EDUCATING WOMEN FOR DEVELOPMENT: THEARAB HUMAN DEVELOPMENT REPORT 2005AND THE PROBLEM WITH WOMEN'S CHOICES

Abstract

In the 1980s, after a decades-long emphasis on economic growth as the primary engine for development, a number of prominent economists and development practitioners heralded a new era in the conceptualization of development as primarily a human endeavor with improved life chances and quality of life as the proper end. Thus was coined the term “human development,” followed by subsequent efforts to delineate the essential dimensions of human development and the appropriate measures of a development endeavor that no longer had “growth” (and, more narrowly, increased income) as its primary indicator but now sought to measure human ends, capabilities, and opportunities. Of most prominence, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) took up this charge in the form of an annual global human development report, releasing the first one in 1990. Perhaps no other human development reports have received as much attention in the past few years as have the Arab human development reports.

Motivated migrants: (Re)framing Arab women's experiences

“…As pointed out by a number of researchers (Adely, 2009;Charrad, 2010), feminist scholars have struggled with the question of, on the one hand, how much weight should be given to structural constraints faced by women, and, on the other hand, the question of what role agency plays in shaping outcomes for women. Privileging only the former tends to reduce women to the status of victims, while overemphasizing the latter can tell an incomplete story if structural factors are ignored entirely.…”

Working Women Worldwide. Age Effects in Female Labor Force Participation in 117 Countries

“…Jordanian female teachers interviewed by Adely (2009) describe both how they entered paid work out of necessity and that it offers them new social networks and a legitimate space outside the domestic sphere. In a more material consideration, Sassen (1996) argues that even low-paid work increases women's autonomy and grants access to the public domain.…”

Gender and Economics in Muslim Communities: A Critical Feminist and Postcolonial Analysis

“…Despite a growing body of scholarship in several disciplines that provides m uch-needed nuance, the image of oppressed A rab/M uslinr/E astern women, popularized anew post-9/11, continues to hold sway today in certain segments of feminist and developm ent scholarship, as noted, for instance, by fennifer Olm sted (2002,2004), Ficla Adely (2009), andFrances Hasso (2009).14 Orientalism is of pressing concern no t ju st because of the way Muslim wom en are stripped o f their agency, bu t also because such narratives influence developm ent and policy decisions, with often devastating consequences for w om en's lives. Through both the theoretical and m ethodological frames they opt to utilize, the studies in this special issue challenge the Orientalism that continues to reduce Muslim wom en to caricatures.…”