A photographic update...

     Well, it's certainly been a while since I've updated this--seems like other social media options (and limited internet in the field) have kept me away...  Anyway, what better way to re-invigorate than with a few pictures.

With Tanzanian seaweed farmers on a site visit/feasibility study for the Seattle seaweed NGO; this seaweed is going in your toothpaste, your soup, your soap...

In the back row with my default "upper-left gaze" portrait stance; these are my students from my two ESL/ICT classes in Seattle (and, on the right, the mayor came to their graduation!)

After the end of the Gates Foundation grant for ESL/ICT classes, I took my savings and finally studied Hindi in the foothills of the Himalayas--this sign is boasting of the charms of "Mini Switzerland" (third line) around the Tungnath/Chopta Hindu pilgrimage site.

A bit of traveling as well--in this case, it's debatable whether Matthew or the Golden Temple is the photographic attraction in Amritsar.

Travels in India were followed by base management in the field in the Democratic Republic of Congo--humanitarian work really does look like this, especially when you're in charge of logistics for Echo-funded projects in LRA areas.  (And thanks to Richard, who's doing the heavy lifting here...)

Richard again doing the heavy rope-tightening--the cars are about to head about 300 km out into the field to deliver medicines and medical supervisors to the health clinics we supported.  Unfortunately, Echo funds pulled out, and consequently so did we, but I had about a year of managing everything--Logs, Finance, Security, Communications, etc.--as chef de base.

Whither Gender Studies courses--I never get to read this sort of thing anymore

From Wimps to Wild Men: Bipolar Masculinity and the Paradoxical Performances of Tom Cruise 

(hopefully) Masculinities

     Just looking at the title of this again--I put together this web page as a compendium of masculinities and GAD resources, but seeing that title has made me think about my own experience of masculinities and development in the IGO/NGO world.  It's an established and discouraging fact that some huge percentage (around 80, I believe, but I'm going to assume it's changing and not look up the number!) of masculinities/development researchers in the world are female.  While that doesn't matter to the research, it does highlight the fact that research on masculinities and development has grown out of gender and development work, a field that itself grew out of Women and Development.  Women and Development research and work was devoted to elevating the status of women in LDCs and redressing the inequalities of their lives--unsurprisingly, there was much overlap with the feminist movement and almost everyone working in the field was female.
     My thesis at Bristol was on the evolution of this system--now apparently organizations are supposed to be concentrating on "gender" and the interconnectedness of relationships in a society.  At UNESCO and other UN organizations gender is a "cross-cutting" issue--it's supposed to be involved in the planning and mobilization of every project.  Too often, however, it's simply a box to be checked--"I have thought about gender in the creation of my project"--and plays no real role in project planning or execution.
      In this system, which makes gender (along with HIV/AIDS and various MDGs, depending on the organization) an issue that hangs over everything, real thinking about gender disappears in the nebulousness of responsibility.  A "cross-cutting" issue is certainly everywhere, but there is no real responsibility to implement it, just to acknowledge that you've thought about it.  As such, Gender and Development work is limited to the small sections of IGOs and NGOs that deal with gender.  These sections, understandably uncomfortable with the marginalization of their supposedly all-important issue, concentrate on something very concrete--women's rights.  Issues of masculinities and development, which grew out of an all-encompassing gender and development outlook, do not even enter the picture.
     There are newer, specific masculinities-focused organizations now, but as for MAD entering the overall mindset of UN organizations or international NGOs, we still have to hope.

Some past gender exploits (warning: envy-inducing globe-trotting to follow)

With rockstar fellow Gender and IR MSc candidates in Bristol--in this photo I constitute the highest percentage of males in any gender-related organization I've ever worked with...

The view from my window (I kid you not) at the Division for Gender Equality at UNESCO HQ, Paris

A suave and suited UNESCO stagiare

UN-INSTRAW (United Nations International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women) HQ in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic--site of Haitian remittance research, care chains reporting and excellent fried lunch deliveries

UN-INSTRAW, to reiterate, is in the Dominican Republic...

After Santo Domingo I worked with GFDD in New York (with no photographic record, so here's a shot of me and Lil, whose Alaskan research prompted the year of glacier guiding between tropical gender work)

Undaunted by my one obvious disqualification, I head to work in Manila

The Gabriella revolutionary songstresses at a WGNRR-sponsored rally in Manila.