Voice and Agency: Where Are We Now?

Gammage, Sarah; Kabeer, Naila; Rodgers, Yana van der Meulen

doi:10.1080/13545701.2015.1101308

Cited by 125 publications

(59 citation statements)

References 52 publications

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“…Second, the scope for women to engage in any form of solidarity or activism is limited in our study setting, given that a minority of women reported leaving their homestead in the previous 30 days. Third, it may be that social solidarity is not related to dietary diversity because, as has been noted, women's agency in public spheres “does not necessarily spill over to agency in other domains such as the household” (Gammage et al, ). In one study in Bangladesh, Kabeer noted that although women may have been vocal about injustice in the public sphere, they were more acquiescent in the private sphere (Kabeer, ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Women's dietary diversity in rural Bangladesh: Pathways through women's empowerment

Sinharoy

Waid

Haardörfer

et al. 2017

Maternal & Child Nutrition

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The relationship between women's empowerment and women's nutrition is understudied. We aimed to elucidate this relationship by quantifying possible pathways between empowerment and dietary diversity among women in rural Bangladesh. In 2015, we conducted a cross-sectional survey of 2,599 married women ages 15-40 (median: 25) living in 96 settlements of Habiganj District, Bangladesh, as a baseline for the Food and Agricultural Approaches to Reducing Malnutrition trial. We collected data on women's empowerment (highest completed grade of schooling and agency), dietary diversity, and demographic factors, including household wealth. We used exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis on random split-half samples, followed by structural equation modelling, to test pathways from schooling, through domains of women's agency, to dietary diversity. Factor analysis revealed 3 latent domains of women's agency: social solidarity, decision-making, and voice with husband. In the adjusted mediation model, having any postprimary schooling was positively associated with voice with husband (β 41 = .051, p = .010), which was positively associated with dietary diversity (β 54 = .39, p = .002). Schooling also had a direct positive association with women's dietary diversity (β 51 = .22, p < .001). Neither women's social solidarity nor decision-making mediated the relationship between schooling and dietary diversity. The link between schooling and dietary diversity was direct and indirect, through women's voice with husband but not through women's social solidarity or decision-making. In this population, women with postprimary schooling seem to be better able to negotiate improved diets for themselves. Few studies have examined whether women's empowerment influences their dietary intake. One study in Bangladesh found a positive association between women's empowerment and household dietary diversity, but did not examine women's dietary diversity (Sraboni, Malapit, Quisumbing, & Ahmed, 2014). Other studies have assessed the relationships between women's empowerment and child nutrition in South Asia (Bhagowalia, Menon, Quisumbing, & Soundararajan, 2012;Cunningham, Ploubidis, et al., 2015;Malapit, Kadiyala, Quisumbing, Cunningham, & Tyagi, 2015;Richards et al., 2013;Shroff, Griffiths, Adair, Suchindran, & Bentley, 2009 2 | METHODS | Participants and proceduresWe conducted a secondary analysis of data from the baseline survey and all 2,895 eligible women were targeted for inclusion in the study.In total, 2,624 women (91%) were found at home (at repeat visits), consented to participate, and were enrolled. A total of 2,599 enrolled women (90% of the 2,895 eligible women) completed the household and women's sections of the survey. | VariablesThe achievement or outcome of interest was women's dietary diversity, measured by asking the woman about her food consumption in the previous day through open recall followed by list-based probes, categorizing diets into 21 food categories. When women reported consuming a food ite...

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Women's dietary diversity in rural Bangladesh: Pathways through women's empowerment

Sinharoy

Waid

Haardörfer

et al. 2017

Maternal & Child Nutrition

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“…Such enterprises allow women to pool labor, assets, and other resources to help overcome gender-related challenges. 81 That empowerment often translates to positive food security and nutrition outcomes. 82 Stability The factors discussed above improve the production of, access to, and diversity of foodstuffs.…”

Section: Food and Nutrition Securitymentioning

confidence: 99%

A Planetary Health Perspective on Agroforestry in Sub-Saharan Africa

Rosenstock¹,

Dawson

Aynekulu

et al. 2019

One Earth

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“…to have agency (Klugman 2014), which alone could be a tool for empowerment (Beaumont 2010). Agency has this capacity because when it is exercised by individuals and groups, it shapes social, political, and economic structures (Gammage et al 2016), e.g. how sustainable decisions are made and exercised.…”

Section: Attempts To Define and Determine Sustainabilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Defining sustainability? Insights from a small village in Bosnia and Herzegovina

Dogmus

Nielsen

2020

GeoJournal

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The term ''sustainability'' is flexible as it needs to function in many different contexts and across many issues. At the same time, this flexibility makes it difficult to assess and easy to misuse. Over the last three decades, numerous sustainability assessment tools have been developed to better define the term. In this paper, we critically address these attempts and argue that the flexibility of the term is not solely problematic, but allow people to create their own sustainability imaginaries, by which we mean a society's understanding of how environmental resources should be used. We show this through a case study, the Martin Brod village in Bosnia and Herzegovina, where, within a few years, the inhabitants changed their sustainability imaginaries in parallel with shifting external socio-economic conditions and expectations. We primarily applied qualitative research methods. Our results show that changing sustainability imaginaries was made possible due to the flexibility of the term which enabled otherwise disempowered local inhabitants to have agency. Consequently, a stricter definition of sustainability may have unintended consequences for people struggling to maintain a political voice in settings such as Bosnia and Herzegovina.

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Voice and Agency: Where Are We Now?

Cited by 125 publications

References 52 publications

Women's dietary diversity in rural Bangladesh: Pathways through women's empowerment

Women's dietary diversity in rural Bangladesh: Pathways through women's empowerment

A Planetary Health Perspective on Agroforestry in Sub-Saharan Africa

Defining sustainability? Insights from a small village in Bosnia and Herzegovina

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