized” through discourse and other practices (Hurd 2008). From this point of view, Dalit women are produced as citizens through participation in the collective meanings of citizenship within social mobilization courses. Nevertheless, by acting collectively and sharing their own notions of citizenship, Dalit women can co-construct the intersubjective meaning of citizenship.

1.4.4. Critical Discourse Analysis

Fairclough´s (2005) version of Critical Discourse Analysis helps to analyze how different actors construct notions of citizenship through discourse. Fairclough (2005) defines a discourse as “a particular way of representing certain parts or aspects of the (physical, social, psychological) world” (925). This particular version of discourse analysis is especially useful as it encourages scholars to go beyond analyzing “discourse per se”. Instead, attention should be paid to discourse “in relation to other social elements” and how these other elements are “socially constructed through discourse” (924).

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22 In order to analyze how social facts are constructed through discourse, we must examine “texts”. Texts, which refer to both “written texts” and “oral interactions”, are constituted through an interplay of structure and agency (Fairclough 2005: 925). Discourses can be seen as “social practices” that are relatively stable. Actors can draw upon existing discourses as “social resource” to create texts. While drawing upon discourses, actors have the agency to “use the existing social resources in innovative ways which, subject to certain conditions, may contribute to changing the character of and relations between social practices” (926).

This study is informed by Critical Discourse Analysis in the sense that I acknowledge the “causal power” of texts in constructing social facts. From this perspective, writing and speaking can be seen as expression of agency with the potential to transform social relations and practices. Applying this perspective to the study allows me to examine how different actors use and creatively combine discourses to construct a certain notion of citizenship.

1. 5. Conclusion – How the different concepts complement each other

As presented in Table 1 below, the different theoretical perspectives complement each other in analyzing both the structural and agential aspects of Dalit women’s citizenship.

Critical realism provides a theoretical perspective through which notions of citizenship and their political consequences can be analyzed. Firstly, by making citizenship an “object of scientific investigation”, critical realism enables us to examine and compare different notions of

citizenship. Secondly, even though critical realism grants notions of citizenship an ontological status, it also recognizes that human action is required to “actualize[…]” the notions (Jessop 2005). Critical realism thus provides an ontological foundation for Mouffe (2005). She argues that for every notion of citizenship, “there are always other possibilities that have been repressed and that can be reactivated” (18). Thirdly, as “social forms” are seen as having “causal efficacy”, critical realism also allows to discuss how a certain notion of citizenship structures the

participation of Dalit women (Jessop 2005: 42).

The analysis on how notions of citizenship structure the participation of Dalit women can be deepened by drawing upon the SRA. While conceptualizing notions of citizenship as

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23 “strategically-selective”, we can examine how the notions “privilege” certain strategies and identities (Jessop 2005). The SRA thus helps to lift “the veil of gender-neutrality” and to discuss if and how the notions allow Dalit women to practice citizenship with a female identity (Lister 2001: 324). Moreover, the concept of “strategically-selective structures” allows to accommodate for Yuval-Davis’ (2011) concerns regarding intersectionality. By analyzing the “strategic

selectivity” of a notion of citizenship, we do not limit the analysis to gender. We can also explore how the notion affects the Dalit women’s other identities, such as caste and age.

The SRA proves itself useful with regard to the structural aspects of citizenship but has its limits with regard to agency. Whereas the SRA tends to portray actors as “abstract individuals”, I draw upon Kabeer (2012) to portray Dalit women as “socially embedded” citizens (222-223).

Constructivism shares the ontological assumption that people gain their identity “by participating [….] in collective meanings” (Hurd 2008). From this perspective, Dalit women gain their identity as citizens (inter alia) through participation in social mobilization courses.

Critical discourse analysis enables us to analyze the process of identity construction by stressing the importance of discourse to create collective meanings (Fairclough 2005). Actors who create and enact social mobilization courses construct and communicate certain notions of citizenship through program documents, course curricula and spoken interaction. As Dalit women are declared targets of social mobilization, international, national and local actors encourage Dalit women to practice these notions through the courses. The different actors thus intend to produce Dalit women as certain kinds of citizens.

