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Author: Naydene De Lange

Gender inequality and gender-based violence (GBV) continue to pose significant challenges worldwide, particularly in South Africa. Addressing these issues requires a commitment to ‘staying with the trouble’ in every possible way. This article draws on research conducted with fourteen first-year women students studying education at a South African university, highlighting the potential of participatory visual methodology (PVM) to facilitate transformative learning and social change. I adopt the theoretical perspective that transformative learning encompasses both personal transformation and social change, as individual and societal transformations are intrinsically interconnected. The central research question posed is: How can transformative learning be facilitated through participatory visual methodology with young South African women? Over a decade of research with these young women employed various participatory visual methods, which enabled them to explore, reflect on, and critique their experiences of gender inequality and GBV. By gaining new perspectives, they were able to envision different ways of being an Indigenous woman, positioning themselves as agents of social change within their communities. This article critically examines participatory visual research as a means of enabling transformative learning in the context of gender inequality and GBV in South Africa.

The discussion on gender transformation has predominantly been articulated via the perspective of gender equality, through constitutional rights, legal forms, policy measures, and institutional representation. This article reframes the paradigm of gender transformation in the Global South from a focus on equality to a focus on liberation. Although Global North liberal feminism-inspired equality measures have improved representation and legislative reforms, they are nonetheless constrained by neoliberal, technocratic, and epistemically colonial presumptions. The paper makes the case that real change necessitates breaking down the structural, cultural, and epistemic underpinnings of colonialism and patriarchy, drawing on postcolonial feminist theory. It presents freedom as a decolonial practice with roots in inclusive masculinities, community action, and indigenous knowledge systems. It emphasises the significance of community-driven initiatives, radical feminist practices, and localized approaches in confronting patriarchal systems that perpetuate oppression. The article illustrates how locally based initiatives produce long-lasting, context-responsive change using examples from Africa and other Southern countries. A Southern epistemology of gender justice that emphasizes relational ethics, collective emancipation, and emancipatory social transformation is presented in the study's conclusion.

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This article describes early analysis from the Achieving Gender Justice in Education project, involving 20 open-ended ‘storytelling’ interviews as an approach to narrative inquiry with educators and administrators from three Canadian provinces. Participants describe various forms of gender-based violence and discrimination experienced in schools, including inappropriate touching, sexual harassment, unwillingness to enhance school safety for girls and 2SLGBTQ+ students, and blocking of such initiatives by community members. They also convey substantive efforts to fight for the rights of girls and 2SLGBTQ+ students and support boys to embody positive interpretations of masculinity. This paper analyzes the experiences and considers how the stories might inform the practical application of gender justice and transformation in schools. Gender transformation is a term used primarily in international development, building on a premise that problematically suggests that Global South societies need transformation whereas Global North societies are transformed. This research highlights that, while it is important to attend to the context of violence, the call for gender transformation should extend to all countries and societies, not only those in the Global South.

Through the story of Carmen, a young woman from Wentworth, South Africa, we explore the limits and possibilities of gender-transformation work in contexts shaped by systemic violence. Wentworth is a community marked by apartheid spatial legacies, intergenerational trauma, and the constant threat of gangsterism. In early 2025, Carmen arrived at the transnational TRANSFORM Youth Summit alone—despite having prepared alongside a group of her peers using photovoice methods. The other young people from her community did not come. Fear of kidnapping, territorial violence, and gang surveillance kept them home. Through Carmen’s story, we consider how gender issues can be displaced or silenced in times of crisis, and how absence itself can be understood as a form of visual evidence. Drawing on feminist and affect theory, including Lauren Berlant’s concept of the impasse, Haraway's entreaty to stay with the trouble, and Pumla Gqola’s framing of refusal in the context of pervasive gendered violence, I argue for a more nuanced understanding of gender-transformation that accounts for the limits of participation under structural violence, and honours the subtle, complicated ways that youth continue to resist, witness, and make meaning. Ultimately, I call for an expanded praxis that sees youth not only as change-makers, but also as survivors negotiating the layered violence of their environments.

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This article explores the “how” of gender transformation under conditions of increasing inequality and insecurity in the Canadian province of Ontario. The point of entry for our exploration is the increase in gendered survival work associated with acute poverty and homelessness – both of which are rapidly increasing alongside stagnating national progress towards gender equality in Canada as indicated by the 2024 Sustainable Development Goals Gender Index. To produce our analysis, we drew on qualitative interview data from 18 women and gender-diverse people experiencing homelessness. Data was drawn from a larger sample of 49 people experiencing homelessness in Peterborough. Our findings illuminate critical dimensions of Canada’s stagnating progress towards gender equality. We explicate how the intensification of women and gender-diverse people’s work is organized by institutional responses to material and relational precarity across the life-course; the provision of homelessness services organized by the gender-binary; and the normalization of gender-based violence, and gendered experiences of (un)safety for women and gender-diverse people experiencing homelessness.

Women’s incarceration is rising around the world; yet insufficient research on women’s distinctive experiences behind bars remains a barrier to effective advocacy and policy reform. This article examines how participatory visual methodologies (PVMs) can support incarcerated women in sharing their stories and addressing gender discrimination in the criminal legal system. I consider the extent to which PVMs can serve as Gender Transformative Methodologies in carceral settings: methods that identify gender inequities and develop strategies for change. To do so, I share the design, implementation, and impact of my participatory visual research in a South African women’s correctional facility. The research adopted a four-week workshop protocol to investigate the challenges women face in their communities, South African correctional centers, and their visions for social and policy change. I present examples of artwork from three workshop cohorts and highlight the participants’ creative and critical insights. I detail how their work was shared with institutional authorities, civil society, and policymakers during art exhibitions. The article concludes with a discussion of the strengths and limitations of PVMs for facilitating gender transformation in the criminal legal system and other restrictive contexts.

Launched in 2017, Canada's Feminist International Assistance Policy (FIAP) aims to champion gender equality in development cooperation and programming. Proposals submitted to Global Affairs Canada for funding are rigorously assessed according to gender equality criteria, and applicants are required to conduct gender-based analyses and consult local women's groups. Global Affairs Canada has also prioritized 95% of their funding for projects that adequately integrate and target gender equality. While the FIAP policy has good intentions, it inadequately conceptualises gender equality and intersectionality, and contains Western-centric, neo-liberal, and instrumental notions of feminism and development. An understanding of how development organisations and their local partner organisations in the global South navigate, operationalise, and transform the FIAP is also lacking.

This article argues that Canadian development organisations and their local partners in the global South have a crucial role to play in improving the FIAP's efficacy by sharing their experiences, successes, and challenges with Global Affairs Canada. Global Affairs Canada, for its part, must be open and receptive to these critiques, feeding organisations’ suggestions into future iterations of the FIAP. A robust feedback loop is needed to truly decolonise Canadian foreign assistance. This necessitates Canadian organisations and their local partners to proactively advocate for creating channels that enable them to share their experiences and insights with Global Affairs Canada. This feedback should aim at not only providing criticism of the FIAP, but also amplifying promising approaches. For instance, some organisations have developed complex and localised understandings of gender and intersectionality, using decolonised and participatory approaches, and have built strong partnerships with local partners and local gender activists. These organisations can and should be allowed to positively influence future policies and practices with donors, policymakers, and practitioners.