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.

The economic and political empowerment of women continues to be a central focus for development agencies worldwide; access to medical care, education and employment, as well as women's reproductive rights remain key factors effecting women's autonomy. Feminisms, Empowerment and Development explores what women are doing to change their own personal circumstances whilst providing an in-depth analysis of collective action and institutionalized mechanisms aimed at changing structural relations. Drawing on unique, original research and approaching empowerment as a complex process of negotiation, rather than a linear sequence of inputs and outcomes, this crucial collection highlights the difficulty of creating common agendas for the advancement of women's power and rights, and argues for a more nuanced, context-based approach to development theory and practice. An indispensible text for anyone interested in gender and development, this book shows that policies and approaches to development that view women as instrumental to other objectives will never promote women's empowerment as they fail to address the structures by which gender inequality is perpetuated over time.

Has feminism transformed development studies? What happens to feminist theory and practice within the development industry?This book brings together a variety of feminist ativists and academics, from both North and South, engaged in development, to answer these questions. Each describes her project and its feminist rationale, and analyses it through three fundamental challenges:the problem of making a feminist agenda work within development agencies, including the difficulties of finding funding and the constraints imposed by funders;the ethical and methodological issues raised by feminism - including the differences between women and the legitimacy of studying 'the Other';the challenge of international feminism: looking for new ways to work together for global change without imposing 'Western feminism' on Southern women.Including feminist projects from the 'South in the North', the book explores how 'global feminism' actually works in a variety of ways, through both activism and academic research. It is a fascinating insight into the challenges and rewards of feminist theory in practice. As such it is necessary reading for practitioners, policy-makers, activists and academics in gender and development as well as all students and academics of women's studies.

Since the early 1980s Ecuador has experienced a series of events unparalleled in its history. Its “free market” strategies exacerbated the debt crisis, and in response new forms of social movement organizing arose among the country’s poor, including women’s groups. Gendered Paradoxes focuses on women’s participation in the political and economic restructuring process of the past twenty-five years, showing how in their daily struggle for survival Ecuadorian women have both reinforced and embraced the neoliberal model yet also challenged its exclusionary nature. Drawing on her extensive ethnographic fieldwork and employing an approach combining political economy and cultural politics, Amy Lind charts the growth of several strands of women’s activism and identifies how they have helped redefine, often in contradictory ways, the real and imagined boundaries of neoliberal development discourse and practice. In her analysis of this ambivalent and “unfinished” cultural project of modernity in the Andes, she examines state policies and their effects on women of various social sectors; women’s community development initiatives and responses to the debt crisis; and the roles played by feminist “issue networks” in reshaping national and international policy agendas in Ecuador and in developing a transnationally influenced, locally based feminist movement.

Women the world over are being prevented from engaging in politics. Women's political leadership of any sort is a rarity and a career in politics rarer still. We have, however, begun to understand what it takes to create an enabling environment for women's political participation. In this exciting and pioneering collection, writers from Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East are brought together for the first time to talk explicitly about women's participation in the political scene across the global South. Answering such questions as how women can get political apprenticeship opportunities, how these opportunities translate into the pursuit of a political career, and how these pursuits then influence the kind of political platform women advocate once in power, Women in Politics is essential reading for anyone interested in what it means to engage politically.

This book offers an insightful look at the development of feminist theory through a literary lens. Stressing the significance of feminism's origins in the European Enlightenment, it traces the literary careers of feminism's major thinkers in order to elucidate the connection of feminist theoretical production to literary work.

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.

The ebook edition of this title is Open Access, thanks to Knowledge Unlatched funding, and freely available to read online. Sport, Gender and Development brings together an exploration of sport feminisms to offer new approaches to research on Sport for Development and Peace (SDP) in global and local contexts.

Feminism and the Politics of Childhood offers an innovative and critical exploration of perceived commonalities and conflicts between women and children and, more broadly, between various forms of feminism and the politics of childhood. This unique collection of 18 chapters brings into dialogue authors from a range of geographical contexts, social science disciplines, activist organisations, and theoretical perspectives. The wide variety of subjects include refugee camps, care labour, domestic violence and childcare and education. Chapter authors focus on local contexts as well as their global interconnections, and draw on diverse theoretical traditions such as poststructuralism, psychoanalysis, posthumanism, postcolonialism, political economy, and the ethics of care. Together the contributions offer new ways to conceptualise relations between women and children, and to address injustices faced by both groups. Praise for Feminism and the Politics of Childhood: Friends or Foes? ‘This book is genuinely ground-breaking.’ ‒ Val Gillies, University of Westminster ‘Feminism and the Politics of Childhood: Friends or Foes? asks an impossible question, and then casts prismatic light on all corners of its impossibility.’ ‒ Cindi Katz, CUNY ‘This provocative and stimulating publication comes not a day too soon.’ ‒ Gerison Lansdown, Child to Child ‘A smart, innovative, and provocative book.’ ‒ Chandra Talpade Mohanty, Syracuse University ‘This volume raises and addresses issues so pressing that it is surprising they are not already at the heart of scholarship.’ ‒ Ann Phoenix, UCL

Feminism is not dead. This is not a postfeminist era. Feminism is still vibrant, despite declarations that it is over. Feminism is a success, although many gender inequalities remain. Feminism is taking powerful new forms, which makes it unrecognisable to some. In The Future of Feminism, Sylvia Walby offers a provocative riposte to the notion that feminism is dead. Substantiating her arguments with evidence of the vibrancy of contemporary feminism in civil society and beyond, she provides a succinct yet comprehensive critical review of recent treatments of feminism explaining why they have got it wrong. The book provides the definitive account of feminism's new and varied projects, goals, alliances and organizational forms, including feminism as a global wave. It offers engaged accounts of feminist activities across a range of domains in the economy, polity, violence and civil society. Successful feminist projects are not always named as feminist, sometimes being mainstreamed into coalitions with social democratic and global human rights activists. Feminism is now global, though also taking local forms, and these new coalitions are the basis for the future of feminism. On the future of feminism depends not only the future of gender inequality but the future of social inequality more generally.