Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

Categorical Variables Without Categorical Thinking? A Relational Reading of the Sri Lankan Demographic and Health Survey

  • Original Article
  • Published:
Gender Issues Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Connell’s theory of gender relations is among the most influential and comprehensive frameworks for analyzing gender. Its influence across methodological approaches has been uneven, though, and Connell herself has argued that relational theory is incompatible with statistical analyses, which, by relying on categorical dummy variables to indicate the sex or gender respondents, essentialize and fundamentally misrepresent gender. We argue that categorical variables do not require “categorical thinking.” We outline three necessary steps for linking statistical analyses and relational theory: contextualizing statistical rates and means; highlighting within-group variation and the process through which it is produced; and contextualizing the data collection and research process more broadly. To illustrate our approach we critically examine data from the 2006–2007 Sri Lanka Demographic and Health Survey. We show that, far from being incompatible, relational theory is often vital for understanding the meaning of statistical data, as well as for critiquing and evaluating any resulting claims. When interpreted within a relational framework, statistical data can also clarify how gender structures the lives and experiences of people of all genders.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. See for example [1].

  2. See https://dhsprogram.com/Who-We-Are/About-Us.cfm Retrieved 9-Dec-2017.

  3. In many countries, the DHS Program uses separate surveys for women and men. Questions related to gender inequality, sexual practices, sexually transmitted infections, and domestic violence are generally included in both surveys. In the case of Sri Lanka, only the survey for women was conducted. For further information see https://dhsprogram.com/What-We-Do/Survey-Types/DHS-Questionnaires.cfm#CP_JUMP_16181 Retrieved 9-Dec-2017.

  4. Estate Tamils descend from South Indian indentured laborers who migrated to the island starting in the 1830 s [3].

  5. The Portuguese and Dutch only colonized parts of Sri Lanka. The British administratively unified the island in 1815 and were mainly responsible for transforming the economy, culture and politics.

  6. See also Riley [53, pp. 122–124].

  7. Riley [53, pp. 115–116] argues that financial autonomy is a poor indicator of women’s empowerment in Southeast Asia more generally. In comparison to Western societies, those in Southeast Asia place a higher value on social interdependence, and with this interdependence comes increased social status. See also [43] and [57].

References

  1. Acker, J. (1990). Hierarchies, jobs, bodies: A theory of gendered organizations. Gender & Society, 4(2), 139–158.

    Google Scholar 

  2. Annandale, E., & Hunt, K. (Eds.). (2000). Gender inequalities in health. Buckingham: Open University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  3. Bass, D. (2013). Everyday ethnicity in Sri Lanka: Up-country tamil identity politics. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  4. Bates, L. M., Hankivsky, O., & Springer, K. (2009). Gender and health inequities: A comment on the final report of the WHO commission on the social determinants of health. Social Science and Medicine, 69(7), 1002–1004.

    Google Scholar 

  5. Chatterjee, P. (1993). The nation and its fragments: Colonial and post colonial histories. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  6. Connell, R. (1987). Gender and Power. Cambridge: Polity Press.

    Google Scholar 

  7. Connell, R. (1992). A very straight gay: Masculinity, homosexual experience, and the dynamics of gender. American Sociological Review, 57(6), 735–751.

    Google Scholar 

  8. Connell, R. (2005). Masculinities. Berkeley: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  9. Connell, R. (2005). Change among the gatekeepers: Men, masculinities, and gender equality in the global arena. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 30(3), 1801–1825.

    Google Scholar 

  10. Connell, R. (2006). Glass ceilings or gendered institutions? Mapping the gender regimes of public sector worksites. Public Administration Review, 66(6), 837–849.

    Google Scholar 

  11. Connell, R. (2012). Gender, health and theory: Conceptualizing the issue, in local and world perspective. Social Science and Medicine, 74(11), 1675–1683.

    Google Scholar 

  12. Connell, R., & Pearse, R. (2014). Gender: In world perspective. Cambridge: Polity.

    Google Scholar 

  13. Connell, R., Collyer, F., Maia, J., & Morrell, R. (2017). Toward a global sociology of knowledge: Post-colonial realities and intellectual practices. International Sociology, 32(1), 21–37.

    Google Scholar 

  14. De Alwis, M. (1997). The production and embodiment of respectability: Gendered demeanors in colonial Ceylon”. In M. Roberts (Ed.), Sri Lanka collective identities revisited (pp. 105–143). Colombo: Marga Institute.

