TRANSFORMATIVE POLICY FOR POOR WOMEN
Why and how do anti-poverty policies so often fail to benefit poor women? Fernandez interrogates these persistent failures with an engaging combination of scholarly precision and feminist focus. She provides a lucid explanation of her innovative framework for policy investigation: the relationship between constitutive contexts, policy representations, policy practices and consequences. Going beyond the original context prompting this analysis policy for poor women in India she applies her framework across several developing countries to demonstrate its relevance as an alternative policy approach for analysing intersecting inequalities. An insightful book that clearly moves debates forward.
Caroline Dyer, University of Leeds, UK
Transformative Policy for Poor Women
A New Feminist Framework
BINA FERNANDEZ
University of Melbourne, Australia
First published 2012 by Ashgate Publishing
Published 2016 by Routledge
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Copyright Bina Fernandez 2012
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Fernandez, Bina.
Transformative policy for poor women : a new feminist
framework.
1. Poor womenGovernment policy. 2. Poor womenGovernment policyIndia. 3. Swarnjayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojana (India)Evaluation. 4. Feminist theory.
I. Title
362.83525-dc22
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Fernandez, Bina.
Transformative policy for poor women : a new feminist framework / by Bina Fernandez.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4094-0507-8 (hardback)
1. Poor womenGovernment policyIndia. 2. Poor womenIndia. 3. FeminismIndia. I. Title.
HV1448.I4F47 2011
362.839855610954dc23
2011030407
ISBN 9781409405078 (hbk)
Contents
List of Tables
Acknowledgements
My journey towards this book began in 1996, when I joined Amhi Amchya Arogyasathi in Gadchiroli district, Maharashtra, as a co-ordinator of their womens empowerment programme. My experience of working with adivasi women in Gadchiroli set the trajectory for my interest in how the multiple intersections of marginality faced by them are addressed by state policies. I am deeply grateful to my colleagues in Gadchiroli, Shubhada Deshmukh and Sunita Bagal, for their friendship, and the inspiration they provided.
I was extremely fortunate to have Barbara Harriss-White as a guide on this journey. Her intellectual rigour and attentive engagement with the project have both stimulated and supported my efforts. In its first incarnations, this book benefitted from the feedback of Rajeswari Sunder Rajan, Shahara Razavi, Nandini Gooptu, Cathie Lloyd, Orlanda Ruthven and Joy Wang. The present incarnation has been shaped by the constructive comments of colleagues at the University of Leeds. Jelke Boesten, Polly Wilding and Gabrielle Lynchs comments pushed my thinking outside the India niche and helped me reconfigure . Caroline Dyer and Jelke Boestens critical feedback was invaluable in the final stages. I also thank the anonymous Ashgate reviewer and the participants of the Symposium on Interdisciplinarity in Feminist State Theory at the University of Toronto, 67 March 2009 for invigorating and useful comments. I thank Emily Kell, Deborah Wilson and Amy Russell for the effective research assistance they provided at different stages.
A map of the journey to this book could also be traced through the people who have provided me shelter at various points. My heartfelt thanks for hospitality and companionship goes to: Winnie Bernstein in Oxford, Gomathy N.B. and Ramlath Kavil in Mumbai, Shubhada Deshmukh and Satish Gogulwar in Gadchiroli, Dr Prakash Amte in Bhamragad, Mohan Hirabai Hiralal in Chandrapur, Rinchin and Maheen in Bhopal, Vani Subramanian in New Delhi, Pritam Singh in Oxford and Ipsita Sinha in London. Misrak Kifle I thank for unconditional support through the ups and downs of this journey.
Finally, the research for this book was made possible by financial support from several sources. I am grateful for support from the Asia Pacific Human Development Academic Fellowship programme, granted in 2005 by the UNDP Regional Centre in Colombo. I am also grateful for financial grants from Wolfson College, the University of Oxford, the Frere Exhibition, Newby Trust, Northbrook Society, Roger and Sarah Bancroft Clark Charitable Trust, Sir Richard Stapley Educational Trust, George Peters Fund, George Webb Medley Endowment Fund, Rajiv Gandhi Foundation, Radhakrishnan Memorial bequest, Sir Ernest Cassel Education Trust, Gilchrist Educational Trust, and the S.H. Ziauddin Trust.
Bina Fernandez
26 May 2011
List of Abbreviations
ADO | Assistant Development Officer |
APO | Assistant Project Officer |
BDO | Block Development Officer |
BF | Bolsa Familia |
BM | Bank Manager |
BPL | Below Poverty Line |
CCT | Conditional cash transfer |
CEO | Chief Executive Officer |
CSS | Centrally Sponsored Schemes |
DLCC | District Level Co-ordination Committee |
DRDA | District Rural Development Agency |
DWCRA | Development of Women and Children in Rural Areas |
EO | Extension Officer |
GAD | Gender and Development |
IRDP | Integrated Rural Development Programme |
ITDP | Integrated Tribal Development Project |
LDM | Lead (Bank) District Manager |
MASAF | Malawi Social Action Fund |
MAVIM | Mahila Arthik Vikas Mahamandal (translated from Marathi: Womens Economic Development Corporation) |
MHDR | Maharashtra Human Development Report |
MITCON | Maharashtra Industrial and Technical Consultancy Organization Limited |
MLA | |