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Choosing Words with Care? Shifting meanings of women's empowerment in international development

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  • Rosalind Eyben
  • Rebecca Napier-Moore

Abstract

‘Women's empowerment’, as used by international development organisations, is a fuzzy concept. Historical textual analysis and interviews with officials in development agencies reveal its adaptability and capacity to carry multiple meanings that variously wax and wane in their discursive influence. Today a privileging of instrumentalist meanings of empowerment associated with efficiency and growth are crowding out more socially transformative meanings associated with rights and collective action. In their efforts to make headway in what has become an unfavourable policy environment, officials in development agencies with a commitment to a broader social change agenda juggle these different meanings, strategically exploiting the concept's polysemic nature to keep that agenda alive. We argue for a politics of solidarity between such officials and feminist activists. We encourage the latter to challenge the prevailing instrumentalist discourse of empowerment with a clear, well articulated call for social transformation, while alerting them to how those with the same agenda within international development agencies may well be choosing their words with care, even if what they say appears fuzzy.

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  • Rosalind Eyben & Rebecca Napier-Moore, 2009. "Choosing Words with Care? Shifting meanings of women's empowerment in international development," Third World Quarterly, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 30(2), pages 285-300.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:ctwqxx:v:30:y:2009:i:2:p:285-300
    DOI: 10.1080/01436590802681066
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Mohammad Muaz Jalil, 2023. "State versus Market Debate and Shaping of the Gender Empowerment Agenda," Review of Development and Change, , vol. 28(1), pages 45-66, June.
    2. Niyonkuru, Pascal & Barrett, Hazel, 2021. "Gender and intergenerational challenges to Women’s economic empowerment initiatives in Rwanda," World Development Perspectives, Elsevier, vol. 23(C).
    3. Signe Marie Cold-Ravnkilde & Lars Engberg-Pedersen & Adam Moe Fejerskov, 2018. "Global norms and heterogeneous development organizations," Progress in Development Studies, , vol. 18(2), pages 77-94, April.
    4. Nassani, Abdelmohsen A. & Aldakhil, Abdullah Mohammed & Abro, Muhammad Moinuddin Qazi & Islam, Talat & Zaman, Khalid, 2019. "The impact of tourism and finance on women empowerment," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 41(2), pages 234-254.
    5. Narayanan, Sudha & Lentz, Erin & Fontana, Marzia & De, Anuradha & Kulkarni, Bharati, 2019. "Developing the Women's Empowerment in Nutrition Index in Two States of India," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 89(C).
    6. Lars Engberg-Pedersen, 2018. "Do norms travel? The case of gender in Danish development cooperation," Progress in Development Studies, , vol. 18(3), pages 153-171, July.
    7. A. Galiè & N. Teufel & L. Korir & I. Baltenweck & A. Webb Girard & P. Dominguez-Salas & K. M. Yount, 2019. "The Women’s Empowerment in Livestock Index," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 142(2), pages 799-825, April.

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