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Explores the application of a postmodern feminist perspective to women's lives in the anglophone Caribbean, focusing on Barbados. It is shown that the postmodern perspective explains many political actions taken by Anglo-Caribbean women, without employing the universalist or hegemonic tendencies of the more liberal or social feminist frameworks that misinterpret or even ignore such actions. Moreover, in that it stresses diversity, difference, & positionality, the postmodern approach is taken to recognize women's agency, the power of women's knowledge, & the tradition of resistance among Caribbean women much more than alternatives. The postmodernist perspective is described as a challenge to Caribbean feminists to build feminist theories from the bottom up on the basis of indigenous experience & knowledge of those they are purporting to assist. D. M. Smith

Women's role and potential in popular or community-based drought mitigation measures in northeastern Brazil have been underestimated. This study attempts to demystify the idea that women are passive beings in drought by showing women's attempts to mitigate drought through rural-urban migration and mobilization in rural action groups. Fieldwork was undertaken in both rural and urban settings. Data were collected from fifty women, from men, and from members of grassroots organizations. Several theoretical themes are amalgamated and applied to women's agency and gender relations: dependency models, a political economy paradigm of disaster, Freire's problem-formulating method of conscientization, and Foucault's analysis of knowledge and power. Attention is centred on women who migrate intra-regionally to the city of Petrolina. This place of migrant destination benefits from large-scheme irrigated agriculture mostly devoted to export. The study also includes women from a rural drought-prone village who never migrated and return migrants who have mobilized in a rural action group. Analysis of different life conditions women face in their attempt to mitigate effects of drought leads to a focus on conscientization (conscientizacao). Employment in the city and action group mobilization in the rural areas are responsible for changes which expose women to a process of transformation. The transformation women go through is closely related to exposure to conscientizacao and is associated with exposure to new knowledge and to implicit power becoming explicit. New life conditions and experiences allow women to break out of domestic sphere confinement and to enter the public sphere, the traditional territory of men. The transformation is a limited one; women's actions are constrained by the character of capitalist relations of production and the globalization of the local economy. Despite the limited benefits women derive from this transformation, women's agency is clearly visible in the context of a disaster situation. ...

The purpose of this thesis is to evaluate the extent to which the Canadian International Development Agency has integrated its Women in Development and Environmental Sustainable Development policies. First, the thesis explores the debate on Women in Development (WID), Gender and Development (GAD), Women, the Environment and Sustainable Development (WED), and Ecofeminism and discusses the relevance and importance of WED in the context of the history of development as a whole. Second, it describes the evolution within CIDA of policies related to women in development and sustainable development. Third, based largely on interviews, it examines contemporary CIDA policy in practice and the level of women's participation in three CIDA natural resource management projects to determine the level of integration of WID and sustainable development at the policy and project levels. The thesis argues that CIDA continues to suffer from a confusion of purpose within its ranks with regards to its sustainable development and Women in Development policies. It illustrates that CIDA does not fully accept either as a "cross-cutting theme" in development and that the agency lacks the necessary instruments for effective implementation and evaluation of policy in both areas. The thesis argues that CIDA needs to be more forceful in pointing out the inextricable links between women and environmental sustainability. Despite these shortcomings, it is argued that the past year (1995-96), the Canadian government has offered some encouraging signs that the degree to which the agency is alive to the issue of women and sustainable development is rising. This development offers hope that CIDA's policies may shift to ones that encourage women to participate fully and on an equal basis with men in all aspects of development. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)Dept. of History, Philosophy, and Political Science. Paper copy at Leddy Library: Theses & Major Papers - Basement, West Bldg. / Call Number: Thesis1996 .T36. Source: Masters Abstracts International, Volume: 34-06, page: 2231. Adviser: T. A. Keenleyside. Thesis (M.A.)--University of Windsor (Canada), 1996.

Cover -- Half Title -- Series Page -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Contents -- Preface -- Notes on Contributors -- 1 Discourses of Development: The View from Anthropology -- 2 Webs of Power and the Construction of Environmental Policy Problems: Forest Loss in Guinea -- 3 The Silent Traditions of Developing Cooks -- 4 The Donors' Discourse: Official Social Development Knowledge in the 1980s -- 5 Watching the Developers: A Partial Ethnography -- 6 Mixed Messages: Contested 'Development' and the 'Plantation Rehabilitation Project' -- 7 Gender Politics, Development and Women's Agency in Rajasthan -- 8 Three Critical Issues in Community Health Development Projects in Kenya -- 9 Towards an Ethnography of Participatory Appraisal and Research -- 10 Alternative Vocabularies of Development? 'Community' and 'Participation' in Development Discourse in Sri Lanka -- 11 The Ideology and Politics of Community Participation: Tank Irrigation Development in Colonial and Contemporary Tamil Nadu -- Index.

