Whose feminism counts? Gender(ed) knowledge and professionalisation in development

Abstract

Gender and development (GAD) has become a transnational discourse and has, as a result, generated its own elite elements. This elitism has tended to be attributed to a Northern hegemony in how feminism has been articulated and then subsequently professionalised and bureaucratised. What has received less attention, and what this paper highlights empirically, is how Southern-based feminisms might themselves be sites of discursive exclusion. The paper interrogates these concerns through an analysis of how professionalisation is evidenced in feminist engagement among civil society organisations working on gender in New Delhi. The analysis suggests that efforts to create spaces for subaltern voices are constrained not only by the disciplining effects of neoliberal frameworks but also -and in tandem -by Southern elite feminist priorities. The implications of these findings are significant: processes of professionalisation and the elitism they engender may have the effect of potentially precluding the engagement of those people on the margins whose voices are so sought after as part of efforts to facilitate inclusive development.

Recognising and Resisting Injustice: Knowledge Practices and Politics Amongst Nepal’s Community Forestry Professionals

“…She notes an 'internal' hierarchy of field staff (i.e., those working face-to-face with beneficiaries) and administrative staff (i.e., those managing project implementation), and complex dynamics of understanding and representation of project sites and realities between field site and administrative centre. Focusing on development and gender in India, Narayanaswamy (2016) similarly highlights a disconnect between the needs and desires of marginalised women across the south of the country and the ways these are defined and intervened in by urban, middle-class and middle/upper-caste development professionals in Delhi, based on their ' elite feminisms' and personal assumptions, including for example their own marriage and family practices.…”

“…This is to be expected given the growing disparity between Kathmandu and rural and remote parts of Nepal (Hutt, 2020); however, it is increasingly important in terms of how professionals come to know about the understand processes of marginalisation and inequality. As Narayanaswamy (2016) finds in India, it is possible for professionals to lack insight into the lived realities of those who are marginalised, even within their own countries, which has consequences for the interventions they engage in. Other professionals have grown up in rural parts of the country, and many of these drew on their own past and present experiences in those areas in explaining their approach to questions of social inclusion and equality (2/115).…”

Politics of Engagement: Gender Expertise and International Governance

“…On the one hand, these conferences opened doors for feminists to enter the arenas of international governance. On the other hand, they also highlighted tensions around intra‐movement power inequalities because those who could access positions of power were almost always the ones who could speak the language of governance (Alvarez, 1999; Alvarez et al., 2003; Narayanaswamy, 2015). Nevertheless, the unfolding of these alliances and contestations revealed how institutional boundaries do not remain stable.…”

Building a transformative agenda for accountability in SRHR: lessons learned from SRHR and accountability literatures

“…26 In some contexts, women's rights NGOs with the best access to decision-makers may be comprised disproportionately of educated or wealthy women; these groups may not address some issues affecting poor women, women with disabilities, ethnic minorities, and others. [26][27][28] Accountability in SRHR is situated in state-building processes and political, cultural, and religious ideologies. Evidence shows that these factors can foster a target driven approach to reproduction to meet development goals, the encouragement or discouragement of reproduction among women, or the promotion of certain types and forms of sexuality over others.…”