Researching Women's Empowerment: Reflections on Methodology by Southern Feminists

The articles in this collection are based on papers presented by authors and the collective reflections of participants and external resource persons from a workshop on methods organised by Pathways in December 2012. These articles represent the experience of conducting specific research projects on women's empowerment in Bangladesh, Egypt, Ghana, Brazil, and Palestine. During the workshop, the participants collectively reflected on the practical experience of investigating empowerment in a particular country context and through this lens re-examined theorising on feminist methodology. They began with an appreciation of the contradictions and complexities underscored by earlier feminist analysis of women's empowerment and the use of feminist methodology to examine women's experience in the global South. They then strived to offer a nuanced account of how the contradictions and complexities are amplified when feminist methodology is deployed to research the concept of empowerment.