This article identifies the ways in which researchers and practitioners situated in different institutions engage with different systems of knowledge in their study of gender in the context of development, and the implications it has on how these professionals work together. Key informant interviews with 25 gender specialists from universities, research organizations, NGOs, UN agencies and donors undertaken in Delhi, India, are used as an illustration. The study finds that researchers/practitioners perceive that they study gender in dissimilar ways based on differences in academic training, professional roles and explicit affiliation with feminism. In practice, however, they have adopted ‘pragmatic’ ways to bridge the epistemological divide between the perspectives of ‘gender and development’ and ‘feminism’. These pragmatic practices are visible in the ways in which they work with the government, academia and donor organizations. I voice their need to traverse the quantitative–qualitative divide in order to strengthen our understanding of gender. The study demonstrates that researchers can negotiate epistemological differences for the sake of achieving the common goal of gender justice. This is important as the field of research on gender expands globally, with the emergence of new sites of knowledge production and emphasis on numerical evidence.
AgarwalB. (2008). Why do women need independent rights in land? In JohnM. E. (Ed.), Women’s studies in India: A reader (pp. 175–184). New Delhi: Penguin Books.
2.
AgnihotriI., & MazumdarV. (1995). Changing terms of political discourse: Women’s movement in India, 1970s–1990s. Economic and Political Weekly, 30(29), 1869–1878.
3.
ArutyunovaA., & ClarkC. (2013). Watering the leaves, starving the roots: The status of financing for women’s rights and organizing and gender equality. Toronto: Association for Women’s Rights in Development.
4.
BatliwalaS. (2007). Taking the power out of empowerment: An experiential account. Development in Practice, 17(4–5), 557–567.
5.
BatliwalaS. (2013). Engaging with empowerment: An intellectual and experiential journey. New Delhi: Women Unlimited.
6.
BeckerH. S. (2017). Evidence. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.
7.
BeneriaL., BerikG., & FloroM. (2016). Gender, development and globalization: Economics as if all people mattered. New York, NY: Routledge.
8.
BéteilleA. (2000). Antinomies of society: Essays on ideologies and institutions. Delhi: Oxford University Press.
9.
BoserupE. (2007). Woman’s role in economic development. Wiltshire, UK: Cromwell Press.
10.
BourdieuP. (1975). The specificity of the scientific field and the social conditions of the progress of reason. Social Science Information, 16(6), 19–47.
11.
BourdieuP. & WacquantL. J. D. (1992). An invitation to reflexive sociology. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.
12.
BurawoyM. (2004). The world needs public sociology. Sosiologisk tidsskrift, 12(3), 255–272.
13.
CharmazK. (2001). Grounded theory. In EmersonR. M. (Ed.), Contemporary field research (pp. 335–352). Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press Inc.
14.
ChaudhuriM. (2010). The concept of gender: Its travels and travails. In ChaudhuriM. (Ed.), Sociology in India: Intellectual and institutional practices (pp. 381–399). Jaipur: Rawat Publications.
15.
CorbinJ., & StraussA. (1998). Basics of qualitative research: Techniques and procedures for developing grounded theory. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
16.
CornishF., & GillespieA. (2009). A pragmatist approach to the problem of knowledge in health psychology. Journal of Health Psychology, 14(6), 800–809.
17.
CornwallA., & EadeD. (Eds.) (2010). Deconstructing development discourse: Buzzwords and fuzzwords. Oxford, UK: Oxfam GB.
18.
CornwallA., & RivasA M. (2015). From ‘gender equality and ‘women’s empowerment’ to global justice: Reclaiming a transformative agenda for gender and development. Third World Quarterly, 36(2), 396–415.
19.
CornwallA., HarrisonE., & WhiteheadA. (2007). Gender myths and feminist fables: The struggle for interpretive power in gender and development. Development and Change, 38(1), 1–20.
20.
DenisJ. L., LehouxP., HivonM., & ChampagneF. (2003). Creating a new articulation between research and practice through policy? The views and experiences of researchers and practitioners. Journal of Health Services Research and Policy, 8(2), 44–50.
21.
DuramL. A. (2012). Pragmatic study. In SalkindN. J. (Ed.), Encyclopedia of research design (pp. 1073–1075). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications.
22.
DurkheimE. (1933). The division of labour in society. New York, NY: The Macmillan Company (Translated by George Simpson).
23.
EsquivelV. (2016). Power and the sustainable development goals: A feminist analysis. Gender and Development, 24(1), 9–23.
24.
HallS. (2001). Foucault: Power, knowledge and discourse. In WetherellM., TaylorS., & YatesS. J. (Eds.), Discourse theory and practice: A reader (pp. 72–81). London, UK: SAGE Publications.
