Women's Studies: Global South Grassroots Organizations Assignment: About the Assignment

From the Instructor: ORGANIZATION 2: Global South grassroots organization (GRO)

Find a group founded by women in the Global South doing work to improve their local communities. Check Burn (144) for the definition of a GRO and research your organization’s origins: If the group was founded by well-meaning individuals who came from outside the community, from Europe/US or by government organizations, etc., it’s not a GRO. Please, please make sure that you choose a group that is founded by women in an economically poor or post-colonial nation -- remember that "Global South" is not a geographical term: Mexico, for instance, is north of the equator, but as a poor post-colonial nation, it would count for this organization. Similarly, Australia is south of the equator, but because it is considered a wealthy nation that continues to be dominated by the colonizing group, it doesn't count as the Global South for our purposes.

From the Instructor: Tips for Finding the Right Organizations

Simple Google searches might not be enough to find three organizations that fit the research criteria. Here are some suggestions for how to find local, transnational and Global South grassroots organizations. Waiting until the last minute is a sure-fire way to make mistakes in your research.

1. Know what you’re looking for. Review Burn’s definitions for local activism, grassroots organizations and transnational activist groups. Do not email me asking if the organizations you found meet the criteria: Part of the assignment is your doing the work to find the right groups.
2. Start big. If you find the right transnational organization or large-scale NGO for your paper, you can troll their website for links to news articles or lists of local groups that they work with. These smaller groups could be appropriate to use as one of your other organizations.
3. Use the news. If you are writing about a topic related to your Deconstructing Media Analysis, go back to those articles or others that you found about that news event and look for the names of activist organizations or NGOs described or quoted in the articles. Even if you’ve moved on to another topic, you might find success by searching for recent news stories that cover specific events (protest movements or rallies often include quotes from local activists).
4. Search by city. Focus your database searches on a particular city – especially to find Global South grassroots organizations, which might not have the resources or need to have flashy websites that pop up on a simple Google search. But, they might come up in news stories or lists of charities that city governments or civic groups or human-rights organizations post online. Looking for the words “charity” or “nonprofit” might turn up more than “activist group.”