Development and Gender Capital in India

by Shoba Arun

Author	: Shoba Arun
Publisher	: Routledge
Total Pages	: 183
Release	: 2017-09-06
Genre	: Social Science
ISBN	: 131540916X

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The Indian state of Kerala has invoked much attention within development and gender debates, specifically in relation to its female capital- an outcome of interrelated historical, cultural and social practices. On the one hand, Kerala has been romanticised, with its citizenry, particularly women, being free of social divisions and uplifted through educational well-being. On the other hand, its realism is stark, particularly in the light of recent social changes. Using a Bourdieusian frame of analysis, Development and Gender Capital in India explores the forces of globalisation and how they are embedded within power structures. Through narratives of women’s lived experiences in the private and public domains, it highlights the ‘anomie of gender’ through complexities and contradictions vis-à-vis processes of modernity, development and globalisation. By demonstrating the limits placed upon gender capital by structures of patriarchy and domination, it argues that discussions about the empowered Malayalee women should move from a mere ‘politics of rhetoric and representation’ to a more embedded ‘politics of transformation’, meaningfully taking into account women’s changing roles and identities. This book will be of interest to scholars and students of Development Studies, Gender Studies, Anthropology and Sociology.

Women, Power, and Property

by Rachel E. Brulé

Author	: Rachel E. Brulé
Publisher	: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages	: 395
Release	: 2020-10-22
Genre	: Political Science
ISBN	: 1108870600

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Quotas for women in government have swept the globe. Yet we know little about their capacity to upend entrenched social, political, and economic hierarchies. Women, Power, and Property explores this question within the context of India, the world's largest democracy. Brulé employs a research design that maximizes causal inference alongside extensive field research to explain the relationship between political representation, backlash, and economic empowerment. Her findings show that women in government – gatekeepers – catalyze access to fundamental economic rights to property. Women in politics have the power to support constituent rights at critical junctures, such as marriage negotiations, when they can strike integrative solutions to intrahousehold bargaining. Yet there is a paradox: quotas are essential for enforcement of rights, but they generate backlash against women who gain rights without bargaining leverage. In this groundbreaking study, Brulé shows how well-designed quotas can operate as a crucial tool to foster equality and benefit the women they are meant to empower.

Persisting Patriarchy

by Kochurani Abraham

Author	: Kochurani Abraham
Publisher	: Springer
Total Pages	: 247
Release	: 2019-08-08
Genre	: Religion
ISBN	: 3030214885

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This book examines the operational dynamics of patriarchy that is deeply woven into the Indian cultural fabric and its persistence in spite of women advancing in Human Development Indices. In studying the situation of women of the Catholic Syrian Christian community of Kerala, South India, as a case of analysis, Kochurani Abraham identifies caste consciousness and religious prescriptions of this community as the main factors that intersect with gendered identity construction and succeed in keeping women within its patriarchal confines. While women do engage in negotiating patriarchy through what can be termed simulative, tactical, and ‘agensic’ bargains, this remains a ‘politics of survival’ as it does not challenge the established gender order. In this context, making a shift from ‘politics of survival’ to a ‘politics of subversion’ is imperative for challenging persisting patriarchies.

Gender and Governance in Rural Services

by The World Bank

Author	: The World Bank
Publisher	: World Bank Publications
Total Pages	: 380
Release	: 2010-01-27
Genre	: Social Science
ISBN	: 0821381563

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'Gender and Governance in Rural Services' provides policy-relevant knowledge on strategies to improve agricultural and rural service delivery with a focus on providing more equitable access to these services, especially for women. It focuses India, Ethiopia, and Ghana, and focuses on two public services: agricultural extension, as an example of an agricultural service, and on drinking water, as an example of rural service that is not directly related to agriculture but is of high relevance for rural women. It provides empirical microlevel evidence on how different accountability mechanisms for agricultural advisory services and drinking water provision work in practice, and analyzes factors that influence the suitability of different governance reform strategies that aim at making service provision more gender responsive. It presents major findings from the quantitative and qualitative research conducted under the project in the three countries, which are analyzed in a qualitative way to identify major patterns of accountability routes in agricultural and rural service provision and to assess their gender dimension. The book is intended for use by a wide audience interested in agricultural and rural service provision, including researchers, members of the public administration, policy makers, and staff from nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and international development agencies who are involved in the design and management of reform efforts, projects, and programs dealing with rural service provision.

Efficiency and Equity Impacts of Rural Land Rental Restrictions: Evidence from India

by Klaus Deininger

Author	: Klaus Deininger
Publisher	: World Bank Publications
Total Pages	: 33
Release	: 2007
Genre	: Access to information
ISBN	:

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Recognition of the potentially deleterious implications of inequality in opportunity originating in a skewed asset distribution has spawned considerable interest in land reforms. However, little attention has been devoted to the fact that, in the longer-term, the measures used to implement land reforms, especially rental restrictions, could negatively affect productivity. Use of state level data on rental restrictions, together with a nationally representative survey from India suggests that, contrary to original intentions, rental restrictions negatively affect productivity and equity by reducing scope for efficiency-enhancing rental transactions that benefit poor producers. Simulations suggest that, by doubling the number of producers with access to land through rental, from about 15 million currently, liberalization of rental markets could have far-reaching impacts.