25.
HarawayD. (1988). Situated knowledges: The science question in feminism and the privilege of partial perspective. Feminist Studies, 14(1), 575–599.
26.
HardingS. (1991). Whose science? Whose knowledge: Thinking from women’s lives. New York, NY: Cornell University Press.
27.
HayK. (2012). Engendering policies and programmes through feminist evaluation: Opportunities and insights. Indian Journal of Gender Studies, 19(2), 321–340.
28.
JohnM. E. (1996). Gender and development in India, 1970s-1990s: Some reflections on the constitutive role of contexts. Economic and Political Weekly, 31(47), 3071–3077.
29.
KabeerN. (1994). Reversed realities: Gender hierarchies in development thought. London, UK: Verso.
30.
KingK., & McGrathS. (2004). Knowledge for development: Comparing British, Japanese, Swedish and World Bank aid. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan.
31.
KishwarM. (2004). A horror of ‘isms’: Why I do not call myself a feminist. In ChaudhuriM. (Ed.), Feminism in India (pp. 26–51). New Delhi: Kali for Women and Women Unlimited.
32.
KloppenbergJ. T. (1996). Pragmatism: An old name for some new ways of thinking?Journal of American History, 83(1), 100–138.
33.
KrishnarajM. (2005). Research in women studies: Need for a critical appraisal. Economic and Political Weekly, 40(28), 3008–3017.
34.
KrishnarajM. (2006). Is ‘gender’ easy to study? Some reflections. Economic and Political Weekly, 41(42), 4440–4443.
35.
KrishnarajM. (2008). Women’s work in Indian census: Beginnings of change. In JohnM. E. (Ed.), Women’s studies in India: A reader (pp. 168–174). New Delhi: Penguin Books.
36.
LincolnY. S., & GubaE. G. (2000). Paradigmatic controversies, contradictions and emerging confluences. In DenzinN. K., & LincolnY. S. (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research (pp. 163–188). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications.
37.
MarshallM. N. (1996). The key informant technique. Family Practice, 13(1), 92–97.
38.
MazumdarV., & SharmaK. (1979). Women’s studies: New perceptions and the challenges. Economic and Political Weekly, 14(3), 113–120.
39.
MohantyC. T. (1988). Under western eyes: Feminist scholarship and colonial discourses. Feminist Review, 30(1), 61–88.
40.
MurthyR. K. (2018). Towards gender-transformative and feminist evaluations. In SudarshanR. M., & NandiR. (Eds.), Voices and values: The politics of feminist evaluation (pp. 15–39). New Delhi: Zubaan.
41.
PodemsD. R. (2010). Feminist evaluation and gender approaches: There’s a difference?Journal of MultiDisciplinary Evaluation, 6(14), 1–17.
42.
PurkayasthaB., SubramaniamM., DesaiM., & BoseS. (2003). The study of gender in India: A partial review. Gender and Society, 17(4), 503–534.
43.
RaiS. (2011). Gender and development: Theoretical perspectives. In VisvanathanN., DugganL., WiegersmaN., & NisonoffL. (Eds.), The women, gender and development reader (pp. 28–37). New York, NY: Zed Books.
44.
RazaviS., & MillerC. (1995). From WID to GAD: Conceptual shifts in the women and development discourse. Geneva: United Nations Research Institute.
45.
SenG., & GrownC. (1987). Development, crisis and alternative visions: Third world women’s perspectives. New York, NY: Monthly Review Press.
46.
StephanW. G. (2006). Bridging the researcher-practitioner divide in intergroup relations. Journal of Social Issues, 62(3), 597–605.
47.
SubrahmanianR. (2007). Making sense of gender in shifting institutional contexts: Some reflections on gender mainstreaming. In CornwallA., HarrisonE., & WhiteheadA. (Eds.), Feminisms in development: Contradictions, contestations and challenges (pp. 112–121). London: Zed Books.
48.
SudarshanR. M., & SharmaD. (2012). Gendering evaluations: Reflections on the role of the evaluator in enabling a participatory process. Indian Journal of Gender Studies, 19(2), 303–320.
49.
The World Bank (2012). World development report 2012: Gender equality and development. Washington, DC: The World Bank.
50.
TremblayM. A. (1957). The key informant technique: A nonethnographic application. American Anthropologist, 59(4), 688–701.
51.
WeberM. (1947). The theory of social and economic organization. New York, NY: The Free Press.
52.
WilsonK. (2015). Towards a radical re-appropriation: Gender, development and neoliberal feminism. Development and Change, 46(4), 803–832.
