From ‘did it work?’ to ‘what did it do?’: Rethinking financial literacy education impact through the narratives of fisherwomen on the Amazonian coast of Brazil.

This thesis examines the impact of a financial literacy education programme offered via women’s savings clubs in traditional fishing communities on the Amazon coast of Pará, Brazil. Although these communities reside in some of the world’s most biodiverse regions, their daily economic lives remain largely under‑examined within broader development discourses. The savings clubs, each comprising up to 25 women meeting regularly to save, share resources, and engage in guided discussions, provided a fertile setting to explore how financial learning could intersect with local traditions, communal bonds, and ecological relationships. Data collection spanned three years (2021–2023), with the core fieldwork taking place in 2022. Grounded in a feminist and decolonial evaluation framework, the study pursues several interrelated aims. First, it seeks to identify the programme’s formal and enacted purpose, examining how policy documents and on‑the‑ground practice align or diverge, and how tensions between institutional objectives and local implementation shaped intentions around self‑management, shared accountability, leadership, and autonomy. Second, the perspectives of the fisherwomen are central: the study investigates latent, relational, and culturally situated outcomes in identity, social practice, and modes of talk, asking what complex, non‑obvious outcomes can be attributed to the education programme and how shifts in dialogue, self‑perception, and community dynamics reflect deeper transformations. Third, through epistemic network analysis, the study explores whether participants’ ideas cluster into coherent patterns called ‘epistemic boundaries’, and considers how these knowledge structures reflect impact and might inform future evaluation frameworks. In doing so, it examines whether relationships between ideas can be mapped, what drives these connections, and what insights emerge about conceptualising outcomes. Finally, the research examines whether the programme catalysed broader systemic change: did a Landscape of Practice encompassing NGOs, academic institutions, local associations, and community actors emerge? And can the appearance of such a relational terrain be regarded as an outcome in its own right? Methodologically, the study integrates activity‑system modelling, escrevivência, autoethnography, differences‑within‑similarities analysis, and epistemic network analysis, drawing on cultural‑historical activity theory and network theory. The approach deliberately moves beyond conventional input–output logics, highlighting complex relational interactions, cognitive shifts, and epistemic formations. Crucially, it embraces the reflexive, embodied positioning of the researcher as a vital component of analytic insight. Key findings reveal impact as multifaceted: tensions between policy and practice disclosed diverging visions of purpose; reflexive engagement brought the researcher’s embodied experience into the heart of analysis, opening pathways to uncover latent effects; from the fisherwomen’s standpoint, the intervention sparked shifts in economic behaviour, modes of talk, self‑identity, and gendered social roles. Epistemic network analysis uncovered clear epistemic boundaries, offering a novel tool for rendering collective knowledge shifts visible without erasing individual narratives. Moreover, a nascent Landscape of Practice emerged, suggesting that the programme generated structural ripple effects beyond its immediate context. Theoretically, the study advances our understanding of impact by illuminating relational, cognitive, and narrative dimensions alongside measurable outputs. It offers a methodological contribution by combining feminist, decolonial, and reflexive approaches with innovative epistemic analysis. In practice, it challenges standard impact evaluation models by demonstrating how network-based storywork can reveal profound changes that quantitative indicators often miss. The findings carry important implications for policymakers and civil‑society actors: designing financial education programmes and interventions must account for identity shifts, relational dynamics, and latent cognitive transformations.

Name dc:type.qualificationname

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Level dc:type.qualificationlevel

Doctoral

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

University of Cambridge

Year dc:date.issued

2025

Author dc:creator

• Scarpa Gebara, Raquel

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Dudley, Peter

• Amazonian coast
• Autoethnography
• Brazil
• Communities of Practice
• Cultural-Historical Activity Theory (CHAT)
• Decolonial
• Differences-within-similarities
• Education Impact Analysis
• Epistemic Boundaries
• Epistemic Network Analysis
• Escrevivência
• Feminist
• Financial literacy
• Fisherwomen
• Fishing communities
• Impact Evaluation
• Landscape of Practice
• Narrative Analysis
• Occupational identity

Licence

• https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/bitstreams/1aec310c-6655-4dd9-a216-d4886f47dbbb/download
• http://purl.org/NET/rdflicense/allrightsreserved

Language dc:language

eng

Author Identifier

0000-0001-6466-9246

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.repository.cam.ac.uk:1810/395645