Journal of Advanced Research in Women’s Studies

Community and Family Support for Women Facing Trauma

Thelma Desira, Joanne Cassar — Sun, 19 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Recovery from traumatic experiences becomes more possible when there are supportive networks operating in communities. This qualitative study explores Maltese women’s experiences of family and community support (CS), as they faced trauma. The inquiry sought to find out the mechanisms of this kind of support, and the significance these held for such women. Data was collected through semi-structured individual interviews with 7 Maltese women living in Malta, aged between 27-55 years, who self-identified as having faced traumatic events. They were asked about the types of support they sought, when they faced adversity. The study brings together the person-al, familial, and communitarian aspects of support strategies for women facing tragic events, and the interplay between them. Data were organised and analysed through reflexive thematic analysis, in order to find out how the different forms of CS acted as a safety net for vulnerable women facing traumatic loss and adversity in their lives. The results show that in general the participants welcomed the CS received, and valued the specialised services offered to them, which varied ac-cording to the type of crisis they passed through. The informants distinguished between community efforts that were supportive to them and others which were not. The study indicates that women facing trauma might rely more heavily on seeking professional help, rather than talking to their neighbours about their afflictions. This points towards more reliance on institutionalisation, and professionalisation of care, and indicates a corresponding decline in reliance on informal, communal, and kin-based support networks for addressing personal and family trauma.

Formal Education and Women’s Resilience Post Conflict-Induced Disasters: A Gendered Perspective on Life in an Internally Displaced Persons’ Camp(s)

Jemima Duru, Martin Ntakomwa — Sun, 19 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This paper discusses the impact that access to formal education has on the resilience of women who have been displaced by the protracted conflict-induced disaster (bokoharam) in Northeast-Nigeria. The qualitative research was conducted phenomenologically in an inductive and interpretive manner; the results were interpreted using thematic analysis to explain how education intersects with gender, residence, culture, resilience, and recovery. The results were depicted using thematic mapping. The data analysis results made it evident that the factors influencing access to formal education pre-displacement did not equally apply to both genders and suggest that women were marginalized. The interviewed respondents noted that post-displacement, formal education has contributed to their resilience as they read, write, communicate, show respect to one another, and maintain a positive attitude; the women created an informal support group. The testimonies of the respondents bring the conclusion that although culture influenced their access to education before being displaced, the new culture (family, learning, faith, hope, and support) they have developed in the Internally Displaced Persons camp fills them with hope to such an extent that they now express interest in having access to formal education for their advancement. A method for reintroducing education in the region was suggested.

Feminist Deliberation as Practice: Reconfiguring Democratic Mechanisms Across Space, Time, and Digital Arenas

Mónica Sofía Azuara Villanueva — Sun, 19 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This article examines feminist deliberation as an evolving democratic mechanism that reshapes deliberative democracy across spatial, temporal, and epistemic dimensions. First, it offers a multilingual, cross-regional analysis of feminist scholarship from the Global North and South, showing how diverse epistemic traditions redefine deliberation. Second, it proposes a temporal framework with four phases: early feminist critiques of participation and legitimacy (1980s-1990s), relational and affective expansions (2000s-2010s), insurgent and territorial practices (2010s-2020s), and conflictual, spatial, and digital extensions (2020s). Third, it identifies feminist deliberative practices operating across scales, from everyday interactions to collective and digital action. Using a qualitative interpretative methodology, the study treats feminist theory as both conceptual and empirical material. It finds that feminist deliberation goes beyond institutional dialogue, functioning instead as a distributed, relational process embedded in everyday life, care, and political struggle. It thus emerges as both a methodological lens and a political practice for transforming democratic life.

Rural Women’s Participation in Development: A Cross-Country Analysis of PRA, PLA, and Farmer Participatory Research

Meskerem Million Abdo — Sun, 19 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Rural women are central to agricultural production, natural resource management, and household livelihoods in developing countries, yet they remain systematically excluded from development planning and decision-making processes. This paper examines the potential and limitations of participatory methodologies including Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA), Participatory Learning and Action (PLA), and Farmer Participatory Research (FPR) in enhancing rural women's involvement. Drawing on evidence from South Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, and Latin America, the analysis reveals that while participatory approaches can create spaces for women's voices, their effectiveness is contingent on deliberate institutional design. Key challenges persist: cultural norms restricting public participation, heavy domestic workloads limiting availability, limited access to education and information, and intra-household power dynamics that subordinate women's decisions to male authority. According to the literature reviewed, superficial participation remains common, with women attending meetings but lacking substantive influence over outcomes. However, promising pathways emerge when participatory methods are combined with gender quotas, female-only forums, flexible meeting schedules, childcare provisions, and gender-transformative training. Digital participatory tools offer new opportunities but risk excluding the most marginalized women without accompanying investments in mobile access and digital literacy. An intersectional lens further reveals that age, caste, marital status, and ethnicity create distinct barriers that homogeneous "rural women" categories obscure. The paper concludes that moving from participation to genuine empowerment requires addressing structural inequalities, challenging social norms, and linking participatory methodologies with women's collective action organizations. Without such intentionality, participation becomes a rhetorical exercise rather than a transformative practice.