The gender gap through the mirror of our emotions

Over the past two years, Orkestra – Basque Institute of Competitiveness and Arantzazulab have developed a line of work exploring gender in collaborative governance. We presented this process in two previous posts in which we described what we wanted to do and how we wanted to do it.

I have made my main contribution to this process through action research, which invites us to engage in dialogue with a focus on concrete lived experiences. From these experiences, networks are woven that—testimony by testimony—help us understand what is happening to us as a community, as a territory, as humanity. At the same time, and in reverse, that network becomes a mirror that helps each of us look at ourselves.

During this experiment, I have had the opportunity to engage in dialogue with people of different nationalities and ages, and together we have synthesized their experiences into brief testimonies. From the outset, we realized this was not material to be “analyzed” using conventional research methodologies. Inspired by arts-based action research, I began sharing the reflections back with participants through images. At first, I used images I found online; later, I began drawing. The following video is the result of this co-generation process, in which we have combined testimonies and drawings, reason and emotion.

At this point, I will stop writing to invite you to click on the following link and look at yourself in that mirror. To continue describing it in my own words would betray the spirit in which we have built it.

miren larrea

Miren Larrea

Miren Larrea is Senior Researcher at Orkestra. She began her professional career as a research assistant at the University of Deusto, where she wrote her doctoral thesis on the local production systems of the Basque Country. After a decade dedicated to teaching and research, she worked for six years at a local development agency, where she combined her experience as a regional development professional with her work as a university researcher.

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