Mediating Development?: Exchanges on Gender Policies and Development Practices in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

This article examines the ways that gender experts in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, relate to global gender policies and to current approaches to problems of gender in their country. Drawing upon critical, feminist, and actor-oriented approaches in development studies, we reflect on the high level of convergence between the global policy aims and interlocutors’ opinions about appropriate target areas and approaches to gender in development. We discuss the noteworthy reflexive and critical shift emerging when moving the discussion from policy to practice, in particular when gender experts are problematizing the scope, relevance, and outcomes of multiple gender initiatives. Throughout the article, we moreover seek to reflect upon our own roles in the construction of knowledge during the research encounters.