In most societies, social life and patterns are determined by structures, or institutions, which shape forms, habits, and habitus of individuals (e.g., Sewell 1992; Giddens 2006; Ritzer 2008; Plummer 2010). Likewise, various social theorists have argued that in governance, institutions
provide the socially constructed and shifting spaces for individuals or actors that constitute or are affected by them (Stoker 1998; Laugharne 2003; Gaventa 2006). In his classic, The Production of Space, French Marxist Sociologist Henri Lefebvre argues that: “space is social: it involves assigning more or less appropriated places to social relations....social space has thus always been a social product” (1991:186-187). For Lefebvre, all struggles and achievements take place in space, and social spaces are humanly ‘produced’ spaces that are defined, perceived and vivified in various ways. Lefebvre asserts that space is “...a dynamic, humanly constructed means of control and hence domination, of power”, and can therefore be explored through examining social (and power) relations, and what he calls the ‘spatial dialectic’ of identities, activities, discourses and images (1991:24). Expanding on Lefebvre’s analysis of the constituents of space, Churchland (1995:123) describes social space as a ‘metaphor’, an ‘intricate space’ of aspects or actions such as obligations, duties, entitlements, prohibitions, infatuations, legitimate expectations, and collective ideals.
Developing societies also have institutions that tend to affect the ‘social order’ of access to resources and participatory governance, its patterns, and the actions of men and women across time and space in varying ways. Recognising space as a lens for viewing power and difference in participatory practices, Andrea Cornwall distinguishes ‘political space’, ‘policy space’ and ‘space for participation’ and reminds us that the structure and organisation of spaces shapes the participation process (2002:2). Cornwall goes on to suggest a range of participatory spaces as ‘closed spaces’, in which decision-making is done by a set of actors behind closed doors and with no inclusion; ‘invited spaces’ (such as co-management committees), into which users or beneficiaries are invited to participate by authorities such as government or non-governmental organisations; and ‘claimed/created spaces’ or ‘organic spaces’, which are claimed by less powerful actors from or against the power-holders, or created more autonomously by them and come into view as a result of common concerns or identifications or even popular mobilisation around identity or issue-based concerns (2002:24). Gender represents one of the identity realms that determine who is included or excluded in participatory spaces.
Thus, building on Lefebvre’s views of spaces as means of power and control, John Gaventa reminds us that institutions determine which actors exist in a particular society and that these
institutions determine their roles, levels of engagement and power. Gaventa continues that examining gender and power does not stop at private or intimate spaces, but also includes ‘public’ spaces or ‘local arenas’ which provide what he calls “arenas of everyday life in which people are able to resist power and to construct their own voice” (2004:36). Others position themselves in Foucauldian modes of power to argue that power determines which actors are included or excluded and whose knowledge is acknowledged (e.g., Mouffe 1996; Sibley 1995, in Cooke and Kothari 2001:146; Cornwall 2002; Gaventa 2006; Hickey and Mohan 2004). Cornwall (2002) and Gaventa (2004) further add that the diversity of actors makes participatory governance spaces not truly democratic due to:
• unequal decision-making processes;
• failure to facilitate participation of some vital actors or groups, such as women and the very poor, or what de Certeau calls ‘a purification of space’(Cooke and Kothari 2001:147) that entrenches rejection or exclusion; and
• the reproduction of unequal power relations through domination by a few individuals with more power to make decisions.
A common and often ignored feature of differentiation in these ‘undemocratic’ processes is gender, or what it means to be a man or a woman (Franks 2001:86; Cornwall 2003), as elucidated in Sections 3.5 and 3.6, and Chapter Seven.
As noted earlier, institutions provide spaces for actors to gain or control access to resources and to participate in their governance. These institutions and spaces are not gender neutral and have heterogeneous actors, comprising of men and women and other marginalised groups. A more sociological and broader perspective requires viewing social institutions as gendered so as to discern the extent to which the overall institutional structure and character of particular institutional areas are formed by and through gender.
3.2.2 Institutions, Processes and Gender
In the previous sub-section, we have noted that social spaces are socially constructed and are not gender neutral. As some theorists explain, gender entails relations of power and domination that operate beyond the individual to include all levels of social structure or external ‘larger entities’ such as institutions, social processes, cultures and organisations (e.g., Aries 1996; Wharton
2005:54). Through their ‘organised or established patterns’ (Wharton 2005:65), institutions tend to be gendered in their processes, practices, images and ideologies, and, eventually in how they distribute resources and power, and this shapes the distribution of benefits, burdens, actions, roles, and political voice (Blake 2001; Scott 2001). In many cases, social institutions produce and reproduce gendered distinctions and inequalities that disadvantage women and marginalised groups (e.g., Acker 1992; Kabeer 1999; Cornwall 2001; Cornell 2002). In her authoritative work, Gendered Institutions, Joan Acker points out this impasse with specific regard to participation:
...politics, the state are institutions historically developed by men, currently dominated by men, and symbolically interpreted from the standpoint of men in leading positions, both in the present and historically. These institutions have been defined by the absence of women. In spite of many changes bringing women into all institutions, and the reclaiming of women's history that shows their earlier important participation, males still dominate the central institutions.
(1992:567)
Acker further posits that investigating gender and the distribution of power in social structures requires us to examine four inherently connected processes and (organizational) practices, whether obvious or invisible:
• overt decisions and procedures that control, segregate, exclude, and construct hierarchies based on gender and other sources of difference such as class;
• the construction of images, symbols, and ideologies that justify, explain, and give legitimacy to institutions, and in which ‘hegemonic masculinity’ leads to the portraying of a ‘successful organization’ as one that is aggressive, goal oriented, competitive, efficient, but rarely supportive, kind, and caring;
• processes of interaction between individuals and groups as the medium for institutional functioning, decision making and image production; and
• ‘internal processes’ in which individuals engage as they construct personas appropriately gendered for the institutional setting, such as gender identity and appropriate female or male demeanour and behaviour in institutional politics, which may also vary by class, race, and ethnic location (1992:567-568).
Based on Acker’s assertions, it is clear that a starting point for understanding gender in water governance would be the broader society in which water is delivered and managed at different
levels. This would also entail examining processes such as ‘mechanisms’ of access to water; decision making through meetings and how they are socially legitimated; and the institutional or organisational politics that shape how poor women, men, and marginalised groups are included or excluded in water governance, as explored in Chapters Five, Six and Seven.
Therefore, institutions, processes and relations are about power, and how one gender group dominates the other in ways that are socially and historically determined. In water governance, access to water, a scarce and precious resource in rural developing communities, and participation in activities that govern individuals occur through spaces characterised by relationships of power and control, as examined in Chapters Five and Seven. We shall now explore power, domination and discourse, and how these play out in governance and participatory processes from a gender perspective.
3.3 Power, Domination and Discourse