ABSTRACT
Rethinking Empowerment looks at the changing role of women in developing countries and calls for a new approach to empowerment. An approach that adopts a more nuanced, feminist interpretation of power and em(power)ment, recognises that local empowerment is always embedded in regional, national and global contexts, pays attention to institutional structures and politics and acknowledges that empowerment is both a process and an outcome. Moreover, the book warns that an obsession with measurement rather than process can undermine efforts to foster transformative and empowering outcomes. It concludes that power must be restored as the centrepiece of empowerment. Only then will the term and its advocates provide meaningful ammunition for dealing with the challenges of an increasingly unequal, and often sexist, global/local world.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
part |38 pages
Theory and praxis
part |56 pages
Women's empowerment in a global world
part |68 pages
The nation state, politics and women's empowerment
chapter |14 pages
Political representation, democratic institutions and women's empowerment The quota debate in India1
part |73 pages
The local/global, development and women's empowerment
chapter |19 pages
Development, demographic and feminist agendas
part |8 pages
Conclusion