SPACES OF SECURITY: INTERROGATING THE GIRL EFFECT IN GUATEMALA

Abstract

In 2008, the Nike Foundation introduced The Girl Effect- a one-size fits all plan to solve poverty that argues girls in the global south are invisible and should be made visible through data collection and investment. During the summer of 2013, semi-structured interviews were conducted with young, indigenous Guatemalan women affiliated with an NGO funded by The Girl Effect in an attempt to better understand how NGO knowledge about universal human rights and gender equity is received by program participants. This thesis problematizes the NGO as a space of security by questioning for whom the NGO actually serves and viewing young women as willful subjects of a specific sociohistorical context instead of turning them into simplified `data'. I suggest that NGOs embracing The Girl Effect should avoid promoting a singular route to neoliberal success and instead attend to the diverse experiences of the young women they wish to serve.