Shirin M. Rai

Jane L. Parpart

Kathleen A. Staudt

Rethinking Empowerment looks at the changing role of women in developing countries and calls for a new approach to empowerment. An approach that adopts a more nuanced, feminist interpretation of power and em(power)ment, recognises that local empowerment is always embedded in regional, national and global contexts, pays attention to institutional structures and politics and acknowledges that empowerment is both a process and an outcome. Moreover, the book warns that an obsession with measurement rather than process can undermine efforts to foster transformative and empowering outcomes. It concludes that power must be restored as the centrepiece of empowerment. Only then will the term and its advocates provide meaningful ammunition for dealing with the challenges of an increasingly unequal, and often sexist, global/local world.

Gender and Development in a Global/Local World

Rethinking Empowerment

Gay Young

Robert H Schmidt

Oscar J Martinez

As the issue of immigration between Mexico and the United States becomes more critical, it is increasingly important that we understand the process of development in Mexico's northern border region. This collection of essays offers an empirical analysis of development in Ciudad JuÃ¡rez, with an emphasis on the social and spatial contexts in which economic relations occur. The analyses are framed by a general discussion of urbanization, migration, and industrialization, considered in light of the history of Mexico's northern frontier. Contributors recount the city's pattern of urban growth in response to the natural environment and the changing national culture and examine current patterns of land use, especially as compared to similar development in other Latin American cities. Other issues considered are the impact on household activities of the structure of women's participation in the maquiladora work force; the city's use of its human resources, especially in off-shore assembly activities; and the foreign orientation of the Juárez economy.

Kathleen A. Staudt

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