Researchers in Conversation: Wisam Abu Ghosh and Obasanjo Okekunle
|Wisam Abu Ghosh and Obasanjo Okekunle
Researchers in Conversation brings doctoral researchers across the University of Westminster together in conversation with each other.
Doctoral researchers present a short paper each about their research followed by a conversation. The aim is to bring researchers together in dialogue to explore the converging interests and themes arising from their presentations.
Abstracts:
Wisam Abu Ghosh: ‘Empowerment or Erasure? Questioning Development and empowerment Narratives inspired by my PhD research ‘Empowering Women through Engagement in the Tourism Sector. Examining International Development Projects and Public Policies in Palestinian villages Southern West Bank Hebron and Bethlehem”
This presentation critically interrogates the concept of "empowerment" within international donor-funded tourism development projects in Palestine, particularly in the southern West Bank. Drawing on postcolonial feminist theory and grounded fieldwork, the research explores how projects framed as empowering often reproduce structural disempowerment through depoliticised, Eurocentric frameworks that aestheticise women’s roles while limiting their authority, autonomy, and agency.
This session aligns with the Festival theme by challenging established narratives of empowerment and development, questioning who benefits, who is heard, and who is rendered invisible. It advocates for a shift from symbolic inclusion toward genuine, context-specific empowerment grounded in lived experience and political realities. Through this lens, the session invites attendees to deconstruct power relations and imagine more just and critical futures in research and practice.
Obasanjo Okekunle: ‘Readability of Sustainability Reports in Africa-Listed Companies: A Test of Management Obfuscation Hypothesis’.
The presentation draws on one of the chapters of my thesis. The chapter aims to investigate the relationship between the readability of sustainability reports and the sustainability performance of listed companies in Africa that published standalone sustainability reports during the selected period. This study effectively aims to directly test the management obfuscation hypothesis using the readability of sustainability reports and the sustainability performance of African-listed companies. The management obfuscation hypothesis posits that corporate managers deliberately distort the readability of financial disclosures to obscure poor performance, conceal unfavourable results, and manipulate shareholder decisions (Stellner, 2022; Ferri et al., 2023). The study hopes to find whether companies use complex language to obscure negative sustainability performance in their sustainability report.
The research findings of this paper will allow policymakers, regulatory authorities and standard setters to consider readability as an important issue in future standard development to ensure true accountability and transparency in sustainability disclosures.
Transparency and accountability have always been core objectives of policymakers, regulatory authorities and standard setters for sustainability reporting, but readability of sustainability disclosures has not been a direct concern to them. This presentation relates to the conference theme in that the research fosters critical thinking, which will potentially inform and advocate for transformative change in the area of sustainability disclosures (environmental, social and governance).
