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WEMC Research Sites and Issues
WEMC is a multi-country research, communication and capacity-building programme. (For more information about the WEMC Programme, click here.) All these activities are carried by partners in the four nodal countries of China, Indonesia, Pakistan, Iran, as well as among two cross-border populations - Afghan refugees and returnees, and Indonesian migrant women workers.

The four nodal countries covered by the WEMC programme cover different parts of Asia - China in East Asia, Indonesia in Southeast Asia, Pakistan in South Asia and Iran in West Asia. WEMC emphasises Muslim contexts in Asia, because almost half the world's Muslims live in Asia.


WEMC research focuses on the diversity of Muslim communities and countries, rejecting monolithic constructions of 'Muslim-ness' and 'Muslim women'. This focus is particularly relevant at this time when exclusionary systems based on minority Arab values are exerting undue influence in non-Arab societies.

Among the four nodal countries chosen for WEMC research, Indonesia has the world's largest population of Muslims. Pakistan and Iran are both Islamic republics, although they are very different. China has a sizeable Muslim minority that has been under-studied.
   
 
    Geographical sites Key issues
I Four nodal countries
A. China
B. Indonesia
C. Iran
D. Pakistan
1. How do women interpret and analyse the disempowering forces they face?
2. What possibilities for empowerment do women envisage in their lived realities, in the face of disempowering forces?
3. How do women address, resist and overcome the mechanisms of control used by disempowering forces?
4. How do women upscale their strategies for empowerment – from individual, collective, organised to institutionalised levels? Under what circumstances are they forced to downscale their initiatives – from institutionalised, organised, collective to individual levels?
5. What sources of support are women able to mobilise for their empowerment?
6. What are the outcomes of women's initiatives for empowerment? To what extent and in which areas of life are these changes occurring?
II Cross-border research
A. Indonesian labour migration to China, elsewhere in east Asia, and Arab states
B. Displaced Afghan populations in Iran and Pakistan
III Comparative analysis
A. All sites studied
B. Inputs from other countries and regions
1. Conceptualising women's agency and empowerment
2. Women's leadership in religious and secular contexts
3. Women's resistance to (re-)domestication
4. Women's responses and initiatives in relation to gender-based dress codes
5. Women's assertion of citizenship rights
6. Women organising for empowerment
7. Women's movements and the politics of collective representation