Validating women’s knowledge and experiences: A case study of women’s experiences and food security in Kenya
This paper (PDF) in Pathways to African Feminism and Development, Journal of African Women’s Studies Centre aims at demonstrating that women’s experiences and knowledge about food security are critical in order to create inclusive and more comprehensive policies in food security. Using a feminist theoretical framework, the author argues that women’s knowledge and experiences have remained invisible and underutilized by policy makers and development workers. One reason for this is that research methods have themselves been products of a male knowledge development process and thus have enhanced exclusion and marginalization of women’s perspectives. To overcome this, this research has used women friendly methodologies, such as oral testimonies an focus group discussions, to access women’s knowledge on food security. The author argues that much of the knowledge of the rural women has not been tapped in to. There is a need to capture and utilize the knowledge of women to ensure transformative development in Africa