Why Has Development Neglected Rural Women?: A Review of the South Asian Literature reviews literatures about the role of women in rural development in South Asia. The book details the concept of development and the importance of considering the role of women in development. Next, the selection discusses the extant literature on women's roles in rural life and economy. The title also analyzes the contemporary knowledge about rural women, and then discusses the general areas or research that should be considered in the future. The text will be of great interest to economists, political scientists, sociologists, and psychologists.

The Reader's Guide to Women's Studies is a searching and analytical description of the most prominent and influential works written in the now universal field of women's studies. Some 200 scholars have contributed to the project which adopts a multi-layered approach allowing for comprehensive treatment of its subject matter. Entries range from very broad themes such as "Health: General Works" to entries on specific individuals or more focused topics such as "Doctors."

Here is an insightful volume on the integration of women in the modernization process of developing countries, with research studies on women and development in Guatemala, Tanzania, Indonesia, and several other countries. Drawing from theory and practice, authorities examine how development in any kind of economy marginalizes women, illustrate the existence of a feminist awareness among impoverished rural women, demonstrate the importance of understanding the policy and program implementation institutions within which any transition toward more women-sensitive change is to occur, and suggest the kind of research that would be useful and credible to policymakers. Each of the controversial chapters reflects a new phase in women and development research, and each is a reminder that the fundamental issue--women’s subordination--remains key to theory and practice in development.

First published in 1989, this book provides a macro-micro approach to economic development — taking account of multi-level linkages, both inter and intra, that had been missed by previous analyses. The author argues that these linkages demonstrate that social and economic change may occur from the "bottom up" household/family level and not just from the "top down" economic order level — using women as a vehicle to illustrate this. In the first section, the expansive body of development literature is summarised and critically reviewed — isolating the primary strengths and weaknesses. Case studies of Malaysia, the Chinese Commune and the Israeli Kibbutz demonstrate that a theory which combines the analysis of the organisation of work, kinship and ethnicity can accommodate the experience of women in an integrated manner that traditional development theory has failed to achieve.

Offers an annotated source for the study of the public and private lives of South Asian Muslim women.

First published in 1984, Michael Redclift’s book makes the global environmental crisis a central concern of political economy and its structural causes a central concern of environmentalism. Michael Redclift argues that a close analysis of the environmental crisis in the South reveals the importance of the share of resources obtained by different social groups. The development strategies based on the experiences and interests of Western capitalist countries fail to recognise that environmental degradation in the South is a product of inequalities in both global and local economic relations and cannot be solved simply by applying solutions borrowed from environmentalism in the North. The key to understanding the South’s environmental problems lies in the recognition that structural processes – markets, technology, state intervention – are also a determining influence upon the way natural resources are used. Through his review of Europe’s Green Movement, contemporary breakthroughs in biotechnology and information systems and recent feminist discourse, Michael Redclift has enlarged the compass of the environmental debate and produced a book which should serve as a benchmark in future discussions of development and the environment. It will be of importance to students in a range of disciplines, within development studies, geography, ecology and the social sciences.

Microfinance has emerged as a growing field as more businesses discover the benefits and opportunities it provides. To ensure that microfinance is utilized appropriately, further study on the best practices and difficulties is required. The Research Anthology on Microfinance Services and Roles in Social Progress considers the ways in which microfinance can be utilized to achieve social progress as well as the challenges and opportunities of this area. Covering key topics such as income, small businesses, entrepreneurship, and credit, this major reference work is ideal for industry professionals, government officials, computer scientists, entrepreneurs, business owners, managers, policymakers, researchers, scholars, practitioners, instructors, and students.

How does economic development affect women in Latin America? This work examines the different ways that economic and social relations between the sexes are redefined in Guatemala as capitalist expansion transforms the nation. An unusual and rich combination of fieldwork in four communities supplemented by national-level data shows there are major differences in the sexual division of labor in four major segments of Guatemalan society: the Maya peasantry, the plantations, the urban poor, and the middle class. Without losing sight of the role of each community within the national economy, local economic and social options are described to show how economic change alters women’s status relative to men’s. The treatment of these differences goes beyond quantitative summaries to include life histories illustrating the complex choices women make and their adaptive strategies. The importance of cultural, class, and regional differences are brought to bear on the interpretation of different patterns of male-female relations, while local community adaptations are set against the larger background of capitalist expansion in Latin America. This book provides a unique contribution to the literature of Mesoamerican communities in that it redresses the imbalance in community-level coverage of women’s economic and social position within the Maya population, and it provides data on several types of communities that have scarcely been covered by anthropologists working in Mesoamerica. The comparative material on Maya and Ladino, rural and urban, and the poor and the elite is used to advance the theoretical understanding of the changing causes of women’s subordination in the Third World. Rejecting conventional explanations of machismo and traditional culture as cause of male dominance, this work explores the multi-faceted effects of the larger capitalist system on sexual stratification.

Free and Ennobled: Source Readings in the Development of Victorian Feminism covers the knowledge gap in the field of Victorian feminist studies. This book is the outgrowth of a college course on the Victorian Woman. This book is composed of ten chapters, and begins with an introduction to womanhood. The succeeding chapters deal with the emergence of feminism and the introduction of the Victorian Feminism movement as part of social adjustment. Other chapters are devoted to controversial issues in women's right, including education, emancipation, work, and political rights. The final chapters discuss the achievements of the Victorian Feminism movement. This book will prove useful to sociologists.