Nevertheless, this study aims to portray Dalit women not only as targets but actors within social mobilization courses. Therefore, it must also be explored how Dalit women articulate and practice collectively their own notions of citizenship. From a constructivist perspective, these verbal and non-verbal practices can be seen as an attempt to participate in the collective (re-) construction of citizenship.

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Table 1: Research challenges and theoretical perspectives to address them

Aims/Challenges Theoretical perspectives/concepts

Understanding why social mobilization courses produce Dalit women as citizens

Kabeer (2012) and Constructivism (the “embedded self”)

Deciding which aspects of notions of

citizenship structure the participation of Dalit women

Gender and Citizenship (Yuval-Davis 2011; Butler 2004; Kabeer 2012; Rajan 2003) Analyzing and comparing notions of

citizenship within social mobilization courses

Critical Realism (threefold reality, ontological status to “social forms”) Exploring the consequences of the notions of

citizenship for the participation of Dalit women

Citizenship as patriarchal discourse (Lister 2001); the concept of the political (Mouffe 2005); SRA (“strategic-selective structures”) Understanding why other actors’ notions of

citizenship influence the participation of Dalit women

Constructivism (“intersubjective meanings”)

Granting Dalit women agency to influence and transform the notions of citizenship that structure their behavior

Critical Realism (“actualised” “social forms”); Constructivism (co-construction of meaning)

Analyzing how actors evoke certain notions of citizenship while communicating

Critical Discourse Analysis Avoiding homogenizing Dalit women Intersectionality

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2. Methodological chapter

2.1. Introduction

Dunne et al. (2005) encourage us not to rely on the “sequential model” while discussing our methodology. A research rarely develops as a “linear” process in which “ontological

assumptions” inform “epistemological assumptions” that lead to the adoption of a certain

methodology and finally the choice of methods (165-166). In reality, a methodology develops as a “dynamic” process and is “always liable to change its shape” during the research (Dunne et al. 2005: 166). The “shape” of the methodology is influenced by ontological, epistemological, ethical, practical and political considerations (see Figure 1 below). In this chapter, I will present the methodology of this research and discuss which considerations have influenced its “shape”.

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2.2. How ontological and ethical considerations influenced the formulation of

my research questions

As argued in the previous chapter, initially I had planned to explore the citizenship participation of Dalit women through the Strategic-Relational Approach (SRA). Accordingly, I wanted to analyze on the one hand the motivations and perceptions of different actors, and on the other hand the “strategic context” in which the Dalit women practice their citizenship (Jessop 2005). However, as I realized during the research that the SRA cannot sufficiently account for the agency of Dalit women, I looked for alternative perspectives. Constructivist thinkers, Kabeer’s (2012) notion of the “socially embedded” citizen and Fairclough’s (2005) critical discourse analysis let me question the strict dichotomy between people’s notions of citizenship, and the structures that influence how successfully people can practice these notions.

I realized that the notions that different actors evoke within the social mobilization courses are part of the structures that influence how Dalit women can participate as citizens. This encouraged me to focus exclusively on the notions of citizenship that are shared by different actors within social mobilization courses. Nevertheless, I did not give up my ethical concern to portray Dalit women as active agents. Consequently, through the first two research questions, I explore how Dalit women are positioned as citizens by other actors. The last research question focuses on how Dalit women negotiate the shared meanings within the social mobilization courses by articulating and practicing alternative notions. These considerations led to the following research questions: Main research question: How do international, national and local actors who develop and implement social mobilization courses intend to produce Dalit women as citizens, as compared to the notions of citizenship that participating Dalit women articulate and practice themselves? In order to answer this question, the study addresses three sub-questions:

1. How do international development experts and national policy-makers intend to produce Dalit women as citizens while creating social mobilization courses?

