Narrative Imagination and Social Change: Instructors in Agricultural Colleges in Ethiopia Address Sexual and Gender-Based Violence

Abstract

Ethiopia has one of the highest rates of sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) in the world, making female students particularly vulnerable in its post-secondary institutions. Although there is extensive literature that describes the problem, mainly from the students' perspectives, what remains understudied is the role of instructors, their perception of the current issues, and what they imagine they can do to address campus-based SGBV, particularly in rural settings. In this study, we used the concept of narrative imagination to work with instructors in four Ethiopian agricultural colleges to explore how they understand the SGBV issues at their colleges and what they imagine their own role could include in efforts to combat these problems. Using qualitative narrative-based methods such as interviews and an interactive storyline development workshop, as well as cellphilming (cellphone + film) as a participatory visual method, the data were collected across several fieldwork phases. We consider how we might broaden this framework of narrative imagination to include the notion of art for social change.