Men's Work for Gender Justice: Stories from Canada, the Caribbean, Nepal, and Pakistan.
2022 • Responding to the global call for men’s engagement in the prevention of gender-based violence (GBV) requires interdisciplinary evidence-based research, progressive and protective policy priorities, community-based practice models, diversely skilled cross-national teams, and accessible educational tools. A lack of focus on knowledge sharing and capacity building for community members, academics, and service providers, contributes to the barriers that men face in accessing appropriate and effective violence prevention programming. Catalyzed by previous, emerging, and existing gender equity movements, our interdisciplinary team of activist scholars, students, and organizational leaders from Canada, the Caribbean, Nepal, and Pakistan, have used a community of practice (CoP) framework to share and mobilize research and experiential knowledge with the purpose of promoting and involving men in GBV prevention. In our CoP we are sharing, co-learning, and mobilizing our various research and experiential knowledge sources on engaging and enhancing men’s roles in the prevention of GBV. Our relationships and research practices draw on intersectionality and anti-oppressive theory and practice (AOT/P), which form the theoretical and ethical framework for this international collaboration. In this presentation, we will examine how we formed the community of practice, briefly introducing the four contexts, and share the preliminary outcomes of our meetings, including a shared research project, virtual learning series, and symposia. Participants will be invited to imagine how they may use a CoP to build a collective and interdisciplinary prevention agenda that is rooted in community knowledge and can be effectively applied within diverse communities in local settings.
Presenters: Liza Lorenzetti, Aamir Jamal, Rita Dhungel, Jeff Halvorsen, Sarah Thomas, & Waqar Ahmad.