Rethinking Empowerment

Rethinking Empowerment looks at the changing role of women in developing countries and rejects the established notion that empowerment in development is best understood and pursued at a local/global level. It calls for a new approach, one that adopts a more nuanced, feminist interpretation of power and em(power)ment 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 an 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 focusing on Chile, Turkey, India, Kenya, Cameroon and Tanzania. Jane L.Parpart, Shirin Rai, Kathleen Staudt, Nelly Stromquist Pauline Gardiner Barber, Shaheen Sardar Ali, Gillian Youngs, Susan franceschet, Marella Bodur, Reena Patel, Josephine Lairap-Fonderson,