Feminisms in Development: Contradictions, Contestations and Challenges - Paperback

by Andrea Cornwall (Editor), Elizabeth Harrison (Editor), Ann Whitehead (Editor)

This collection of essays by leading feminist thinkers from North and South constitutes a major new attempt to reposition feminism within development studies.

Feminism's emphasis on social transformation makes it fundamental to development studies. Yet the relationship between the two disciplines has frequently been a troubled one. At present, the way in which many development institutions function often undermines feminist intent through bureaucratic structures and unequal power quotients. Moreover, the seeming intractability of inequalities and injustice in developing countries have presented feminists with some enormous challenges. Here, emphasizing the importance of a plurality of approaches, the authors argue for the importance of what 'feminisms' have to say to development.

Confronting the enormous challenges for feminisms in development studies, this book provides real hope for dialogue and exchange between feminisms and development.

Author Biography

Andrea Cornwall is Fellow of the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex. She is co-editor of Dislocating Masculinity: Comparative Ethnographies (1994), Realizing Rights: Transforming Sexual and Reproductive Wellbeing (Zed 2002) and editor of Readings in Gender in Africa (2004).

Ann Whitehead is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Sussex. A contributor to foundational debates on feminist engagement with development and on theorising gender, she has had a wide engagement with national and international feminist politics.

Elizabeth Harrison is a Senior Lecturer in Anthropology at the University of Sussex. She is the co-author of Whose Development? An Ethnography of Aid (Zed 1998).
Andrea Cornwall is Fellow of the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex. She is co-editor of Dislocating Masculinity: Comparative Ethnographies (1994), Realizing Rights: Transforming Sexual and Reproductive Wellbeing (Zed 2002) and editor of Readings in Gender in Africa (2004).

Ann Whitehead is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Sussex. A contributor to foundational debates on feminist engagement with development and on theorising gender, she has had a wide engagement with national and international feminist politics.

Elizabeth Harrison is a Senior Lecturer in Anthropology at the University of Sussex. She is the co-author of Whose Development? An Ethnography of Aid (Zed 1998).