    Google Scholar 

  15. Department of Census and Statistics (DCS) and Ministry of Healthcare and Nutrition (MOH). (2009). Sri Lanka demographic and health survey 2006–07. Colombo: DCS and MOH.

    Google Scholar 

  16. Department of Census and Statistics (DCS). (2014). The Sri Lankan women: Partner in progress. Colombo: DCS.

    Google Scholar 

  17. DeVotta, N. (2004). Blowback: Linguistic nationalism, institutional decay, and ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  18. DeVotta, N. (2009). Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam and the lost quest for separatism in Sri Lanka. Asian Survey, 49(6), 1021–1051.

    Google Scholar 

  19. Donati, P. (2014). Relational sociology and the globalized society. In F. Dépelteau & C. Powell (Eds.), Applying relational sociology: Relations, networks, and society. New York: Macmillan.

    Google Scholar 

  20. Emirbayer, M. (1997). Manifesto for a relational sociology. American Journal of Sociology, 103, 281–317.

    Google Scholar 

  21. Gunasekera, M. (1994). The splintering of Aladdin’s myth: Education, occupational mobility and the social context. Options, 2, 17–20.

    Google Scholar 

  22. Guruge, A. (1965). Anagarika Dharmapala: Return to righteousness. Colombo: Government Press.

    Google Scholar 

  23. Harding, S. (Ed.). (1987). Feminism and methodology: Social science issues. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  24. Harnois, C. E. (2005). Different paths to different feminisms? Bridging multiracial feminist theory and quantitative sociological gender research. Gender & Society, 19(6), 809–828.

    Google Scholar 

  25. Harnois, C. E. (2013). Feminist measures in survey research. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.

    Google Scholar 

  26. Harris, E. (1994). The gaze of the colonizer: British views on local women in 19th Century Sri Lanka. Colombo: Social Scientists’ Association.

    Google Scholar 

  27. Hewamanne, S. (2006). Runaway knowledge: Trade liberalization and reproductive practices among Sri Lanka’s garment factory workers. In B. Elissa, C. Grown, & A. Malhotra (Eds.), Trading women’s health and rights?: Trade liberalization and reproductive health in developing economies (pp. 164–188). London: Zed.

    Google Scholar 

  28. Hewamanne, S. (2008). Stitching identities in a free trade zone: Gender and politics in Sri Lanka. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

    Google Scholar 

  29. Hewamanne, S. (2010). Suicide narratives and in-between identities among Sri Lanka’s global factory workers. Ethnology, 49(1), 1–22.

    Google Scholar 

  30. Hewamanne, S. (2016). Sri Lanka’s global factory workers: (Un)disciplined desires and sexual struggles in a post-colonial society. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  31. Hewamanne, S. (2020a). Re-stitching identities in rural Sri Lanka: Neoliberalism, gender and politics of contentment. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

    Google Scholar 

  32. Hewamanne, S. (2020b). Emergency contraceptives are our saviors: Sri Lanka’s global factory workers negotiating reproductive health. Journal of International Women’s Studies, 22(1) (in press).

  33. Hochschild, A. R. (1983). The managed heart: Commercialization of human feeling. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  34. Hountondji, P. J. (Ed.). (1997). Endogenous knowledge: Research trails. Oxford: African Books Collective.

    Google Scholar 

  35. Jayamanne, L. (1992). Hunger for images, myths of femininity in Sri Lankan cinema 1947–1989. South Asia Bulletin, xxi(1), 57–75.

    Google Scholar 

  36. Jayaweera, S. (1990). Women and development: A reappraisal of the Sri Lanka experience. In Center for Women’s Research (Ed.), The hidden face of development: Women, work and equality in Sri Lanka. Colombo: CENWOR.

    Google Scholar 

  37. Jegathesan, M. (2019). Tea and solidarity: Tamil women and work in postwar Sri Lanka. Seattle: University of Washington Press.

    Google Scholar 

  38. Jeganathan, P., & Ismail, Q. (1995). Unmaking the nation: The politics of identity and history in modern Sri Lanka. Colombo: Social Scientists’ Association.

    Google Scholar 

  39. Jegathesan, M. (2010). Bargaining in a labour regime. Himal South Asian. February: 38-41.

  40. Jegathesan, M. (2013). Bargaining in a labor regime: Plantation life and the politics of development in Sri Lanka. Doctoral Dissertation, Columbia University, New York City.

  41. Jordal, M., Wijewardena, K., Öhman, A., Essén, B., & Olsson, P. (2014). Negotiating respectability: Migrant women workers’ perceptions on relationships and sexuality in free trade zones in Sri Lanka. Health Care for Women International, 35(6), 658–676.

