Getting in Touch with the Out of Reach: Fieldwork Strategies in Research on Women and Politics (South-West of Nigeria)
Researching women’s political representation in legislative policymaking provides an interesting lens to understand women’s struggle for political inclusion. Factors which could impede a systematic study of this subject include limited access to politicians who often become almost invisible once the...
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| Gepubliceerd in: | URI:https://journals.openedition.org/sources, |
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| Hoofdauteur: | |
| Formaat: | Article ou chapitre numérique |
| Taal: | Anglais |
| Gepubliceerd in: |
Sources
2024
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| Onderwerpen: | |
| Online toegang: | Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM |
| Samenvatting: | Researching women’s political representation in legislative policymaking provides an interesting lens to understand women’s struggle for political inclusion. Factors which could impede a systematic study of this subject include limited access to politicians who often become almost invisible once they get elected to public office on the one hand, and poor record-keeping culture of legislative assemblies which could restrict the traceability of past events and transparency of the current decision-making process on the other hand. In this article, I analyse the study of three sub-national legislative assemblies in the South-West of Nigeria, namely: Ekiti State House of Assembly (EKSHA), Lagos State House of Assembly (LSHA) and Ogun State House of Assembly (OGSHA). I give an account of how both formal and informal entries helped facilitate the gathering of data for the understanding of women’s struggle for power and their legislative policymaking activities in Nigeria. I begin by presenting my positionality as a male graduate student from a working-class background researching gender/women issues and the implication of this situation on the type of data I generate. Thereafter, I provide insights into how I navigated these assemblies to gain access to these lawmakers by articulating the kind of information I had hoped to get and what I eventually got. Then, I discuss women’s struggle for political inclusion, agency and their activities in legislative policymaking. I conclude by reflecting on the complementary roles of both formal and informal entries and how they shaped and enhanced the data gathering process. |
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