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In this article, Koggel reflects on the various influences on her thinking on gender and development, including a research project in Indonesia to explore the possible gaps between the World Bank’s understanding of empowerment and social science theory and NGO practice prior to mainstreaming the concept; capabilities theory and the difference between empowerment and agency; and the rhetoric of empowerment. She discusses the importance of contextual analyses and of the limitations of generalized policies or principles designed to promote ‘development’ or empower women. An important lesson for development ethicists is the need to pay attention to and analyse relations of power – including the overarching factor of economic globalization in the form of neo-liberal and capitalist assumptions and structures. Another important lesson is the one she learned from Sen's complex analysis of poverty: that ethical issues of development are as relevant to ‘developed’ countries as they are to poor ‘developing’ countries. …

A meeting was held in October 2006 at Queen Elisabeth House hosted by  Barbara Harris White and organised by Tina Wallace (International Gender  Studies at QEH) under the auspices of the Womenʹs Study Group of the DSA.   The intention was to stand back and look at where gender is in the  development agenda with a group of people committed to and concerned about  what has happened to gender in the past few years.   …

Hussainatu J. Abdullah and Aisha Fofana-Ibrahim address the meaning and practice of women’s empowerment in Sierra Leone’s post-conflict reconstruction and peace consolidation processes from the perspectives of the Government of Sierra Leone and the UN system in Sierra Leone. These two institutions illustrate how women’s empowerment has been pursued in two institutions with key roles and positions in Sierra Leone’s post-war renewal processes. …

A short article explaining BRAC Development Institute’s research into what ‘empowerment’ means when applied to women’s position, rights and development in Bangladesh, and how BRAC is mapping out the processes that have contributed to women’s empowerment. Firdous Azim demonstrates how the research is pushing us to reexamine the word empowerment in new and challenging ways, to take it out of its more formal meanings and to look at the ways that women themselves understand the process. …

The author presents the findings of her research to look at two dominant factors – religion and popular culture – that have affected women’s lives in Bangladesh in their search to give it meaning and form. This research stemmed from an exploratory paper five years ago, and sought to answer the questions: How are we to understand these ‘new’ women? What are the policy and programmatic interventions that are now required? How are they being articulated by women themselves? In short, what’s new in new women’s lives? In this paper presented to Pathways South Asia Hub Final Conference, 26-28 July 2011, first Azim provides a background on nation- and identity-building in post-colonial South Asia and then examines the position of women a hundred years on to see if there has been a ‘resolution’ of the nation- and identity- building issues, or what shape and form they have acquired since. The research found that religion, however it figured into women’s lives, was always empowering and was not seen as anti-modern or conservative. With regard to popular culture, they found that women viewers of TV were aware of social messages on TV and were critical of TV programming’s lack of diversity. …

A panel from the the AWID Forum held in Cape Town from 14-17 November 2008. Dzodzi Tsikata discussed how women’s NGOs in Ghana have responded to some of the challenges they face because of NGOization. She recounted the history of NGOization in Ghana and the lessons that women’s NGOs learned from it, and concluded that “while NGOization still remains a huge issue for the women’s movement in Ghana, I think that women’s organisations in Ghana have come to recognize by their work that NGOs are not synonymous with civil society nor with the women’s movement. ” Saba Khatak placed the women’s movement in Pakistan in the larger context of Pakistani politics. …

This case study card discusses how the Pathways programme came together and its approaches to governance structures. Quotes from Pathways researchers shed light on its capacity building and research perspectives. The action points put forward recommendations for building stronger research programmes. …

Tessa Lewin introduces Pathways of Women’s Empowerment RPC, explaining its purpose in bringing together academics and activists from five hubs to understand the factors influencing women’s empowerment. The article elaborates on the four themes of Pathways, namely ‘Conceptions of Women’s Empowerment’, ‘Building Constituencies for Equality and Justice’, ‘Empowering Work’ and ‘Changing Narratives of Sexuality’, before identifying some of the common factors which hamper women’s empowerment and highlighting some of the research being done by Pathways researchers. …

