1. INTRODUCCIÓN
1.8. INSUFICIENCIA RENAL
From the South, ‘Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era’ (DAWN), a group of politically savoir-faire activists, academics, researchers, and planners, disputed that a gendered approach was the answer. They argued that Third World women were oppressed by a number of agents, for example, colonialism and neo- colonialism, not just men. Therefore oppressive structures and situations needed to be challenged simultaneously, at differing levels (Sen and Grown 1987). DAWN also disputed the idea that feminism belonged to the West. They claimed that Southern feminism, similar to black feminism, had its own independent and unique history (see also Jayawardena 1986, Mohanty 1988, Moser 1989:1815 for discussions around
23 One of the most significant challenges to white feminism has come from women of colour, that is Third World women, black women and indigenous women (Tuhiwai Smith 1999:166). Moreover, post-modern feminist critique offered similar insights into the women in development enterprise: “Criticism levelled against Western feminists’ representations of Third World peoples (especially women) also apply to Women in Development practitioners” (Parpart 1995b:254).
feminism and the Third World). With their own identity, they therefore had the answers to their self-determined issues.
DAWN proposed an empowerment approach, which brought into question the top- down policy approach to women’s development, arguing that women could, through bottom-up collective organisation, seek to address various power imbalances24. It was argued that while meeting PGNs through collective organisation, a space for consciousness-raising would be provided, thus growing the ability of women to challenge their subordinate positions (Moser 1989:1816). The empowerment approach intended to emancipate women through building greater self-reliance (Sen and Grown 1987).
While at one level the empowerment approach appeared similar to the equity approach because it attempted to address SGNs, empowerment advocates argued the two came from different philosophical backgrounds, especially as the empowerment approach had its origins in grass-roots Third World feminism, which the equity approach did not25. Because the dynamics or structures of women’s oppression were understood differently, the strategies or solutions taken to change this oppression would differ markedly from those on the equity bandwagon (Moser 1989:1815).
Similar to equity though, the empowerment approach was initially unpopular with governments and mainstream development agencies. Many argued that to empower women through the challenging of oppressive systems would wrongly interfere with and change culture, as opposed to understanding culture to be a dynamic entity which evolves anyway. Indeed, many opposed the empowerment approach arguing that women were happy with the status quo (Scheyvens 1998:236).
For empowerment to work the challenging of oppression and exploitation between all realms of society was needed, that is, between gender, class, race and nations
24 While welfarism also talked about women’s groups as being important, welfarism only recognised these groups as a vehicle for delivering top-down services aimed at women’s reproductive role. Welfarism certainly did not seek to raise consciousness or challenge women’s subordinate position, whereas the empowerment approach recognised women’s triple role and sought to emancipate women via collectivity (Moser 1989:1816).
(Lycklama à Nijeholt 1991:155). It also required development agencies to challenge and transform their own power structures and elitism.
In 1990, the United Nations declared the need to ‘empower’ women for development, if high returns were to be achieved (Kabeer 1994:2). Rather than improving women’s wellbeing, empowerment was linked to economic development assuming that this would make women’s lives better. The concept of empowerment was applied in varying ways in GAD practice, dependent on how the power component in empowerment was interpreted.
Empowerment evolves from the notion of power (Kabeer 1994:224, Rowlands 1997:9-27, 1998:11-15). Rowlands (1997) has asserted there are four types of power. These are:
1. Power over, which is defined as having power over another, that is, having power to dominate or subjugate another;
2. Power to, which is defined as productive or generative power, which raises the possibility of new action;
3. Power with, which is seen as group power and as having the ability to address problems together; ‘being one’; and,
4. Power from within, which is defined as the power in an individual person. This is articulated as ‘self-respect’, ‘self-worth’ or a ‘sense of hope’, which transpires into being respectful, seeing others as equally valuable or being hopeful about or towards others (p.13).
Rowlands (1997:11) goes on to say that power is generally understood to mean power over. That is, upon marriage a woman may become the property of her husband meaning he has power over her ability to access and utilise resources, her movements outside of the village, whether she can utilise contraception, or whether she can refuse to have sex with him.Mohanty (1991:6, 14) talked about the way that these frozen embodiments of power become the point of analysis. Social indicators of women’s status, such as, income generation, access to micro-credit schemes or levels of literacy become the determinants of women’s empowerment (Mohanty 1991:14), meaning that women’s level of emancipation comes down to a set of indicators. Using the case of Samoa, the numbers of women who are matai (chiefs) then becomes the figure for analysis when determining whether women are
empowered or not. However, women may not be the public face of power, but this does not mean they are powerless. Seeing power in this way becomes counterproductive when attempting to understand the various power relations relevant to Third World women or FHHs for that matter.
