Andrea Cornwall

Elizabeth Harrison

Ann Whitehead

This collection of essays by leading feminist thinkers from North and South constitutes a major new attempt to reposition feminism within development studies. Feminism's emphasis on social transformation makes it fundamental to development studies. Yet the relationship between the two disciplines has frequently been a troubled one. At present, the way in which many development institutions function often undermines feminist intent through bureaucratic structures and unequal power quotients. Moreover, the seeming intractability of inequalities and injustice in developing countries have presented feminists with some enormous challenges. Here, emphasizing the importance of a plurality of approaches, the authors argue for the importance of what 'feminisms' have to say to development. Confronting the enormous challenges for feminisms in development studies, this book provides real hope for dialogue and exchange between feminisms and development.

Contradictions, Contestations and Challenges

Feminisms in Development

When Isabelle Barnes leaves home one morning, never to return, the streets of country Carwell are awash with rumour and innuendo. And her bewildered daughter, Abbie, is left to find her way in the world without her mother's guiding hand. Four years later, seventeen-year-old Abbie finds herself pregnant to the browbeaten son of the devout and intimidating Henrietta. She's thrown into a life that quickly ceases to be her own, down to the choice of dress for her wedding day. These two women's paths collide in tumultuous and eventually tragic ways beyond the birth of Abbie's daughter, Claire. But will Claire escape the confines of family and her small country town, or is she doomed to repeat her mother's fate? The House Across the Road raises questions of duty versus desire, conformity versus freedom, and whether we can ever truly break free from the past.

The House Across the Road

This collection of essays by leading feminist thinkers from North and South constitutes a major new attempt to reposition feminism within development studies. Feminism’s emphasis on social transformation makes it fundamental to development studies. Yet the relationship between the two disciplines has frequently been a troubled one. At present, the way in which many development institutions function often undermines feminist intent through bureaucratic structures and unequal power quotients. Moreover, the seeming intractability of inequalities and injustice in developing countries have presented feminists with some enormous challenges. Here, emphasizing the importance of a plurality of approaches, the authors argue for the importance of what ‘feminisms’ have to say to development. Confronting the enormous challenges for feminisms in development studies, this book provides real hope for dialogue and exchange between feminisms and development.

This collection brings together leading feminist thinkers whoexamine the struggles for interpretive power which underliesinternational development. Questions why the insights from years of feminist gender anddevelopment research are so often turned into ‘gendermyths’ and ‘feminist fables’: women are morelikely to care for the environment; are better at working together;are less corrupt; have a seemingly infinite capacity tosurvive Explores how bowdlerized and impoverished representations ofgender relations have simultaneously come to be embedded indevelopment policy and practice Traces the ways in which language and images of development arerelated to practice and provides a nuanced account of the politicsof knowledge production Argues that struggles for interpretive power are not onlyimportant for our own sake, but also for the implications they havefor women’s lives worldwide An informed analysis of how ‘gender’ has beentransformed in its transfer into development policy and how manyauthors are now revisiting and reflecting on their earlierwork

Ann Whitehead

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