Digital Commons Network^™

The Heart Of Undine: The Im/Possibility To Love Under Water, Ulrike Hugo

Wagadu: A Journal of Transnational Women's & Gender Studies

This short story plays upon the myth of the water nymph, who out of love for a man gives up her previous existence and becomes mortal. Traumatized women, especially, often experience love in this tension of devotion and self-sacrifice. The text plays with a metaphorical language bordering lyricism and kitsch, it plays with exaggerated notions of love and projections and culminates in an ending which is predictable yet deviates from the myth.

Images Of Water And Woman In The Arts, Zdenka Kalnicka

Wagadu: A Journal of Transnational Women's & Gender Studies

Archetypal connection of woman and water is ambiguous: it includes the connection of water and woman with life as well as with death. The paper explores the ways, how two sides of this connection were depicted in the artworks created by women and men artists, focusing on their gender differentiated approach (Albín Brunovsk_ and Germaine Richier, Edward Burne-Jones and Edith Rimmington). As an inspiration for reconsideration of the relationship between Life and Death, the potential of old symbol of the frog as the symbol of birth, death and re-birth is examined (Susan Makov).

Women, Water And The Reclamation Of The Feminine, Colleen Kattau

Wagadu: A Journal of Transnational Women's & Gender Studies

This paper examines the relationship between water and women particularly in terms of representative cultural expressions that underlie women's recovery of water as a fundamental human right, and explores how deep knowledge and trust of earth's bounty sustains viable and effective social change campaigns such as the right to water movement. Drawing principally upon the sociocultural analysis of ecofeminist thinkers such as Vandana Shiva and Carolyn Merchant, as well as William Marks's work on water, I critique the nature-culture dichotomy underlying approaches to water as a 'resource', and try to undermine the accepted hierarchy of 'power over nature' which by …

“The Place Of Cool Waters”: Women And Water In The Slums Of Nairobi, Kenya, Chi-Chi Undie, Johannes John-Langba, Elizabeth Kimani

Wagadu: A Journal of Transnational Women's & Gender Studies

n this paper, we explore how women and young girls in two informal settlements in Nairobi, Kenya, are affected by water in its various forms. We analyze sixteen focus group discussions with women, girls in school, and girls out of school, focusing on their unique water experiences and concerns. Drawing on the strengths of qualitative data, we thickly describe how women navigate the water challenges prevalent in the urban slum context.

The Ladies Of The Water: Iemanjá, Oxum, Oiá And A Living Faith, Cláudia Cerqueira Do Rosario

Wagadu: A Journal of Transnational Women's & Gender Studies

The orishas Iemanjá , Oxum and Oiá are related to the forces of salt and fresh waters, and to the storms, and are objects of living worship not only in Brazil but also in parts of Africa - where they came from - and Americas. Based on their archetypal representations, this paper will be a reflection on the archetypes of the relationship woman/water and its symbolic implications, both in “sacred” and “profane” ways, still alive in contemporary culture.

The Changing Role Of Women In Watermanagement: Myths And Realities, Nandita Singh

Wagadu: A Journal of Transnational Women's & Gender Studies

Women and water are linked in several ways, an important pragmatic linkage being their role in water management. Several continuous efforts at positively transforming this role have been made during the last three decades, ranging from their improved role as domestic water managers to eliciting their greater participation in water management initiatives at community level. Studies tend to indicate that the anticipated ends of such exercises are universally achievable, in isolation of the prevailing social and cultural contexts where the women are placed. This paper seeks to unfold the realities underlying the universalistic claims regarding a transformed role for women …

Symbols Of Water And Woman On Selected Examples Of Modern Bengali Literature In The Context Of Mythological Tradition, Blanka Knotkova-Capkova

Wagadu: A Journal of Transnational Women's & Gender Studies

Woman-water homology appears in modern Bengali literature (namely poetry) in various aspects: as the archetypal symbol of creation and destruction, symbol of the womb as the beginning and end of life and rebirth (connoting both physical womb and eternal womb), and also of the womb as dark mysteriousness; a symbol of the continuation, preservation of life, symbol of transience and elusiveness, traditional male written poetic symbol of charm and beauty. In the demystifying, subversive (not only female) poetic imagination, it may also construct the symbol of eternal unity with the female principle, articulate a specific concept of female identity.