If power is fixed, it implies that power is limited and to get power one needs to take power away from elsewhere, or from someone else. Hence a wife would need to take power away from her husband. Whereas power to, power with, and power from within, do not imply that the power process occurs at the expense of another, rather, it occurs in a way that enables individuals or groups to meet their goals (Rowlands 1997:14). Power to and power with imply an approach to empowerment which constitutes a process “by which people become aware of their own interests and how to relate to the interests of others” enabling them to better influence decisions (Rowlands 1997:14; also see Kabeer 1994:253-61). In drawing on feminist interpretations of power, power within is understood as power that is self-generated, and involves the “experiential recognition and analysis” of issues (Kabeer 1994:229). Therefore it means more than just participating in decision-making, it must also encompass a process whereby people see themselves as capable and permitted to make decisions. “It involves giving scope to the full range of human abilities and potential” (Rowlands 1997:14).
In appreciating the various power relations relevant to Third World women and FHHs, as Mohanty (1991) has argued, one needs to be cognisant of the “multiple and fluid structures of domination which intersect to locate women differently at particular historical conjectures” (p.13), while also noting the “dynamic oppositional agency of individuals and collectives and their engagement in daily life” (Mohanty 1991:13). Acknowledging the multiple differential networks where women are located and where agency may be evident is fundamental to understanding how strategies for counteracting oppression can be developed. Thus Mohanty (1991) called for the ability to explore “questions of consciousness and agency without making any assumptions or naturalising individuals or structures” (p.13)26.
26 In recounting the publication of ‘Under Western Eyes’ and its contribution to development scholarship in Chapter Three, further discussions regarding Mohanty’s ideas will ensue.
When ideas about who has power in the Third World and who does not are considered, many misconceptions have occurred. Bulbeck (1998:22) reports that power in Euro-American terms is more often than not seen as having economic control or coercive force, meaning if an individual has these then they are powerful and if they do not then they are powerless. While in developing countries or indigenous communities, power may be defined in terms of spirituality, and be something that is revered (see Bulbeck 1998 for culturally specific historical examples of power).
Power also needs to be understood as operating in three spheres, as in the personal, the relational and the collective sphere (Rowlands 1997:14). Yet, too often power is defined in terms of the individual, meaning if a person has individual voice, rights and agency then they are powerful. In the West, feminism has at times focused on securing individual rights and freedoms, whereas in the Third World setting or in indigenous communities it may be about the collective as the family, extended kin and the village. Where Western feminisms have spoken about the oppressive nature of the family or household, women of colour have seen the family as a site of resistance, especially in relation to imperialist oppression (Bulbeck 1993:8). Rather than seeing FHHs as having varying types of power, FHHs are often purported to be powerless because they may not have ‘power over’. If power is understood to be context dependent, have multiple levels, and is recognised as multifaceted and fluid (Leslie 1999:47), then FHHs are not so powerless.
When power is not understood to be fluid, context specific, layered and multifaceted, then empowerment is also misunderstood. Rowlands (1997) and Leslie (1999) both argue that how power is defined will determine how empowerment in the development process is understood, and therefore facilitated or implemented. As pointed out above, it is a common misconception to believe that in empowering one person you are taking power from another, that is, power is finite. It is also a misconception to believe that the empowerment process is about radical change. If empowerment is only seen as radical change then women’s less radical attempts are made light of, are undervalued or are not counted as being significant (Scheyvens 1998).
In using a case study of the Solomon Islands, Scheyvens (1998) presents the varying ways that women as individuals or as a group might empower themselves, arguing
these too need to be understood as valid. Women may use “subtle strategies for empowerment” rather than those that are overtly confrontational27 (Scheyvens 1998:237). Strategies for empowerment do not need to stir up “wide scale dissent” (Scheyvens 1998:237). Women should not have their efforts judged as conservative or politically immature because they do not accord with Western notions of ‘feminist action’, rather they need to be seen for their effectiveness (Scheyvens 1998:240). Thus to be useful, the term empowerment needs to be understood to mean “a process by which people acquire the ability to act in ways to control their lives” (Staudt cited in Scheyvens 1998:235), or as Leslie (1999:33-47) suggests, empowerment as an approach to gender and development needs to be about enabling “women to struggle for context specific forms of power at different levels and in ways that are culturally appropriate” (Leslie 1999:47).