2. How do local bureaucrats, course coordinators and social mobilizers intend to produce Dalit women as citizens while enacting social mobilization courses?

3. Which notions of citizenship do Dalit women who participate in social mobilization courses articulate and practice themselves?

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2.3. How the research methods help to explore the different layers of my

conceptual scheme

This study compares the notions of citizenship1_{of different actors who are involved in social} mobilization courses. In this section, I present my conceptual scheme and discuss how the chosen methods help to explore the different parts of the scheme.

International experts and national policy-makers create social mobilization courses. While doing this, they evoke certain notions of citizenship that inform their normative decisions about how Dalit women should participate. This study attempts to elicit the notions of citizenship that international and national actors communicate while creating social mobilization courses. In order to do this, I analyzed which notions of citizenship are shared within official program documents and advisory reports. I also conducted in-depth interviews to elicit the individual notions of different international and national actors.

Local bureaucrats, course coordinators and social mobilizers enact social mobilization courses at the local level. While training social mobilizers and discussing about the course content and organization, local actors share their notions of citizenship. Social mobilizers also share their notions through direct interactions with Dalit women. In-depth interviews allowed me to elicit the different notions of local actors. Through participant observation of the courses, as well as

document analysis, I could analyze how different local actors communicate and share their notions of citizenship.

Dalit women participate as actors in social mobilization courses. This means that they are able to negotiate the collective meanings that are evoked by different actors. In-depth interviews,

participant observations, focus groups and participatory methods allowed me to explore how Dalit women articulate, share and practice alternative notions of citizenship within social mobilization courses.

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Figure 2: Conceptual Scheme

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2.4. Research methods

2.4.1. In-depth interviews

In this study I used in-depth interviews to elicit the notions of citizenship on which individual actors base their expectation and assumption about the social mobilization program. Through interviews I could interact directly with individual actors, in the form of asking and clarifying questions, discussing concrete cases within social mobilization courses, and asking for

illustrations and further explanations of the answers. This allowed me to gain detailed information about how different actors give meaning to the various facets of citizenship.

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29 I interviewed eight Dalit women for 45-60 minutes, who participate in social mobilization

courses. I first prepared questions and discussed them with my research assistant. During the interviews, my research assistant provided a short summary after two to three questions. Based on the summary, I could ask further questions and probe for more details. I recorded all

interviews with the consent of the respondents. Afterwards, another woman, who worked as translator for several international NGOs, translated the interviews in full length. After the first round of interviews, I revised the questions to make them more concrete and relevant to the local context. In addition, topics which came up during the interviews were used for focus groups, and vice versa. As the revised questions were easier to understand and more relevant for the

respondents, the answers from the second round of interviews contain more useful information. The Dalit women live close to each other and to the community center where social mobilization courses take place and where most interviews were conducted. This made it difficult to guarantee privacy and other Dalit women listened to parts of individual interviews. The advantage of this is that the respondents could comment on each other’s answers which provided additional insights. In addition, there were several instances during which the respondents could voice their opinion. Some respondents used this to revise their answers, admitting that they wanted to present a certain picture to me at the beginning. Furthermore, some respondents hesitated to give me an interview. After attending other interviews, they became more confident to give me an interview themselves. The disadvantage is that the presence of others increased the pressure to agree with the other participants. The findings might thus not reflect the whole variety of the notions of citizenship that different Dalit women would like to practice. Instead, the findings provide information about the notions that Dalit women share with each other and outsiders.

I also conducted interviews with five social mobilizers who work in the Palpa district and the coordinator for social mobilization courses from the Women Welfare Association in Palpa. In addition, I interviewed four bureaucrats who work on social mobilization at the Municipality and District Office. The interviews in the Municipality and District Office were held in English and mostly consisted of two meetings. In the first one, I introduced myself and my research and in the second one, I asked some questions to the respondents. The interviews with social mobilizers were translated at the spot by the local course coordinator or my research assistant and later transcribed with the help of the professional translator.

