Participatory Research with Cambodian Refugee Women After Repatriation
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University of Massachusetts Amherst ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst Doctoral Dissertations 1896 - February 2014 1-1-1997 Whose oppression is this? : participatory research with Cambodian refugee women after repatriation. Phyllis Robinson University of Massachusetts Amherst Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations_1 Recommended Citation Robinson, Phyllis, "Whose oppression is this? : participatory research with Cambodian refugee women after repatriation." (1997). Doctoral Dissertations 1896 - February 2014. 2303. https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations_1/2303 This Open Access Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. It has been accepted for inclusion in Doctoral Dissertations 1896 - February 2014 by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. For more information, please contact [email protected]. WHOSE OPPRESSION IS THIS? PARTICIPATORY RESEARCH WITH CAMBODIAN REFUGEE WOMEN AFTER REPATRIATION A Dissertation Presented by PHYLLIS ROBINSON Submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Massachusetts Amherst in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF EDUCATION May 1997 School of Education Copyright 1997 by Phyllis Robinson All Rights Reserved WHOSE OPPRESSION IS THIS? PARTICIPATORY RESEARCH WITH CAMBODIAN REFUGEE WOMEN AFTER REPATRIATION A Dissertation Presented by PHYLLIS ROBINSON Approved as to style and content by: ACKNOWLEDGMENTS As I reflect on the embracing sense of community and empowerment that I experienced during my time at the Center for International Education (CIE) , I wish to express deep gratitude for the professors, staff and fellow students who made it possible. In particular, I want thank my long-time advisor and the chair of my dissertation committee, Bob Miltz. Throughout these six years his grounding in tangible field experience, coupled with patient guidance and care, has made this sometimes arduous undertaking not only bearable but uplifting. I also want to express deep appreciation to Sally Habana-Hafner . As a dissertation committee member, teacher, and peer she has been a tremendous inspiration and power of example to me in how to break down the ivory towers and create bridges between the community and the university. Ralph Faulkingham, my "outside" committee member from the Department of Anthropology, was, on the contrary, very much and in many ways an "insider". He continually encouraged me in the joining of mind and spirit in my conceptualizations of the comprehensive papers and eventually the dissertation itself. He introduced me to the complexities of cultural interpretation as my writing became a fierce mirror. At the same time, he offered complete reassurance of the importance of my professional role in the world. I would also like to thank David Kinsey, professor and friend, who, in the classes research. He taught I took with him, introduced me to participatory about participatory research in such as way as to allow for the instigation and questioning of its parameters. For this I will always be grateful. friends The blessings and support I've received from family and Ethan has been can never be fully expressed in words. My husband this long incredible; an impassioned listener, soothing me through support. I couldn't process, he contributed hours and hours of loving mixture of loving- have done it without him. My mother-in-law Lee's IV kindness and editing skills made an otherwise arduous task delightful and full of warmth. My friend and colleague Mishy kept me on track; finishing her own dissertation months before, her incredible "chutzpa" became a beacon-giving me faith in the eventuality of completion. And even from faraway Laos came entreaties and guidance from my colleague and friend, Hollyn. My friend Kathy Hopper, who worked with Cambodians on the border and eventually for UNHCR in Cambodia, was the first "refugee expert" to read my comprehensive papers and offer helpful ideas, suggestions and encouragement. From my Buddhist teachers I learned not to mistake "the finger pointing at the moon for the moon", and for that edification I have wise instructors across many kalpas to thank. Those within this lifetime are; Roshi Robert Aitken, my first Zen teacher from Hawaii who recently retired. I wish him a deeply peaceful transition. Roshi Maurine Stuart was my second teacher and though she dropped her body over seven years ago, her teachings live powerfully within me. It was she who first encouraged me to take my Buddhist practice off the meditation cushion and out into the world. Lastly, I want to thank Billy Meegan. As Zen priest, neighbor and friend, he was the first to introduce me to meditation practice fifteen years ago. He and