Development Studies

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Browsing Development Studies by Author "Adams, Virginia"

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    In what ways and to what extent is the global oil and gas industry able to deliver enduring empowerment outcomes for women in Asia-Pacific? : a case study exploring the employment and skills development of Timorese women on Timor Sea offshore facilities : a dissertation presented in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Development Studies, Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand
    (Massey University, 2020) Adams, Virginia
    The sustainable development agenda seeks to enlist big business as a development agent to help redress persistent and pervasive conditions of women’s disadvantage in the developing world. Global corporations are being urged, among other imperatives and initiatives, to open decent work opportunities for females, thereby enabling them to traverse the basic empowerment thresholds of enjoying dignity of and in work and of becoming economically self-reliant. Rare to find in the development literature, this case study brings to light a corner of global industry (that of offshore oil and gas operations in the Timor Sea) in which, irrespective of sustainable development’s grand vision for women’s empowerment, opportunities have opened for host-country women to enjoy capabilities gains beyond the crossing of these thresholds. Moreover, the study, atypically to the dis-empowered portraits of women that abound in the development literature, brings to life the existence and experiences of dissident female (Timorese) identities imbued with high levels of agency who have been able to navigate the mesh of patriarchal belief structures and norms in their society and enter, earn respect and realise potential in the nontraditional, historically masculinised job field of offshore oil and gas. The case study has considerable breadth of scope in its pursuit of two main interconnected avenues of inquiry relating to the Timorese females’ work skills development and employment. These are: a) the associated agendas, workplace protocols, decision-making and ensuing actions within the stakeholder organisational networks of the Timor Sea oil and gas projects, and: b) the women’s own aspirations, efforts and achievements. The research methods used, of qualitative, open-ended interviews combined with long-term on-going communication with many of the group have provided a considerable depth of insight into the women’s empowerment trajectories, and a detailed illumination of the human and organisational influences on these within their training and work spaces. Near-40 Timorese women took part in the study along with 20 respondents from the stakeholder companies involved directly or indirectly with their oil and gas industry learning and earning journeys. What this research says helps to construct a more textured narrative around how gender and development is framed. It does this by capturing in multidimensional (personal, relational, social and economic) and multifaceted (cognitive, psychological and practical) ways the meanings of the empowerment gains of women from a male –dominated society who have trained, worked and been well-paid in gender-equal employment spaces. The conceptual lens is shaped using as a starting point Sen’s Capabilities Approach, feminist notions of power, theory on self-determination and around the meeting of employees’ cognitive, psychological and social empowerment needs in the workplace. The dissertation introduces a new methodological tool of the women’s owned ‘human capital portfolios’ (as their offshore-enhanced caches of knowledge, skills, abilities and attributes) to encapsulate the ballast of their capabilities sets as these contribute to their empowerment status. With its main aim being to evaluate not simply the achievement of but, importantly, the durability of the women’s empowered identities into uncertain futures, the knowledge produced in this research provides critical meaning around women’s empowerment often neglected in gender and development discourse.
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    'It's not a him, it's a her' : an exploration into the changes and challenges, meanings and mechanisms in the lives of Timorese women workers on the offshore Bayu-Undan Gas Recycling Project : a thesis presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Philosophy in Development Studies, Massey University, Manawatu, New Zealand
    (Massey University, 2014) Adams, Virginia
    This thesis is concerned with the ways in which the potentials of a group of Timorese women, with early aspirations of achieving economic self-reliance through formal work, have been realised through their recruitment into non-traditional jobs on the Bayu-Undan Gas Recycling Project in the Timor Sea. The aspirational horizons and experiences of the sixteen women who comprise the sample of this study run counter to those of most women in Timor-Leste, where poverty and pervasive patriarchal ideologies relegate them to the domestic sphere as wives and mothers subject to the authority of men. Their reality as working women also runs counter to that of other female waged workers in the developing world reported as experiencing poor wages and working conditions and discrimination in the workplace and for some, resentment or violence from husbands. The findings of this study point to new evidence of young Timorese women at the beginning of their post-secondary school journeys exhibiting a high level of agency. This is reflected in their personal qualities, both inherent and socially fostered, of determination, courage and self-belief, and confidence in their aptitude to learn new competencies, with strategic goals of economic independence and an awareness of their right to shape their own lives towards this end. In addition to this they have had the crucial social resource of support from family members and from husbands and male partners. It is rare to see the inclusion of gender, explicitly or tacitly, in the local content commitments associated with petroleum extraction projects in developing countries. This thesis has identified the pivotal role, played by a locally-owned Timorese contracting company, confident in the capacity of Timorese women to be effective offshore crewmembers, in shaping the employee component of the Bayu-Undan project’s local content to incorporate females. What is also of significance is that these women occupy well-paid, valued positions of responsibility on the western platform, where a culture of non-gender discrimination sees them receiving respect from male personnel, including their Timorese male co-workers, and being supported in their ambitions to up-skill, in some cases into historically male areas. At home, the women’s new identities as high income-earners employed in non-traditional work have given them greater social and economic status. While there is some concern that their economic autonomy could be eroded by excessive family demands, the new financial resources provided by the women are seen by them, and others, as important obligations towards improving the lives and prospects of extended family members. Additionally, as a ‘realising potential’ outcome from their incomes, new opportunities and valued ways of being have opened up for the women themselves and their immediate families.