Empowerment of women Postcolonial feminist theory challenging mainstream feminist perspectives
(2006)Department of Political Science
- Abstract
- The idea of empowering women as a strategy for poverty alleviation, has become
increasingly popular with institutions, such as the UN and the World Bank, as
well as with NGO:s. Today there is not one definition of what empowerment
should mean and the concept is used in many different contexts and is the stated
goal of various development strategies. Therefore it is interesting to take a closer
look at how different actors, actually understands the concept of empowerment.
The main aim of this thesis then is to investigate how mainstream feminist
theory and postcolonial/postmodern feminist theory understands the Third World
Woman and the concept of empowerment. Importantly, it will be argued that the
theories are based on different... (More) - The idea of empowering women as a strategy for poverty alleviation, has become
increasingly popular with institutions, such as the UN and the World Bank, as
well as with NGO:s. Today there is not one definition of what empowerment
should mean and the concept is used in many different contexts and is the stated
goal of various development strategies. Therefore it is interesting to take a closer
look at how different actors, actually understands the concept of empowerment.
The main aim of this thesis then is to investigate how mainstream feminist
theory and postcolonial/postmodern feminist theory understands the Third World
Woman and the concept of empowerment. Importantly, it will be argued that the
theories are based on different assumptions of the Third World Woman. Western
mainstream feminist theory tends to take western culture and society as reference
point in their studies while postcolonial feminist theory challenges the universality
of western norms. The case studies of the Grameen Bank and SEWA are used to
further illustrate how the different understandings of empowerment might support
different strategies. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/1327944
- author
- Lundén, Elin
- supervisor
- organization
- year
- 2006
- type
- H1 - Master's Degree (One Year)
- subject
- keywords
- Empowerment, Post colonial feminist theory, Mainstream feminist theory, SEWA, The Grameen Bank, Political and administrative sciences, Statsvetenskap, förvaltningskunskap
- language
- English
- id
- 1327944
- date added to LUP
- 2006-02-10 00:00:00
- date last changed
- 2006-02-10 00:00:00
@misc{1327944,
abstract = {{The idea of empowering women as a strategy for poverty alleviation, has become
increasingly popular with institutions, such as the UN and the World Bank, as
well as with NGO:s. Today there is not one definition of what empowerment
should mean and the concept is used in many different contexts and is the stated
goal of various development strategies. Therefore it is interesting to take a closer
look at how different actors, actually understands the concept of empowerment.
The main aim of this thesis then is to investigate how mainstream feminist
theory and postcolonial/postmodern feminist theory understands the Third World
Woman and the concept of empowerment. Importantly, it will be argued that the
theories are based on different assumptions of the Third World Woman. Western
mainstream feminist theory tends to take western culture and society as reference
point in their studies while postcolonial feminist theory challenges the universality
of western norms. The case studies of the Grameen Bank and SEWA are used to
further illustrate how the different understandings of empowerment might support
different strategies.}},
author = {{Lundén, Elin}},
language = {{eng}},
note = {{Student Paper}},
title = {{Empowerment of women Postcolonial feminist theory challenging mainstream feminist perspectives}},
year = {{2006}},
}