Between norms and localised change: The role of critical friendships in supporting gender sensitive parliaments

The practice of feminist governance around the world is underpinned by normative frameworks expressed in conventions, declarations and other standard setting instruments, at global, regional and national levels. While this work often encapsulates an aspirational end point (for example, ‘parliaments are gender sensitive’), it is encouraged and progressed by practitioners and a range of tools such as handbooks and self-assessment guides that help to translate global norms into practical guidance that enables achievable change at national level. As a practitioner and an author of various handbooks and tools in support of gender sensitive parliaments, I have previously outlined the significant challenges faced in translating global norms into localised change (Palmieri 2018; Palmieri and Baker 2020). In this paper, I consider the role of critical friendships (Chappell and Mackay 2015, 2020; Holvikivi 2019) in support of gender sensitive parliamentary change. I draw on interviews – or rather, constructive discussions with ‘critical friends’, themselves practitioners in the gender and political participation space – undertaken in November 2020. I make two arguments: first, that frank, constructive dialogues among practitioners and academics are an important opportunity for reflection and refinement, and themselves contribute to both normative and practical change; second, that critical actors need critical friends. Supporting gender sensitive change – in any institution – can feel isolating and result in gendered (often abusive) retribution and resistance from those seeking to maintain the status quo. The solidarity of critical friendships – especially when they allow for constructive criticism and provoke rethinking – contributes to sustainable, healthy and safe social transformation.