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Invoking Gyana,* Women's Knowing, as a Vehicle for Rebellion
A background paper by Devaki Jain, December 27, 2006
* The gyana meaning is knowledge, often in the pratyaxa=immediate sense, hence "experience". Knowing, namely gyana, is power. Knowledge is universal; it can be in a book or in a computer. Anyone can and should have access to it. Knowing is individual and cannot be transferred to someone else. Others can perceive it, observe it and get influenced by it, but it cannot be transferred directly.
I My purpose
In my analysis of successful, in the sense of enduring, revolution, I found that what is needed is an idea and this has to be backed by a mass movement. Whether it was Marx who had an idea that generated the interest of the working class, and bound them together in revolution,- an idea that still stays with us and inspires; or Gandhi whose ideas generated effective mass movements of resistance. It seems that there is need for a synergy of the two. My analysis of Gandhi's technique encourages me to think that an idea, a rebellious idea, backed by resistance, backed by mass mobilization can in fact generate a peaceful revolution. Gandhi called it satyagraha (1), satya meaning truth; and agraha meaning affirmation.
Further, my investigation of the historical evolution of women's efforts, - through my recent book and the innumerable exposures I have had, to experience on the ground, through field work and participation in meetings, in India; as well as all the many world and regional conferences, whether as struggle or as uncovering of knowledge, or challenging the existent/the given - suggests that women, especially their knowledge, their knowing, Gyana, can be the new entrant which can construct a theory/that idea , and re shape the current world order .
It is also my reading of history that campaigning by itself, is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for change. There has to be a core theory,- in fact theory survives history even more than practice as we see from Marx and Gandhi - so an analytically powerful idea, a truth which grips the imagination, and the felt need of a mass, has an impact which makes a difference .
In this context, what I would like to see happening in Casablanca is a collective drawing on the "well" of women's knowing, gyana, in order to reconstruct or birth an "idea", a truth out of the collective experience of women's thinking /-intellection/ knowing. The idea or analysis , has to be such that it grips the women's movement, which I postulate as the "mass"., and lead them to rebellion, to satyagraha .
In working on my recent book I found that every possible conduit was used by women to reveal what Faye Harrison so beautifully calls "Difference,(In)equality and Justice" (2): Uncovering of facts, new facts, facts that denied or invalidated old facts; covert and overt strategizing in large and small public forums, both scholarly as well as policy oriented, massive campaigning over decades in ever widening circles of coverage. But the trudge and crunch of the "traditional" thinking, the old categories , have not changed nor accommodated the revolutionary aspects of women's knowing. gyana,
At Casablanca through the method of dialogue, twelve? or more or less of us, not Apostles [!!] but thinking women, will I hope, sit and talk to each other, relate to the women weavers of carpets from the Atlas mountains, with whom Fatema is writing a book called - "The Flying Berber Carpet Enigma". They will be our tethering in reality.
We will see if all the experience we have, - lived, scholarly, learnt from the ground; and all the desires we have to create a more hospitable space for the less privileged, or deprived, of our locations, can lead to some ideas and related strategies. It is a quest ...
I have hope, and some confidence that we can get to identify the first steps, a frame work, a core bundle of items, a push towards that goal in the two and a half days that we will have. I say this because, nearly 20 years ago, a similar amongst, namely that the rhetoric and the programmes and the frameworks- which had been developed after the Mexico Conference in 1975,- were not only, not relieving the pressure on poor women, but were exacerbating it, - led me to do a review paper which I called "Development as if women Mattered, Can women build a new paradigm?" (3). I circulated it to friends with whom I had made the journey between1975 and 1983, and invited them to a meeting, in Bangalore in 1984, which later led to the designing or creating of a different framework, than the one that the UN was using for the Nairobi conference, shifting dramatically the WID approach, and the founding of the now well known DAWN network and book.
At that Bangalore meeting, it would not surprise you to know, that it was Fatema Mernissi, who with one impatient stroke, moved us away from nibbling , and fumbling at the fringes of the given UN and WID framework, to looking at regional macro crises. It is that intervention, done with Fatema's well known impatience with conventional reasoning, which led to the DAWN book; flagging the macro economic situation as the location for analyzing poor womens situation, and opportunities or impediments. It is my hope that this same miracle will happen here, in the atmosphere created by Fatema and her presence, to find that flash of imagination and inspiration that will take us away from the given to something new and useful .
I would reveal here that my basic interest is in enabling women in poverty to walk out of it, or not to be trapped into it.
II What got me started are
1. Women's gyana.:
My book, Women, Development and the UN , A Sixty Year quest for Equality and justice 2005 (4) which has been sent to all of you , was one of the triggers that made me undertake this journey of calling such a meeting . It seemed women were challenging given Knowledge and providing new knowledge, apart from ways of constructing knowledge, their gyana.
...
