Rethinking Empowerment looks at the changing role of women in developing countries and rejects the established notion that empowerment is best understood and pursued at a local level. It calls for a new approach, one that adopts a more nuanced, feminist interpretation of power and empowerment and recognises that local empowerment is always embedded in regional, national and global contexts. It must both pay attention to institutional structures and politics and acknowledge that empowerment is both a process and an outcome. Moreover, the book warns that an obsession with measurement rather than process can undermine efforts to foster transformative and empowering outcomes. It concludes that power must be restored as the centrepiece of empowerment. Only then will the term and its advocates provide meaningful ammunition for dealing with the challenges of an increasingly unequal, and often sexist, global/local world.
This edited collection will be essential reading for undergraduates and graduates in politics, development studies and gender studies as well as for specialists in these fields. In addition to chapters focusing on Latin America and predominantly Islamic countries, it contains case studies on Chile, Turkey, India, Kenya, Cameroon and Tanzania.
Jane L. Parpart is Professor of History, International Development Studies and Women’s Studies at Dalhousie University, Canada. Shirin M. Rai is Reader in Politics at the University of Warwick, UK. Kathleen Staudt is Professor of Political Science at the University of Texas at El Paso, USA.