    Google Scholar 

  42. Jordal, M., Wijewardena, K., Öhman, A., Essén, B., Olsson, P. (2015). ‘Disrespectful men, disrespectable women’: Men’s perceptions on heterosexual relationships and premarital sex in a Sri Lankan Free Trade Zone—A qualitative interview study. BMC International Health and Human Rights, 15, 3. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12914-015-0040-4

    Article  Google Scholar 

  43. Kishor, S. (2005). A focus on gender: Collected papers on gender using DHS data. Calverton, MD: ORC Macro. Available at http://dhsprogram.com/pubs/pdf/OD32/OD32.pdf.

  44. Kishor, S., & Subaiya, L. (2008). Understanding women’s empowerment: A comparative analysis of demographic and health surveys (DHS) data. DHS Comparative Reports No. 20. Calverton, MD: Macro International.

  45. Lynch, C. (2007). Juki girls, good girls: Gender and cultural politics in Sri Lanka’s global garment industry. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  46. Mani, L. (1998). Contentious traditions: The debate on sati in colonial India. Berkeley: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  47. Messerschmidt, J., Connell, R., Messner, M., & Martin, P. (Eds.). (2018). Gender reckonings: New social theory and research. New York: NYU Press.

    Google Scholar 

  48. Mohanty, C. (2003). Feminism without borders: Decolonizing theory, practicing solidarity. Durham: Duke University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  49. Nagel, J. (1998). Masculinity and nationalism: Gender and sexuality in the making of nations. Ethnic and racial studies., 21(2), 242–269.

    Google Scholar 

  50. Nayak, S. (2014). The Raj agent in Ceylon 1936–1940. New Delhi: Education Resources Center Trust.

    Google Scholar 

  51. Percival, R. (1803). An account of the Island of Ceylon: Containing its history, geography, natural history with the manners and customs. London: Baldwin.

    Google Scholar 

  52. Powell, C., & Dépelteau, F. (Eds.). (2013). Conceptualizing relational sociology: Ontological and theoretical issues. Berlin: Springer.

    Google Scholar 

  53. Riley, N. (2005). Demography of gender. In D. L. Poston & M. Micklin (Eds.), Handbook of population (pp. 109–141). New York: Springer.

    Google Scholar 

  54. Risman, B. (2017). 2016 Southern Sociological Society presidential address: Are millennials cracking the gender structure? Social Currents, 4(3), 208–227.

    Google Scholar 

  55. Risseeuw, C. (1988). The fish don’t talk about the water: Gender transformation, power and resistance among women in Sri Lanka. Leiden: E.J. Brill.

    Google Scholar 

  56. Ruwanpura, K. N. (2013). Scripted performances? Local readings of “global” health and safety standards (the apparel sector in Sri Lanka). Global Labour Journal, 4(2), 88–108.

    Google Scholar 

  57. Schatz, E., & Williams, J. (2012). Measuring gender and reproductive health in Africa using demographic and health surveys: The need for mixed-methods research. Culture, Health & Sexuality, 14(7), 811–826.

    Google Scholar 

  58. Sirr, H. C. (1850). Ceylon and the Cingalese. London: William Shoberl.

    Google Scholar 

  59. Spivak, G. (1988). Can the subaltern speak? In C. Nelson & L. Grossberg (Eds.), Marxism and the interpretation of culture (pp. 271–313). Urbana Champaign: University of Illinois Press.

    Google Scholar 

  60. Zacharias, U. (2001). Trial by fire: Gender, power and citizenship in narratives of the nation. Social Text., 19(4), 29–51.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Funding

This research was supported by the Visiting International Fellowship Program at the University of Essex, UK.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Sociology, Wake Forest University, P.O. Box 7808, Winston-Salem, NC, 27109, USA

    Catherine E. Harnois

  2. Department of Sociology, University of Essex, Colchester, UK

    Sandya Hewamanne

Authors
  1. Catherine E. Harnois
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Sandya Hewamanne
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Catherine E. Harnois.

Ethics declarations

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Research Involving Human Participants

This research did not involve human subjects and thus did not require informed consent.

Additional information

Publisher's Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Harnois, C.E., Hewamanne, S. Categorical Variables Without Categorical Thinking? A Relational Reading of the Sri Lankan Demographic and Health Survey. Gend. Issues 37, 355–375 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12147-020-09252-5

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12147-020-09252-5

Keywords

Search

Navigation