In my analysis of successful, in the sense of enduring, revolution, I found that what is needed is an idea and this has to be backed by a mass movement. Whether it was Marx who had an idea that generated the interest of the working class, and bound them together in revolution,- an idea that still stays with us and inspires; or Gandhi whose ideas generated effective mass movements of resistance. It seems that there is need for a synergy of the two. My analysis of Gandhi's technique encourages me to think that an idea, a rebellious idea, backed by resistance, backed by mass mobilization can in fact generate a peaceful revolution. Gandhi called it satyagraha (1), satya meaning truth; and agraha meaning affirmation.
Further, my investigation of the historical evolution of women's efforts, - through my recent book and the innumerable exposures I have had, to experience on the ground, through field work and participation in meetings, in India; as well as all the many world and regional conferences, whether as struggle or as uncovering of knowledge, or challenging the existent/the given - suggests that women, especially their knowledge, their knowing, Gyana, can be the new entrant which can construct a theory/that idea , and re shape the current world order .
It is also my reading of history that campaigning by itself, is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for change. There has to be a core theory,- in fact theory survives history even more than practice as we see from Marx and Gandhi - so an analytically powerful idea, a truth which grips the imagination, and the felt need of a mass, has an impact which makes a difference .
In this context, what I would like to see happening in Casablanca is a collective drawing on the "well" of women's knowing, gyana, in order to reconstruct or birth an "idea", a truth out of the collective experience of women's thinking /-intellection/ knowing. The idea or analysis , has to be such that it grips the women's movement, which I postulate as the "mass"., and lead them to rebellion, to satyagraha .
In working on my recent book I found that every possible conduit was used by women to reveal what Faye Harrison so beautifully calls "Difference,(In)equality and Justice" (2): Uncovering of facts, new facts, facts that denied or invalidated old facts; covert and overt strategizing in large and small public forums, both scholarly as well as policy oriented, massive campaigning over decades in ever widening circles of coverage. But the trudge and crunch of the "traditional" thinking, the old categories , have not changed nor accommodated the revolutionary aspects of women's knowing. gyana,
At Casablanca through the method of dialogue, twelve? or more or less of us, not Apostles [!!] but thinking women, will I hope, sit and talk to each other, relate to the women weavers of carpets from the Atlas mountains, with whom Fatema is writing a book called - "The Flying Berber Carpet Enigma". They will be our tethering in reality.
We will see if all the experience we have, - lived, scholarly, learnt from the ground; and all the desires we have to create a more hospitable space for the less privileged, or deprived, of our locations, can lead to some ideas and related strategies. It is a quest ...
I have hope, and some confidence that we can get to identify the first steps, a frame work, a core bundle of items, a push towards that goal in the two and a half days that we will have. I say this because, nearly 20 years ago, a similar amongst, namely that the rhetoric and the programmes and the frameworks- which had been developed after the Mexico Conference in 1975,- were not only, not relieving the pressure on poor women, but were exacerbating it, - led me to do a review paper which I called "Development as if women Mattered, Can women build a new paradigm?" (3). I circulated it to friends with whom I had made the journey between1975 and 1983, and invited them to a meeting, in Bangalore in 1984, which later led to the designing or creating of a different framework, than the one that the UN was using for the Nairobi conference, shifting dramatically the WID approach, and the founding of the now well known DAWN network and book.
At that Bangalore meeting, it would not surprise you to know, that it was Fatema Mernissi, who with one impatient stroke, moved us away from nibbling , and fumbling at the fringes of the given UN and WID framework, to looking at regional macro crises. It is that intervention, done with Fatema's well known impatience with conventional reasoning, which led to the DAWN book; flagging the macro economic situation as the location for analyzing poor womens situation, and opportunities or impediments. It is my hope that this same miracle will happen here, in the atmosphere created by Fatema and her presence, to find that flash of imagination and inspiration that will take us away from the given to something new and useful .
I would reveal here that my basic interest is in enabling women in poverty to walk out of it, or not to be trapped into it.
II What got me started are
1. Women's gyana.:
My book, Women, Development and the UN , A Sixty Year quest for Equality and justice 2005 (4) which has been sent to all of you , was one of the triggers that made me undertake this journey of calling such a meeting . It seemed women were challenging given Knowledge and providing new knowledge, apart from ways of constructing knowledge, their gyana.
...
(1) MK Gandhi, The story of my experiments with truth, The Navajivan Trust, 1927, Ahmedabad
(2) Faye Harrison's theme for the next ie 2007 meeting of the AAA American association of anthropologists . "Difference, (In)equality, & Justice."
(3) Devaki Jain, "Development as if Women Mattered" or "Can Women Build a New Paradigm?" Lecture at OEDC/DAC Meeting, Paris, January, 1983.
(4) Devaki Jain, Women, Development and the UN - A Sixty-Year Quest for Equality and Justice, UNIHP, IUP, Bloomington, USA, 2005
(...)(2) Faye Harrison's theme for the next ie 2007 meeting of the AAA American association of anthropologists . "Difference, (In)equality, & Justice."
(3) Devaki Jain, "Development as if Women Mattered" or "Can Women Build a New Paradigm?" Lecture at OEDC/DAC Meeting, Paris, January, 1983.
(4) Devaki Jain, Women, Development and the UN - A Sixty-Year Quest for Equality and Justice, UNIHP, IUP, Bloomington, USA, 2005
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