Gender, Development, and the State in India

by Carole Spary

Author	: Carole Spary
Publisher	: Routledge
Total Pages	: 366
Release	: 2019-02-21
Genre	: Political Science
ISBN	: 0429663447

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This book explores the relationship between the state, development policy, and gender (in)equality in India. It discusses the formation of state policy on gender and development in India in the post-1990 period through three key organising concepts of institutions, discourse, and agency. The book pays particular attention to whether the international policy language of gender mainstreaming has been adopted by the Indian state, and if so, to what extent and with what results. The author examines how these issues play out at multiple levels of governance – at both the national and the subnational (state) level in federal India. This comparative aspect is particularly important in the context of increasing autonomy in development policymaking in India in the 1990s, divergent development policy approaches and outcomes among states, and the emerging importance of subnational state development policies and programmes for women in this period. The author argues that the state is not a monolith but a heterogeneous, internally differentiated collection of institutions, which offers complex and varying opportunities and consequences for feminists engaging the state. Demonstrating that the Indian empirical case is illuminating for studies of the gendered politics of development, and international debates on gender mainstreaming, the book highlights the politics of negotiating gender equality strategies in the contemporary context of neo-liberal development and brings together complex issues of modernity, postcolonialism, identity politics, federalism, and equality within the broader context of the world’s largest democracy. This book will be of interest to scholars interested in the politics of gender equality, state feminism, and gender mainstreaming; federalism and multi-level governance; and development studies and gender in South Asia.

Mobility as Capability

by Nikhila Menon

Author	: Nikhila Menon
Publisher	: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages	: 213
Release	: 2021-09-30
Genre	: Political Science
ISBN	: 1108883508

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This book highlights accounts of women workers to capture the domains of gendered mobility, which challenges the exalted status conferred on women in the Kerala model of development. It contests and deconstructs the development discourse which considers women's work mobility as an indicator of autonomy and agency using Capability Approach. The concept of 'transformational mobility' and its measurement introduced in the book advances the understanding of mobility, autonomy and agency and the intersectionality in the context of gender and work. Through an in-depth exploration of lived experiences of informal women workers the author illustrates how patriarchal structures are shaped and reinforced by work places, markets and the state. The central question is - can we steer development policies to facilitate collective capabilities for women where informal work arrangements are becoming the norm?

Research Handbook on Feminist Political Thought

by Mary Caputi

Author	: Mary Caputi
Publisher	: Edward Elgar Publishing
Total Pages	: 513
Release	: 2024-05-02
Genre	: Political Science
ISBN	: 1800889135

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Illustrating the collective power and relevance of feminist theory today, Mary Caputi and Patricia Moynagh have carefully selected a diverse international range of leading scholars and activists to critically assess key social and political challenges in the twenty-first century. This Research Handbook demonstrates a variety of feminist analyses that offer compelling insights into an array of topics, including police brutality, the carceral state, racial and sexualised violence, trans rights, climate change, and the denial of reproductive rights.

Women, Development, and the UN

by Devaki Jain

Author	: Devaki Jain
Publisher	: Indiana University Press
Total Pages	: 262
Release	: 2005-10-17
Genre	: Political Science
ISBN	: 9780253111845

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"Devaki Jain opens the doors of the United Nations and shows how it has changed the female half of the world -- and vice versa. Women, Development, and the UN is a book that every global citizen, government leader, journalist, academic, and self-respecting woman should read." -- Gloria Steinem "Devaki Jain's book nurtures your optimism in this terrible war-torn decade by describing how women succeeded in empowering both themselves and the United Nations to work toward a global leadership inspired by human dignity." -- Fatema Mernissi In Women, Development, and the UN, internationally noted development economist and activist Devaki Jain traces the ways in which women have enriched the work of the United Nations from the time of its founding in 1945. Synthesizing insights from the extensive literature on women and development and from her own broad experience, Jain reviews the evolution of the UN's programs aimed at benefiting the women of developing nations and the impact of women's ideas about rights, equality, and social justice on UN thinking and practice regarding development. Jain presents this history from the perspective of the southern hemisphere, which recognizes that development issues often look different when viewed from the standpoint of countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. The book highlights the contributions of the four global women's conferences in Mexico City, Copenhagen, Nairobi, and Beijing in raising awareness, building confidence, spreading ideas, and creating alliances. The history that Jain chronicles reveals both the achievements of committed networks of women in partnership with the UN and the urgent work remaining to bring equality and justice to the world and its women.