Our Year

Some of the other activities we have been involved in during 2010/11

Film Screenings of the Documentary 'Honourables', October and November

District Assemblies were created in Ghana in 1988 as part of the decentralisation programme intended to increase popular participation in governance. To date, women’s participation in these structures is still relatively low, although efforts continue by women’s civil organisations and government to increase their share of both elected and appointed positions.

As part of the effort around increasing women’s representation, screenings of the documentary ‘Honourables’, produced and directed by the Ghanaian-British film maker, Yaba Badoe, for the Pathways West Africa Hub, were organised for October and November. The 40 minute documentary features three assembly women from selected districts in Ghana.

Special Issues

During the year the Pathways team have been involved in the publication of three journal special issues. The first, published in March 2010, on Negotiating Empowerment within the IDS Bulletin, draws out some of the dilemmas around women's empowerment: choices, negotiations, narratives and contexts of women's lived experience.

The second, on Gender and Empowerment within the Development Journal features research on women's empowerment from a highly critical angle as a key entry point in the process of rethinking of human development. Finally, Quotas: Add Women and Stir?, again within the IDS Bulletin, focuses on issues around women's access to political power.

Negotiating Empowerment

Contents

Introduction: Negotiating Empowerment Andrea Cornwall and Jenny Edwards

TOOLS FOR TRANSFORMATION?
Legal Reform, Women's Empowerment and Social Change: The Case of Egypt
Mulki Al-Sharmani
Quotas: A Pathway of Political Empowerment? Ana Alice Alcântara Costa
Education: Pathway to Empowerment for Ghanaian Women? Akosua K. Darkwah
Women's Voices, Work and Bodily Integrity in Pre-Conflict, Conflict and Post-Conflict Reconstruction Processes in Sierra Leone Hussainatu J. Abdullah, Aisha F. Ibrahim and Jamesina King
No Path to Power: Civil Society, State Services, and the Poverty of City Women
Hania Sholkamy

MOBILISING FOR CHANGE: STRATEGIES AND TACTICS
Subversively Accommodating: Feminist Bureaucrats and Gender Mainstreaming
Rosalind Eyben
Crossroads of Empowerment: The Organisation of Women Domestic Workers in Brazil
Terezinha Gonçalves
Reciprocity, Distancing, and Opportunistic Overtures: Women's Organisations Negotiating Legitimacy and Space in Bangladesh Sohela Nazneen and Maheen Sultan
The Power of Relationships: Love and Solidarity in a Landless Women's Organisation in Rural Bangladesh Naila Kabeer and Lopita Huq

EMPOWERMENT'S HIDDEN PATHWAYS?
Family, Households and Women's Empowerment in Bahia, Brazil, Through the Generations: Continuities or Change? Cecilia M.B. Sardenberg
Negotiating Islam: Conservatism, Splintered Authority and Empowerment in Urban Bangladesh Samia Huq
Unmarried in Palestine: Embodiment and (dis)Empowerment in the Lives of Single Palestinian Women Penny Johnson
Women Watching Television: Surfing Between Fantasy and Reality Aanmona Priyadarshani and Samia Afroz Rahim

Gender and Empowerment

Articles by Pathways Researchers

Introduction: Women's Empowerment: Contentions and Contestations, Andrea Cornwall and Nana Akua Anyidoho

Communicating Empowerment: Countering the Cardboard Woman, Tessa Lewin

Pleasure and Empowerment: Connections and Disconnections, Susie Jolly

Women's Empowerment in Brazil: Tensions in Discourse and Practice, Cecilia Sardenberg

National Discourses on Women's Empowerment in Bangladesh: Enabling or Constraining Women's Choices?, Sohela Nazneen, Maheen Sultan and Naomi Hossain

Empowerment as Resistance: Conceptualizing Palestinian Women's Empowerment, Eileen Kuttab

Power, Politics and Development in the Arab Context: Or how can Rearing Chicks Change Patriarchy?, Hania Sholkamy

The Meaning and Practice of Women's Empowerment in Post-conflict Sierra Leone, Hussainatu Abdullah and Aisha Fofana-Ibrahim

Discourses on Women's Empowerment in Ghana, Nana Akua Anyidoho and Takyiwaa Manuh

What if the Girls Don’t Want to be Businesswomen?: Discursive Dissonance in a Global Policy Space, Rosalind Eyben

Revealed Cities: A Photovoice Project with Domestic Workers in Salvador, Brazil, Andrea Cornwall, Fernanda Capibaribe and Terezinha Goncalves

Quotas: Add Women Stir?

Contents

Introduction: Quotas - Add Women and Stir?, Mariz Tadros

Implementing Affirmative Action: Global Trends, Julie Ballington

The Limits of Women's Quotas in Brazil, Clara Araujo

Does the Political Participation of Women Matter? Democratic Representation, Affirmative Action and Quotas in Costa Rica, Montserrat Sagot

A Silver Lining: Women in Reserved Seats in Local Government in Bangladesh, Sohela Nazneen and Sakiba Tasneem

Towards a Politics of Collective Empowerment: Learning from Hill Women in Rural Uttarakhand, India, Divya Sharma and Ratna Sudarshan

Women in Local Government: The Pakistan Experience, Saba Gul Khattak

Forging Ahead without an Affirmative Action Policy: Female Politicians in Sierra Leone's Post-War Electoral Process, Hussainatu Abdullah

The Will to Political Power: Rwandan Women in Leadership, Juliana Kantengwa

Palestinian Women Contesting Power in Chaos, Islah Jad

Quotas: A Highway to Power in Egypt...But for which Women?, Mariz Tadros

The Sudanese Women's Movement and the Mobilisation for the 2008 Legislative Quota and its Aftermath, Sara Abbas

A Missed Opportunity: Women and the 2010 UK General Election, Sarah Childs

Quotas as a Path to Parity: Challenges to Women's Participation in Politics, Ana Alice Costa