This article examines the significance of social relationships in women's lives and their relevance to processes of women's empowerment. In Bangladesh, traditional structures limit women's social interaction to their immediate family and maintain male responsibility over them. However, here we look at the example of Saptagram – a social mobilisation organisation particularly focused against gender injustice towards rural landless Bangladeshi women – and how by providing relationships beyond the private sphere it engendered bonds of friendship and loyalty amongst its beneficiaries. Difficulties with systems and its inability to recruit a new line of leadership led to its apparent failure at one point. …

Jerker Edström argues that common interpretations of vulnerability in gender and development discourse, policy and practice tend to reinforce essentialisms about men and women. These interpretations compromise our ability to think clearly about the structural influences on HIV and sexual health, as well as its relations to gender inequity and women’s empowerment. He examines some predominant constructions of women in the AIDS response, based on the notion of vulnerability, and suggests how unhelpful the notion of vulnerability is to the political project of women’s empowerment in redressing inequality and injustice. …

Ama Ata Aidoo is an iconic African writer who has inspired generations of black and other women writers. This latest collection of short stories brings together diverse themes that speak of the relationship between Africa and its diaspora in terms of home, exile and sense of belonging and alienation. It reveals the complexities involved in the African diaspora connections, engaging with a sense of anomie and fragmentation, revealing her interest in presenting common human frailties. Steeped in Ghanaian and African history, her craftmanship also embraces pertinent new levels. …

As part of the South Asia Hub of the Pathways to Women's Empowerment Research Programme, 'Changing Narratives of Sexuality: Trajectories of Desire and the Mediation of Socio-Cultural Spaces' this action research project was designed to examine discursive changes and their impact on women's lives/identities in areas related to (i) religion specifically the global upsurge of religious fundamentalisms and resurgent patriarchies with reference to the rise of Wahabi Islam as a hegemonic discourse, new religious practices and women in Pakistan and (ii) the media, predominantly satellite television, in the wider context of technologies, consumerism and globalization. The project aimed to identify and uncover new pathways and sites of change in the two areas mentioned above by using different methodological techniques. The project was expanded by the Simorgh Lahore Partnership to include traditional religious practices and rituals in the religious component so as to deepen understanding of the processes of change that are underway to see how far they are conducive to women's empowerment and to what extent they merely reformulate and reinforce existing norms regarding women's status and position in society. In the process, it examines the ways in which these factors shape women’s identities and self perception. …

This presentation given by Neelam Hussain to the South Asia Hub Conference held from 26-28 July 2011 in Dhaka, was on research conducted by the Simorgh Women's Resource and Publication Centre, Lahore. The aim of the research on the impact of the media and women's religious gatherings on women's lives in Pakistan was to examine the impact of two seemingly disparate yet interlinked modern day phenomena, namely: the dars (women's religious gatherings) and new technologies, specifically satellite television and the mobile phone. …

This chapter is concerned with addressing the power dynamics and inequalities in the relationship between a South African non-government organization (NGO), Women on Farms Project (WFP) and the membership-based organization (MBO), Sikhula Sonke, which it established. In particular, it focuses on the genesis and evolution of the relationship and how unanticipated and initially unarticulated tensions led to a shift in power and a new phase in the relationship between the two organisations. The first section provides a short background to WFP, including the key discourses which have informed the understanding and approach of WFP’s work with farmwomen. The next section then outlines the contextual conditions of farmwomen in post-apartheid South Africa which led to WFP forming Sikhula Sonke. …

This article describes the annual gathering of over a thousand women rural workers from the Brazilian state of Bahia, to share their experiences in the struggle for land and in the struggle against all forms of violence but especially domestic violence; and to remind themselves that, as women, they need to demand to be treated with respect by both their colleagues in struggle and by society at large. …