Women¡¯s Economic Empowerment and Social Change from a Culture-Psychological Perspective

Since the beginning of the 1990ies, gender mainstreaming and related women`s economic empowerment programs became an integral part of development programs and global disaster management. Gender¨Dor more generally speaking social¨Djustice is defined as its end goal, that is a condition in which diverse needs and interests are acknowledged and shared power relations are existent. Albeit the goal of social justice appears to be clear, subjective ideals may be diverse and contradictory, depending on personal stances, religious affiliations as well as on sociocultural contexts. How do theoretical approaches developed in western countries aid analysis of, and development of interventions for social problems within non-western contexts? In this article, I address this question by investigating which gender relations are endorsed by a disaster-stricken village community in Southeast Asia. The community helps to clarify what is possible when a group of several Non-Government Organizations (NGOs) works together on issues of social justice and gender issues using livelihood programs and micro-credit schemes. On the background of the empirical findings, I discuss shortcomings of western approaches.