Area of Inquiry 8: Aspirations for Oneself

As a rights-based organization it is important to situate approaches to programming in people’s aspirations and priorities for themselves, regardless of project interventions’ technical focus. This is not something that should be blindly adopted or assumed but situated in the broader context of a gender analysis. As one CARE staff noted:

There is something very powerful about the limitations we place on ourselves about who we want to be and what we think that we can achieve. It encompasses our hopes, the limitations we expect society to put on us, our burdens and roles, and what kind of relationships we expect to have with others.

Thus, a foundational area of inquiry for gender analysis includes understanding women, men, girls and boys’ own aspirations and their relationship with broader norms and relationships surrounding their lives.

Agency	Structures	Relations	Related Tools
What are aspirations that men or women articulate for themselves? What are collective aspirations that men or women articulate for themselves as a group (kinship, women, class, caste, ethnicity, religion, sexuality, occupation, etc.)? What are the most pressing needs for women or men from your perspective? Why? What limitations do they place on their dreams in terms of who they want to be, what they can achieve and what can change?	How do women or men’s aspirations for themselves reflect or contrast norms? How do men, women, boys and girls see the environment around them changing within these aspirations or priorities? In terms of: Services available? Social norms and expectations? The natural environment or security issues? National or international level political or economic dynamics?	How would men and women, boys and girls envision their relationships evolving? Within the household level? In intimate relationships? As a group entity internally and in relation to others? Within the community (among peers, co-workers, fellow-citizens, local councils, religious or ethnic communities, etc.)? And with national or higher-level actors (civil society organizations, government, private enterprise, etc.)? How are these envisioned shifts different from the current status of relationships that men, women, boys and girls currently hold?	Appreciative Inquiry Defining empowerment through changes Sought in Agency, Structures and Relations Dream Tree Analyses Identifying Empowered Women and their Qualities Cognitive/Semantic Mapping

 

Special Consideration for Children and Adolescents

• What are children or adolescents’ dreams for their future? Do they have aspirations outside of the expected cultural/social norms? What would need to be different for these to be fulfilled?
  • How does this reflect social or cultural norms?
  • Their parents’ or teachers’ visions for children?
• Are there mentors or role models that support these aspirations? If so, who are they?

 

Reminder: Remain sensitive to the diverse and changing roles and relationships

• Trends and changes across time– how values, norms and expectations around gender have changed over the decades (positively and negatively) and what influences led to these changes.
• How different age groups(younger children, adolescents, adults and elderly) as well as marital status (unmarried, married, widowed, divorced) can make a difference to people’s lived experiences.
• The multiple roles and relationships both women and men maintain(for example, as sexual partners, household and clan members, citizens of a broader community, economic actors, etc.).