Gender Power And Knowledge For Development

Knowledge-for-development is under-theorised and under-researched within development studies, but as a set of policy objectives it is thriving within development practice. Donors and other agencies are striving to improve the flow of information within and between decision-makers and so-called ‘poor and marginalized groups’ in order to promote economic and social development, including the empowerment of women. Gender, Power and Knowledge for Development questions the assumptions and practice of the knowledge-for-development industry. Using a qualitative, multi-site ethnographical study of a Northern-based gender information service and its ‘beneficiaries’ in India, the book queries the utility of the knowledge paradigm itself and the underlying assumption that a knowledge deficit exists in the Global South. It questions the value of practices designed to address this presumed deficit that seek to increase information without addressing the specific problems of the knowledge systems being targeted for support. After reviewing the evidence, the book recommends that international organisations, governments and practitioners move away from the belief that information intermediaries can employ progressive correctives to ‘tinker at the edges’ and thus resolve the shortcomings of on-going attempts to use knowledge alone as a driver of development. Gender, Power and Knowledge for Development will be of great interest to researchers, students in development studies, gender studies, and communication studies as well as INGOs, donor agencies and groups engaged in information for development (i4D), ICT for development (ICT4D), Tech4Dev, knowledge mobilization and knowledge-for-development (K4D).

Theoretical Perspectives on Gender and Development demytsifies the theory of gender and development and shows how it plays an important role in everyday life. It explores the evolution of gender and development theory, introduces competing theoretical frameworks, and examines new and emerging debates. The focus is on the implications of theory for policy and practice, and the need to theorize gender and development to create a more egalitarian society. This book is intended for classroom and workshop use in the fields ofdevelopment studies, development theory, gender and development, and women's studies. Its clear and straightforward prose will be appreciated by undergraduate and seasoned professional, alike. Classroom exercises, study questions, activities, and case studies are included. It is designed for use in both formal and nonformal educational settings.

Revisiting Gender Training is concerned with the thinking behind gender education and training rather than with day to day practice. It explores the explicit and implicit assumptions in gender training about the nature of knowledge (epistemology), about how knowledge is imparted (pedagogy), and about knowing (cognition). The book brings together case studies at country, regional and global level to look critically behind the practice. Jashodhara Dasgupta examines whether the primarily 'political' nature of the feminist project has been unobtrusively dismantled by the language and tools of development in India, including the use of gender training. Josephine Ahikire analyses gender training in Uganda, post-Beijing Conference, and the ways in which it has changed over time. She focuses on the point where international imperatives meet the national context, and considers the impact of gender training on the feminist intellectual and political project. Lina Abou-Habib considers gender training in the Machreq/Maghreb region in the Middle East and North Africa. She highlights the transformatory potential of such training, and the ways in which it has dealt with patriarchal mindsets and institutions. Claudy Vouhe discusses the conditions and factors that limit or strengthen the impact of gender training. This contribution is the output from an international conference on gender training in the French-speaking world in 2006. Shamim Meer explores the power of rights-based development approaches for advancing ideas and action for social change, including change to unequal gender power relations. Starting with experience in South Africa, she teases out the particular understandings of rights and agency, and reflects on a methodology for linking reflection and action through starting from the personal. Maitrayee Mukhopadhyay and Franz Wong introduce the book and establish its focus on gender training and feminist epistemology, its tone of critical reflection, and its aim of looking beneath the surface of much of the day to day 'gender' activity and considering the assumptions made about of the links that exist between knowledge, attitudes, behaviours, and practice. An extensive and up-to-date annotated bibliography of international resources (print and online) makes this a truly global sourcebook on the topic. Book jacket.

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.

Technology, Gender and Power in Africa

The Politics of Feminist Knowledge Transfer draws together analytical work on gender training and gender expertise. Its chapters critically reflect on the politics of feminist knowledge transfer, understood as an inherently political, dynamic and contested process, the overall aim of which is to transform gendered power relations in pursuit of more equal societies, workplaces, and policies. At its core, the work explores the relationship between gender expertise, gender training, and broader processes of feminist transformation arising from knowledge transfer activities. Examining these in a reflective way, the book brings a primarily practice-based debate into the academic arena. With contributions from authors of diverse backgrounds, including academics, practitioners and representatives of gender training institutions, the editors combine a focus on gender expertise and gender training, with more theory-focused chapters.

Leaders present lessons learned, strategies, challenges, and successes in easy-to-read narratives highlighting their diverse experiences with context, culture, power, gender and sustainability.

This book casts a light on the daily struggles and achievements of ‘gender experts’ working in environment and development organisations, where they are charged with advancing gender equality and social equity and aligning this with visions of sustainable development. Developed through a series of conversations convened by the book’s editors with leading practitioners from research, advocacy and donor organisations, this text explores the ways gender professionals – specialists and experts, researchers, organizational focal points – deal with personal, power-laden realities associated with navigating gender in everyday practice. In turn, wider questions of epistemology and hierarchies of situated knowledges are examined, where gender analysis is brought into fields defined as largely techno-scientific, positivist and managerialist. Drawing on insights from feminist political ecology and feminist science, technology and society studies, the authors and their collaborators reveal and reflect upon strategies that serve to mute epistemological boundaries and enable small changes to be carved out that on occasions open up promising and alternative pathways for an equitable future. This book will be of great relevance to scholars and practitioners with an interest in environment and development, science and technology, and gender and women’s studies more broadly. The Open Access version of this book, available at https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9781351175180, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.