Barbara Thomas-Slayer with Clark University President John Bassett (left) and Dr. Bob Ross 

Gender and Participation in Development Symposium Celebrates the Work of Professor Barbara Thomas-Slayter and the Program for International Development and Social Change

On Friday, November 9, 2001, a group of scholars paid tribute to Professor Barbara Thomas-Slayter and the accomplishments of the Program for International Development in a daylong symposium titled "Gender and Participation in Development: All Things Considered." The diversity of the contributors and their topics illustrated the far-reaching and long-lasting impacts Thomas-Slayter and the ID Program have made in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the United States.

Throughout the morning panel session, the speakers interwove the importance of grassroots participation and capacity-building in local institutions. As overview commentator, Geography Professor Dianne Rocheleau remarked, "...what is really fascinating to me is how PRA and the treatment of participation here has gone from something about being rural to being something we can talk about in an urban context." Whether working with minority youth in Worcester, doing conservation work in New England, talking with foresters in Nepal, or considering the role of the state in Kenya, the participatory approaches devised at Clark provide the tools necessary for analysis and action.

The second panel highlighted the high value that Clark University has placed on the importance of gender issues in development. As with the first panel, there was impressive representation of IDCE alumni, and the panel's gender theme linked strongly to issues of participation. Observing the overlap between topics discussed and the themes rising to the surface, Rocheleau noted, "This group is partly a demonstration of the working of social networks. These [networks] do not just happen in villages. They are not just things that we see in other places. We are all profoundly embedded in networks..." 

Keynote speaker, Edna Adan Ismail, the former first lady of Somalia and a political leader and activist, added to the broad spectrum of topics covered in the morning and afternoon sessions. She spoke on the roles of women in the reconciliation and development of Somalia. Ismail described her experiences in overcoming obstacles to build the first hospital for women and children in the capital of Somaliland.

The symposium was a dynamic and thought-provoking day on the topics of participation and gender in development. It underscored the networks that have been established and the linkages created as result of Professor Thomas-Slayter's teaching and fieldwork. At the end of the symposium, Rocheleau concluded, "We also had some discussion today about the connection between local and larger communities or local and larger systems. We need to reframe what happened above from what we can understand below and we need to begin knitting webs, which is what many people here today do."

Anne-Marie Urban (ID/M.A. '91), who now works for the Inter-American Development Bank, presented "Beyond Rhetoric: Moving Gender and Participation to the Center of Development Practice in Latin America and the Caribbean."