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30 At the national level, I conducted interviews with two program managers of the German Federal Enterprise for International Cooperation (GIZ) and the Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA). I also interviewed a Nepali program coordinator for the Governance and Democratization Programme of ActionAid Nepal. Unfortunately I could not gain access to the Ministry of Federal Affairs and Local Development even though I tried it through both formal and informal channels.

At the beginning and end of my research, I conducted interviews with national and local experts and activists. This helped me to gain a better understanding of the national and local context in which the research is located. While sharing my initial findings, some respondents described similar observations with regard to the experiences of Dalit women. At the district level, I conducted interviews with a journalist, a party activist and two NGO workers from the Dalit community. At the national level, I conducted interviews with seven representatives of Dalit NGOs, a member of the National Dalit Commission as well as a former minister and researcher on local governance.

2.4.2. Document analysis

Policy documents aim at “regulating social practices” as well as “conceptually ordering reality and by so doing helping to construct our identities” (Dunne et al. 2005: 111). Through an analysis of policy and advisory documents of the LGCDP, I explore how international and national actors intend to regulate citizenship practices of Dalit women. The analysis helps to understand how actors construct the identity of Dalit women as citizens. Whereas individual interviews revealed the different notions of citizenship of individual actors, the analysis of documents provides information about the shared notions of citizenship. All documents are publicly accessible or distributed to other organizations. All involved actors thus agreed to share this particular notion with other international, national and local experts, policy-makers and bureaucrats.

The document analysis is informed by Fairclough’s (2005) critical discourse analysis in the sense that I analyze how the citizenship of Dalit women is “socially constructed through discourse” (924). Nevertheless, I did not conducted a discourse analysis in the form of a "detailed linguistic analysis" (916). Instead, I analyzed how the texts conceptualize communities and state-citizen relations, and how they frame the participation of Dalit women.

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31 For the citizenship understanding of international and national actors, I analyzed the program documents of the LGCDP I and II (Government of Nepal 2008; 2013) and the social mobilization guideline (Government of Nepal 2009). The documents are published by the Ministry of Federal Affairs and Local Development. In reality, program documents should be seen as a compromise of various stakeholders involved (Runhaar et al. 2006: 40). In addition, I analyzed Jha’s et al. (2009) report “Citizen Mobilisation in Nepal”. The program manager of the GIZ explained that the report strongly informed the development of the social mobilization courses.

At the local level, I analyzed two case studies that a policy advisor from the District Office of Palpa prepared for the World Bank. As the advisor was the sole author, these documents reflect his individual notion of citizenship that he decided to share with others.

2.4.3. Participant observation

Participant observations of social mobilization courses allowed me to analyze how social mobilizers encourage Dalit women to practice certain notions of citizenship. I attended two sessions of the social mobilization course in Bodhapokharathok, as well as social mobilization courses in three different villages within the Palpa district (see section on research locations). I also hoped to gain information about how Dalit women evoke their own notions within discussions among each other and with the social mobilizer. However, my experiences with participant observation confirm Spradley’s (1980) claim that for a Western researcher, it is problematic to obtain "unobtrusiveness" during observations within non-Western settings (Spradley 1980: 48). Although I asked the social mobilizers to facilitate a ‘normal’ lesson, my visits consisted mainly of a presentation of the work done in previous sessions. This provided information about the course content and the way that social mobilizers want Dalit women to participate. Nevertheless, I could not observe how social mobilizers interact directly with Dalit women, nor how Dalit women evoke their own notions.

In order to gain more information about the local context, I also attended two social audits of the Municipality of Tansen, and three meetings of Dalit women groups. During these observations, my presence had less disruptive effects so that I could at least partly observe how these meetings usually proceed.

