Understanding the complexities of women's empowerment : a qualitative case study From India

Abstract

For this thesis I analyzed the qualitative interviews of 5 staff and 28 project participants of a women's empowerment program in an urban slum in Tadiwala road, Pune, India (run and managed by Deep Griha Society (DGS), a local Non-Government Organisation (NGO). The interviews with research participants were conducted in 2014 and this interview data was supplemented with participant observation during the fieldwork period between August and October (2014). In this study I sought to answer the following research question: In what ways does participation in a women's empowerment project influence women's ability to challenge intrahousehold and broader community based structural barriers in their lives? This small study of an urban slum community of women in India, shows the many gains as well as the limits of current empowerment programs in Tadiwala road, Pune. This study allows one to view the empowerment potential of programs through a consideration of the multifaceted lives of women and how they engage with the broader socio-political conditions in which NGOs work. I argue that meeting women's practical needs alone can limit the potential for women's empowerment and unless there is a shift in the underlying structural power imbalances that create inequality, empowerment initiatives will be limited in their ability to lead to truly transformative change in women's lives in India and indeed may lead to paradoxical outcomes. While acknowledging the contribution of meeting women's resource needs in enhancing their overall wellbeing, I argue that there is a need to critically unpack the relationship between practical and strategic gender needs (particularly in highly oppressive cross-cultural contexts) and a qualitative approach is essential in facilitating such a process. The complexities and contradictions within the empowerment approach have been further compounded in recent times by neoliberal state policies which have not only shifted the social change capacities of NGOs but led to a further discursive conflation of economic individualism as empowerment, at times instrumentalizing women in their own disempowerment. In such a socio-political climate dismantling hegemonic links in analysis becomes ever more critical and a qualitative intersectional focus is paramount. Lack of such a framework has potential to create and substantiate women's inferior position both economically and in terms of gender. Without such an approach, empowerment may become yet another development buzzword devoid of its original feminist intentions and consequently limited in its ability to achieve social justice.

Date of Award	2019
Original language	English