his wife Emily also edited and made suggestions about sections of the dissertation which have Buddhist references. The dissertation process was ultimately fulfilled because a group of very courageous women gripped my consciousness and inspired a few me throughout. I thank them in writing and continue to thank with whom I've continued a relationship in Cambodia. Their circumstances have improved, they tell me, because of the importance they have placed on education in their lives. How blessed I am to have been part of it. V ABSTRACT WHOSE OPPRESSION IS THIS? PARTICIPATORY RESEARCH WITH CAMBODIAN REFUGEE WOMEN AFTER REPATRIATION MAY 1997 PHYLLIS ROBINSON, B . A . UNIVERSITY OF CONNECTICUT M.A., UNIVERSITY OF CONNECTICUT . M Ed . , UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST Ed.D, UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST Directed by: Professor Robert Miltz Over the last two decades, international development organizations and agencies have adopted "people's participation" as an imperative of the development process. Viewed as a prescription for redressing the imbalance of power between different cultures and systems of knowledge, its purpose has been a compensation for the "developed" world's mind/colonialization of "developing" countries. I have discovered, through my own work as a Western academic engaged in participatory educational projects in the refugee camp setting, how it is possible to use "participation" as a "smoke screen": masking how we manage and control the lives of the disenfranchised in carrying out our quest for democracy, modernization, market economies and even women's rights as human rights. This dissertation examines a research process in context. Using aspects of participatory action research, I spent two months with two groups of Cambodian women who had returned to their country after spending a decade or more in refugee camps along the Thai -Cambodian border. The main intention of this collaborative research relationship was to examine issues of reintegration. The feedback from the refugee women in my previous work in the camps and in this study with women returnees, coupled with the examination of case studies and other qualitative studies from the literature, has led to questions concerning the epistemological, philosophical and political motivations underlying "participatory policy, education, and research. vi The dissertation examines the what, where, why and how of these considerations. Positioning myself among post-structural and post- modern as well as third world feminists, but with a sense of openness, I combine these world views in deconstructing the methods of negotiation in knowledge production and the dialogic process required in crossing cultural horizons with this particular group of women returnees to Cambodia. The purpose of the study is to explore ways of carrying out "the cause for social justice, without destroying it in the process?" Vll TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS iv ABSTRACT1. vi LIST OF FIGURES xi CHAPTER INTRODUCTION 1 Problem Statement 2 Statement of Purpose 4 2. Significance of the Study 5 Assumptions, Limitations, and Clarifications 7 Assumptions 7 Ethical Position Statement 7 Limitations 10 Clarifications 10 Organization of the Dissertation 15 BACKGROUND OF THE PROBLEM 17 The International Refugee Regime 18 Repatriation 19 3. Women Refugees 21 Regime Theory 23 The Laws, Rights and Policies of the International Refugee Regime which Affect Refugee Women 24 Third World Feminism 27 Participation and Mistakes in the Field 28 People Oriented Planning (POP) 29 Women in Development (WID) versus Gender and Development (GAD) 31 . 34 Reasons for Encouraging Women's Participation . 35 Examples of Women's Barriers to Participation . Summary of the Background of the Problem 39 REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE 41 Participatory Education and Research. It's Theories and Origins 41 Critical Discourse 41 Participatory Research 43 Knowledge and Power: The Case Against Modernization 45 47 • The Critical Theorists _ _ Participatory Research: the Application of the 48 Theory or Its Imposition? 50 The Lineage of PAR 52 The Freire connection to PR Feminism 54 PR and 55 the Thin Edge of a Paradigm Shift PR on 57 Post- structuralism viii Post-modernism 57 Feminism, 4. Post-modernism, and Post- structuralism .... 58 Summary of the Chapter 52 METHODS OF THE RESEARCH 54 Theory, Imposition and the Role of the Researcher 65 False Consciousness 55 A Personal Case Study 58 Anthropology's Version 74 The Abandonment of Critical Theory? 76 The Development Literature on Methods 77 The Truth about the Truth 79 Post-modern and Post- structural Feminism to the Rescue, Again 80 Buddhism and Post-modernism 81 Preparation for Doing the Research 83 The Research Question Prior to Implementation 86 Comments on my Data