Getting and Keeping a Foot in the Door: Strategies by Migrant and Informal Sector Women to Remain Relevant in the Labour Market

This work was supported by Mistra Urban Futures Abstract United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 5 and 8 focus on gender equality; decent work and economic growth respectively. The achievement of these goals requires a realization that gender parity is significant to the growth of global economies, and that meaningful inclusion of women in the labour market is a major contributor to reducing the global gender gap. Over the years, there has been an increase in the participation of women in the labour market. Despite the various measures put in place, this inclusion continues to be hampered by structural and cultural factors. However stereotypic roles and responsibilities as well as systematic structural inequalities within the labour market continue to serve as barriers to optimal involvement and participation in gainful employment. This article seeks to explore these gender related inequalities that threaten to exacerbate women’s economic vulnerability and dependence for specific localized groups of women in Kenya and Sweden. Using a framework based on structure, culture and agency, the article illuminates how these women navigate challenges presented by the nature of the job, multiplicity of roles and language as an empowering tool. Key insights from the study established that the women in the different contexts experienced similar threats and used their agency to maneuver these so as to participate as effectively as they could in the labour market. The coping mechanisms employed by these women present opportunities for policy makers and advisors in both contexts to explore in the quest to improve women’s participation in the workforce. Keywords: Gender, Labour Market, Migrants, Informal Sector, Social Networks, Agency. DOI: 10.7176/RHSS/9-22-02 Publication date: November 30th 201

Exploring pitfalls of participation and ways towards just practices through a participatory design process in Kisumu, Kenya

It is my belief that participatory processes can lead to positive transformations for the people involved. However, I do at the same time recognize that participation is inherently ambiguous and complex, and that this makes it vulnerable to unjust practices. It is this view of participation that led me to a focus on challenges that can emerge in participatory processes, or as they will be referred to in this thesis: pitfalls. The purpose is to explore pitfalls of participation, especially regarding when, how and why participatory practices lead to unjust forms of participation. My experience of being engaged as a Swedish researcher in a participatory design project in a Kenyan context, and critical reflections on this experience serve as the foundation for this exploration. The project concerns small-scale ecotourism development in a fishing village on the shores of Lake Victoria in Western Kenya, where I worked with the development of ecotourism-related products and services in a participatory manner with a local guide group and residents, and with PhD student colleagues from Sweden and Kenya. A number of pitfalls are highlighted as particularly problematic, which are connected to either abstracted and simplistic conceptualizations of participants and their participation, or to an unjust role distribution in projects. The terms community, empowerment and ownership are used to exemplify how the use of vague and elusive words to describe participation tends to hide participant diversity or lead to overstatements regarding the benefits derived from the project. I discuss how an unjust access to knowledge resources between actors who are to collaborate closely together hinder co-production of knowledge, and I acknowledge how designers’ and design researchers’ prejudices and a cultural unawareness can lead to some groups not being recognized as important. The aim is to contribute with methodological guidance regarding how researchers and practitioners can identify and work against the pitfalls that they come across in their practice, and towards achieving just participation

Exploring pitfalls of participation and ways towards just practices through a participatory design process in Kisumu, Kenya

It is my belief that participatory processes can lead to positive transforma- tions for the people involved. However, I do at the same time recognize that participation is inherently ambiguous and complex, and that this makes it vulnerable to unjust practices. It is this view of participation that led me to a focus on challenges that can emerge in participatory processes, or as they will be referred to in this thesis: pitfalls. The purpose is to explore pitfalls of participation, especially regarding when, how and why participatory practices lead to unjust forms of partici- pation. My experience of being engaged as a Swedish researcher in a participatory design project in a Kenyan context, and critical reflections on this experience serve as the foundation for this exploration. The project concerns small-scale ecotourism development in a fishing village on the shores of Lake Victoria in Western Kenya, where I worked with the development of ecotour- ism-related products and services in a participatory manner with a local guide group and residents, and with PhD student colleagues from Sweden and Kenya. A number of pitfalls are highlighted as particularly problematic, which are connected to either abstracted and simplistic conceptualizations of par- ticipants and their participation, or to an unjust role distribution in projects. The terms community, empowerment and ownership are used to exemplify how the use of vague and elusive words to describe participation tends to hide participant diversity or lead to overstatements regarding the benefits de- rived from the project. I discuss how an unjust access to knowledge resources between actors who are to collaborate closely together hinder co-production of knowledge, and I acknowledge how designers’ and design researchers’ prejudices and a cultural unawareness can lead to some groups not being recognized as important. The aim is to contribute with methodological guidance regarding how researchers and practitioners can identify and work against the pitfalls that they come across in their practice, and towards achieving just participation

From disciplines to common ground and actions: reflections on a transdisciplinary project in Kisumu, Kenya