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2.4.4. Focus groups

With the help of focus groups, I could explore both how and which collective notions of

citizenship are constructed by Dalit women. While the participating Dalit women discussed about their expectations and understandings concerning citizenship, I could experience how the Dalit women interact with each other. Focus groups thus do not only provide information about how Dalit women would like to engage and discuss with each other, but how they practice these norms in reality.

I organized two focus groups with twelve and fifteen Dalit women who participate in the social mobilization course. Many women were interested in participating and came to the community center very early in the morning. As I did not want to send some interested women away, the number of participants was bigger than I originally aimed for. During the first focus group, I introduced my research and asked some general questions about the respondents’ view on the state, their status as citizens, and the community. During the second focus group, the participants discussed concrete examples which they gave during the first focus group and individual

interviews. The examples included their efforts and difficulties in providing their children with education and the desired water project in the village.

During my other visits to the village, the women had several discussions with each other. As I did not direct the discussion, these instances were not focus groups in its general understanding (Morgan 1996: 130-131). Nevertheless, the informal discussions provided several additional information that are used in the thesis.

2.4.5. Participatory methods

Participatory methods encouraged Dalit women to reflect on their notions of citizenship in a creative way. While visualizing certain aspects of their notions of citizenship, Dalit women could take new perspectives on their participation as citizens and the responsibilities of different actors. I conducted two participatory exercises with eleven Dalit women who participate in social

mobilization courses. In the first exercise, my research assistant asked the participants to identify organizations and groups at the village level in which citizens participate (see Picture 1 below).

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33 Each mentioned group was written on a different circle and pinned to the wall. Afterwards, the participants were asked to post a sticky note in each circle in which they participate. The research assistant read out the different organizations while pointing to the according circle. After the exercise, I drew the attention to the groups in which nobody participates and asked for the reasons for the non-participation. The participants also discussed in which groups they feel most comfortable to participate and from which group they benefit most.

Using this method helped to visualize aspects that would not become obvious through oral communication (Cornwall and Jewkes 1995: 1671). Through the exercise, the women realized that they participate in many different organizations which created enthusiasm among the

participants. For the purpose of data collection, the exercise revealed quickly in which groups no or only few women participate so that the discussion after the exercise could focus on the

obstacles to enter these groups.

I organized a second exercise to discuss the responsibilities of citizens, the state, and other actors (see Picture 2 below). I chose the example of education which was mentioned several times during interviews and focus groups. I placed several pictures on a poster which represent different actors, such as citizens, parents, teacher, community groups and the government. My research assistant explained which pictures represent which actor. After this, my research assistants asked the participants who they consider as responsible for different tasks, such as finance or content of education. After each question, the participants posted sticky notes on the pictures of all actors who they consider as responsible. In this exercise, not all participants seemed to be entirely clear about how to use the sticky notes. Because of this, I do not use the number of sticky notes on each picture as data. Nevertheless, the method proved useful to engage all participants so that the discussion afterwards was more dynamic than during the focus groups.

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2.5. Analysis of data

During the first phase of analysis, I moved from the original data towards abstraction. I

transcribed all interviews as well as discussions during focus groups and participatory exercises. Afterwards, I analyzed the transcribed texts as well as the program documents, case studies, and notes of the participant observations with the help of the content management software atlas.ti. I used the codes “views on community”, “performing citizenship”, “state-citizen relations”, and “other aspects”. The codes were assigned to all text passages that refer to the particular aspect of citizenship.

After coding the texts with atlas.ti, I created a separate table for each group of actors with the different aspects of notions of citizenship (view on the community, performing citizenship, state-citizen relations, others). Every row presented another interview, group discussion,

participant observation or document. The different text passages were sorted into the table so that I gained an overview about which actor said what about a particular aspect of citizenship. After I created the tables, I coded all quotes with a similar content with the same color until all text

Picture 1: The research assistant discusses the findings with the participants

Picture 2: The participants place sticky notes on the responsible actors

Contested concepts of gendered citizenship in Western Nepal : Dalit women as actors and targets in social mobilization courses