Voices in the Wind

Abstract

This ethnodrama critically examines conceptualizations of women’s empowerment in international development initiatives. It represents a collection of experience-based narratives from six Malian women who participated in a photovoice project centered on women’s empowerment in the specific context of microfinance. Deviating from normative neoliberal financially-based assumptions underlying the relationship between microfinance and women’s empowerment, wherein the prevailing belief is that increases in economic resources necessarily lead to increases in women’s empowerment, this article suggests that empowerment is a complex multi-dimensional construct that includes, yet extends beyond, the financial paradigm. This one act ethnodrama is intended as a form of talking back to the academic literature and Western discourses surrounding empowerment. It draws inspiration from Chandra Talpade Mohanty’s transnational feminist framework, particularly the concept of history from below, by creating spaces for the women in this project to have their voices heard and to be included in global practices of history-making.