Scholars have acknowledged that research staying within its own discipline tends to only investigate one level of reality, which hinders our understanding of the world we live in, and fails to address contemporary social issues. The concept of transdisciplinarity has emerged as an alternative approach that enables researchers to go beyond their discipline, reaching knowledge that risk to otherwise get lost in the gaps between fields and between academia and practice. The importance of working transdisciplinary is frequently mentioned in design, especially when dealing with participatory design and sustainable social advancement in developing countries. However, although seen as important, collaboration between disciplines is often only noted in passing. Other fields are acknowledged primarily by a definition of their discipline, or referred to as non-designers. Also, designers seem to mainly carry out the discussion in a design context, from a design perspective.This is relevant in order to evolve the disciplinary knowledge, however other fields tacklethe same issues as designers, often in the same context. Transdisciplinary research also includes practitioners and the society. The involvement of these stakeholders is seen to be the core of participatory design, however there are few studies that incorporate their perceptions of the process.The paper aims to explore how it is possible to work with the challenge of moving beyond disciplinary boundaries in order to reach knowledge integration in transdisciplinary projects. This is done through a reflection on an ecotourism development project in Dunga Beach, Kisumu, Kenya, where the authors’research areas of design and marketing and the collaboration with local stakeholders enabled the project to be set in the borderland between fields, as well as between research and practice. The findings indicate a need for support structures that allow stakeholders to find a common ground, and for focus to be placed on actions rather than disciplines

Designing For or Designing With?

A major challenge for social design is related to roles, and the relationshipbetween designers and those that a design proposal is intended for. Humancentreddesign processes are supposed to start with the people we are designingfor. However, by using the phrase “designing for” instead of “designing with”, it is implied that something will be delivered, rather than created in collaboration.Similarly local stakeholder ownership is often highlighted as important. Yet, theunderlying framework is most often set by a design team: it is they who set thetopic, own the tools, and therefore have control and power over the process. Itneeds to be recognized that by doing so, alternative views might be pushed back,and we might not notice what topics are left out or who is being excluded. Thepurpose of this paper is to contribute to a more nuanced discussion of socialdesign by problematizing the concepts of local stakeholder ownership, roles andpower. This is done through a critical reflection of the authors’ own activeinvolvement in a social design project in Kisumu, Kenya

Value co-cration in tourism experiences

The value of tourism from a consumer perspective occurs when the tourist interacts with people, objects, and surroundings before, during and after an experience. However these encounters are not only important for the tourist\u27s value of the experience but it also creates value for the service provider, other tourists, local residents and the destination as a whole. The value occurs in the co-creation, and an understanding of this co-creation of value is a key issue in order to develop theory on tourism experiences. The paper presents an example of how a conceptual grid proposed by Eide and Mossberg (2013) can be used to understand co-creation of value in tourism by referring to a case of destination development in Dunga beach, Kisumu, Kenya. The purpose is to understand different degrees of co-creation in tourism offerings and to give implications for how the grid can be used as a base for developing co-created experiences.The main implications are that the grid visualises the performance of tourism offerings in both a holistic and particular way. By these visualisations it is possible to study and analyse the present state of the tourist offerings as well as to elaborate on movements in the grid to enhance idea generation, which may result in new or improved co-created experiences. Using different types of interactions in the grids reveals for example that the roles of the guides are closely related to and differ depending on the degree of co-creation. In a fully co-created experience, the guides\u27 roles are not only facilitators but as friends on an equal level of knowledge and performance. It also exposes that tourists\u27 interactions with residents are important for mutual understanding, not least in developing countries such as Kenya, where it is seen as important to include local residents in tourism development, from planning to implementation

Participatory Design Tools in Place Branding

This paper discusses why participatory design tools are suitable for modern place branding. First we give an overview of the academic area of current place branding theory, followed by an overview of the academic area of participatory design. We then discuss problems in place brand-ing theory and how participatory design tools could be used to overcome them. Finally we turn to empirical examples where we have experimented with participatory design tools in a place branding process, ending with a summary and suggestions for further research

Community‐based tourism development - a designerly approach to destination branding

The purpose of this paper is to widen the sometimes too managerial view of place and destinationbranding into the discipline of design. By using a designerly approach, the concept of capturing andbuilding brand equity is seen as an evolutionary and creative process, open to the involvement of thecommunity. This is in contrast to the tapping of a place’s identity into common values that couldapply for any place in the world, and the use of linear processes without taking advantages of thespecific conditions for the place.Theoretical perspectives are obtained from two angles: place branding with an emphasis tomarketing, and design theory with a participatory approach. In order to exemplify the role of designin a place branding context, the authors’ own experiences of being actively involved in thedevelopment process at an ecotourism destination in Kenya are declared. By adopting an openapproach and the process of reflection in action, the authors continuously reframed the problemsetting, developed and adapted actions throughout in order to suit the specific context.Both practical and theoretical results were obtained. Practical ideas and actions for developmentwere produced, that takes the local needs, prerequisites, and its unique features into consideration.Five main implications for adopting a designerly way into the field of place branding were outlined:connection to context, open process, community participation, idea generation and communicationthrough visualization. The contribution is a better understanding of the benefits of design, as well asan understanding of the importance of the specific context in place branding