Narratives in Development: Reflections on Meaning Making from an Interactive Workshop on Gender Based Violence in Nepal

Introduction: This research considers the complex relationship between international development efforts and gender in Nepal through a self-reflexive consideration of narrative analysis as research methodology. We explore where narrative, gender, and development meet in an ongoing project on gender-based violence (GBV). We ask: how can we approach narrative(s) in research into GBV? What are the pitfalls of narrative-based research? What does it tell us about the ways in which women and girls are negotiating both gender and development discourse?
Method: Data was collected in the context of a series of five-day visual arts workshop in which girl students between the ages of 13-17 participated in a curriculum about GBV. Participants were asked to look at and interpret images of existing murals from formal, funded GBV “awareness raising” campaigns. This exercise elicited narratives about existing narratives – and therefore had an additional framework for interpretation. The interpretations by student participants tell us about the efficacy of the visual storytelling in development projects, and what specific narratives about girls and women they perceive. We employed narrative analysis on 82 student interviews that were collected in four workshop series between 2018-2022.
Results: Participant interpretations reveal a variety of themes. In some, a repetition of development discourse or normative gendered stances. In others, appropriation of local myths and deities appear in the girls’ stories. Variance reveals tensions in how development interventions about women’s roles are imagined or framed by the intended audience.
Conclusions: Narrative is a powerful act of ordering the world and deciphering. Our research suggests that it is imperative to read Nepali girls interpretations with and against the grain of their meaning, for what they might not articulate. We can then recognize the themes and tropes of dominant social discourses and at the same time remain attentive to slippages and counter-narratives.