Gender Mainstreaming And Integration Of Women In Decision- Making: The Case Of Water Management In Samari-Nkwanta, Ghana, Nana Ama Serwah Poku Sam

Wagadu: A Journal of Transnational Women's & Gender Studies

Water, as a natural resource, is a basic necessity of life. In recent years, it has been recognized that community participation, especially by women, is essential to the success of water and sanitation projects in poor communities of developing countries. This research therefore focused on an assessment of how the conscious consideration of gender issues has affected the outcomes of the Samari-Nkwanta Water and Sanitation Project (SWSP) in the South-western part of Ghana.The study revealed that the involvement of women and men from the initial stages of project to the end helps to enhance more equitable participation and responsibility sharing.

How Beneficial Has Water Technology Been For Rural Nepalese Women?, Bhawana Upadhya

Wagadu: A Journal of Transnational Women's & Gender Studies

This paper aims to explore the effect of irrigation technology on women of rural Nepalese terai communities. This is done by looking at the effect of technological change on rural women of three different classes in terms of their absolute and relative access to income, food consumption and workload. The article also explores how technology adoption helps enhance rural women's bargaining power and how division of labor is gendered. Case study approach together with other participatory rural appraisal techniques had been used to gather field information.. The study reveals that even in a small social setting, gender identities prevail over …

Women Creating Social Capital And Social Change, Marilyn Gittell, Isolda Ortega-Bustamante, Tracey Steffy

Trotter Review

As Community Development Organizations (CDOs) are the primary vehicle for development in low-income neighborhoods, scholars have begun to examine them in terms of the degree to which they increase citizen participation, increase civic capacity, as well as stabilize and revitalize neighborhoods through the creation of social capital. According to Putnam, civic action requires the existence of social capital; he defines social capital as "norms, trust, and networks." As Gittell and Vidal note, there has been a "virtual industry of interest and action created around the implication of Putnam's findings for the development of low-income communities."

This article is an excerpt …

An Interview With Brooke Stephens, Nina Lanegra

Trotter Review

Desperate women losing a daily battle against the stranglehold and cycle of poverty: this is what comes to mind when I think of Women and Economic Development. It's an international picture, Third World countries struggling with the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. I was challenged to think of any linkage between Women and Economic Development on both an international and domestic level. My search led me to this interview with Brooke Stephens, author and Wall Street veteran of 15 years who has been a senior investment consultant. Stockbroker, and a Registered Investment Advisor. Ms. Stephens comments on financial …

Mariama Bâ And The Politics Of The Family, Laurie Edson

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

The Senegalese woman writer, Mariama Bâ, chronicles a changing society in post colonial Senegal, caught between the attraction of modernization and the resistance of traditional beliefs. Her award-winning novel, Une si longue lettre, is examined as an example of the kind of subversive "journalism-vérité" proposed by Paulin Hountondji: an anecdotal reconstruction of facts combined with organization and interpretation that leads readers to an awareness of the real conditions of daily life and exposes the structures that make them possible. Bâ's novel exemplifies this "return to the real" not only because Bâ speaks about and exposes the all-too-common reality of …

Sports Notes: Blacks And Private Golf Clubs, Wornie L. Reed

Trotter Review

This past summer racial progress in the United States ran head first into the issue of "freedom of association" in the form of private clubs that prohibit membership to "other" folk, i.e., blacks and women. The specific issue in the case of the Shoal Creek Country Club of Alabama was the appropriateness of holding a Professional Golf Association (PGA) tournament at a club that did not accept blacks as members and was so bold as to say so to the press.