Women and Empowerment: Illustrations from the Third World

by Haleh Afshar (Editor)

Overview

The authors in this volume address the questions 'What is empowerment?' Is it power over resources? Is it the ability to create 'effective demand'? Is it about the ability to make choices? Is it about access to resources and how they are controlled, politically, economically, by NGOs, by political parties, by the state? Do political parties facilitate or do they channel energies away from empowerment? They evaluate how in different circumstances different political agents have been seen as provider of resources.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780333719749
Publisher:	Palgrave Macmillan UK
Publication date:	02/09/1998
Series:	Women's Studies at York Series
Edition description:	1998
Pages:	214
Product dimensions:	5.51(w) x 8.50(h) x (d)

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements - Notes on the Contributors - Introduction; H.Afshar - Empowerment in the Discourse and Practice of Development; J.Rowland - Fruit of Burden: The Organisation of Women Temporary Workers in Chilean Agribusiness; S.Barrientos - Gender Aspects of the Rural Urban Migration in China; D.Davin - The Grameen Bank Experiment: Empowerment of Women through Credit; L.N.Khan Osmani - Gender Relations and the Democratisation to Local Politics in the Transition to Democracy in Brazil and Chile; F.Macaulay - The Syrian Woman: Reality and Aspiration; L.Djabari - 'Disempowerment' and the Politics of Civil Liberties for Iranian Women; H.Afshar - Violence in Intimate Relationships: an Indian Case Study; P.Sen - Engendering Conflict Analysis; D.Pankhurst & J.Pearce - Women Dying, Women Working: Disempowerment in British India; J.Kynch & M.Sibbons - Women, Gender and Impact Assessment; E.Dawson - Index

Editorial Reviews

Using case-studies from Latin America, Southeast Asia and the Middle East, the authors note the diversity of political and economic measures that have been introduced in the name of empowerment. They demonstrate that at times too much emphasis has been placed on the individual and her particular circumstances, which in turn has undermined communal activities and goals. At other times the very existence of an international empowerment agenda has proved extremely useful to isolated groups engaged in difficult political negotiations with the state. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

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