Women’s Collective Action and the Village Law: How Women are Driving Change and Shaping Pathways for Gender-inclusive Development in Rural Indonesia

Abstract

This study on Women’s Collective Action and the Village Law seeks to understand in what contexts, to what extent and through what mechanisms has local collective action by women influenced the implementation of the Village Law. And, what has been the role for CSOs in this process. The study draws on research conducted in nine provinces, 12 districts, and 14 villages—from Sumatra, to Java, to Kalimantan, Sulawesi, and East and West Nusa Tenggara.

Pathways of Change through Women’s Collective Action: How Women are Overcoming Barriers and Bucking Trends to Influence Rural Development in Indonesia

“…Yet, as we see in the case studies in this volume, the range of initiatives funded is more diverse in the research areas where women have had at least some influence on village development priority setting. That is not to say that infrastructure and economic development have not also been prioritised in the research villagesindeed, as we see in Diprose, Savirani, Setiawan and Francis (2020), and in the case studies in this volume, women have also prioritised developing infrastructure, for example facilities for Early Childhood Education and Integrated Health Posts, and have sought to develop village enterprises that support livelihoods, both for women and for the broader community. In the North Hulu Sungai research village, for example, women have spurred the development of new village-owned enterprises to diversify livelihood options (Cahyati and Cahyaningrum, 2020).…”

“…The cases presented in this compendium illustrate the different types of changes that women have directly experienced in relation to their everyday wellbeing, but also have implications for women's changing influence at different levels-institutionally and in broader social and political contexts. Underlying such changes has been women's growing gender awareness, knowledge, capacities, and networks that have resulted in their collective action, along with the variety of forms of support from and collaboration with CSOs (see Diprose, Savirani, Setiawan and Francis, 2020;.…”

“…Across the case studies, we see many factors that contribute to this variability. We discuss three main factors in this overview-context factors (that being the features of the enabling environment at the village and district levels), the core issues and challenges that women and CSOs supporting them are seeking to tackle, and the nature as well as types of collective action undertaken to advocate for change (for further detailed comparative analysis see Diprose, Savirani, Setiawan and Francis, 2020).…”

“…Batliwala, 2019). This edited volume of case studies seeks to contribute to filling this gap by providing in-depth, within-case analysis of the processes by which women at the village level, bolstered by the support of civil society organisations (CSOs), have managed to influence the implementation of the Village Law in Indonesia (for comparative analysis see Diprose, Savirani, Setiawan and Francis [2020]). The cases explore examples of positive deviance, that being cases of how women have influenced village development under the Village Law through different forms of collective action, despite evidence of broader trends that suggests such influence is yet to have become the norm in the early implementation of the Law.…”

“…And finally, we explore some of the pathways by which such changes have occurred in the research areas, that being different contexts. For a more detailed, in-depth comparative analysis of these and many other aspects, including analysis of gender inclusion in policy and practice in additional research areas where no CSOs were active at the time of the research, and analysis of other quantitative datasets and of CSO strategies of village support and wider advocacy, see Diprose, Savirani, Setiawan and Francis (2020).…”