Introduces a Vol of nine Chpts (each abstracted) by providing a theoretical & political context for issues raised by recent changes in & challenges to the political project of feminism. The central idea of a shared oppression uniting women in their struggle for liberation informed second-wave feminism of the 1960s & 1970s, which tended to concentrate on social structures that universally disadvantaged women, regardless of class, race, or sexual differences. This ignorance of difference eventually led to the assertion of radical difference in postmodernist & poststructuralist feminist thought. These new strands of theory were anchored in a wider challenge to Western philosophical thought that revealed the gendered nature of the dichotomies that structure it. Two particular claims were stressed by poststructural feminists: that all knowledge was partial & relative to the social construction of experience. Thus, recent feminist work is described as emphasizing the local & cultural variability of gender in all its forms. Others have focused on the nature of power as ambivalent & negotiated rather than imposed from one group onto another. With a focus on identity issues in the context of practicing feminism, contributions address the significance of women's agency & sense of active subjectivity as well as notions of identity construction in power relations. 85 References. D. M. Smith

Discusses why women, and not the incorporation of gender, have been added to environmental politics, by examining the ways in which human agency and social structures interact in framing issues and setting agendas.

Recent writers in feminist ethics have been concerned to find ways to reclaim and augment women's moral agency. This essay considers Sarah Hoagland's intriguing suggestion that we renounce moral praise and blame and pursue what she calls an "ethic of intelligibility." I argue that the eschewal of moral blame would not help but rather hinder our efforts to increase our sense of moral agency. It would, I claim, further intensify our demoralization.

The organizations, activities, & responsibilities of Denmark's Equal Status Council (DESC), created in the 1970s, are described. DESC is the focus for feminist operations in the state, & the dominant agency for legislation on gender equality. DESC grew out of great controversy about women's role in society as homemaker vs worker, so in composing DESC, multiple sides of the debate had to be represented. The strategies & ideology of DESC have largely been influenced by women's organizations, especially since 1988. Even though these organizations are rivals in attracting members, they share similar perceptions of the tactics for embracing women's interests. The outcomes for DESC have been ambiguous; they have increased gender equality, but other areas vital for women's status & well-being have remained outside their scope. M. Pflum

Sophocles's Antigone continues to attract attention for its portrayal of the themes of moral agency and sexual difference. In this paper I argue that the contradictory factors which constitute Antigone's social identity work against the possibility of assessing her actions as either "virtuous" or not. I challenge readings of the play which suggest either that individual moral agency is sexually neutral or that women's action is necessarily and simply in direct opposition to the interests of the public sphere.

The Dept for the Coordination of Equality Policy (DCE) is the most important Dutch government agency for women's policy. The DCE's 1978 establishment, organization, role in policy formation, & relations with Dutch women's movement are reviewed. Because of the influence of Dutch feminist ideology, the DCE is relatively informal & nonhierarchical in comparison to other agencies. Its ability to initiate new policies on its own is limited; it serves more of a coordinating role. The three-sided network envisioned by feminists -- the "iron triangle" composed of the DCE, the women's movement, & a strong government advisory body -- has never materialized, & the DCE itself is now weakening due to the policy of integration of agencies. M. Pflum

Noting the secondary status of women's history in the French academic movement, attention is dedicated to identifying the contributions & influence of women's history to larger historical studies & to highlighting conceptual & methodological mechanisms for elevating women's history. Concerns regarding how the construction of the category of women complicates attempts to theorize agency & subjectivity & overcome historical determinism are addressed. Indeed, it is suggested that deconstruction provides an inadequate approach to addressing women's historical subjectivity; nevertheless, it is maintained that women's history should not solely be directed by insights from women's studies. Attention is subsequently directed toward examining the theoretical foundations of the ongoing debate between Louise Tilly & Joan Scott regarding social history's treatment of women subjects. Difficulties underlying Scott's (1988) radical epistemological foundation for a proper women's history are then highlighted; for instance, it is stressed that Scott's efforts to illuminate women subjects in history are frequently based upon discourses in which women are delineated as objects. Moreover, issues regarding Scott's discourse-oriented strategy for restoring the historical subjectivity of women are raised, & Scott's construction of deconstruction & social history as incompatible perspectives to developing women's history is questioned. J. W. Parker

Party politics in GB has impeded networking across government agencies to promote women's policies, so only two state agencies devoted to this topic exist. The Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC) opened its doors in 1975 to enforce & develop equality legislation, following passage of the Sex Discrimination Act. Women's interests are also addressed by the small advisory agency, the Women's National Commission. The origins, organizational structure, activities, & influence of the EOC 1975-present are described. After years of ambivalence, the EOC changed course in 1988 to mainstream sex equality policy, but inequalities in pay scales, occupations, child care provision, & welfare continue. The EOC had some early failures, & has excluded certain feminist organization policy making, so there is pressure for the establishment of a Ministry of Women apart from the EOC. M. Pflum

The establishment, organization, role, policy influence, & relations with women's organizations of the Equality Ombudsman (JAMO) in Sweden are reviewed. JAMO was established as an independent state agency in 1980 to eliminate sexual inequality at work. A significant autonomous feminist movement in Sweden has largely been absent, so JAMO has set its own agenda on work-related inequities. It has regulated women's labor, but has had little power to effectively intervene in the workplace in areas such as sexual harassment & violence against women. Inequality still persists, which may in fact be because state intervention inhibits the development of more innovative policies that would eradicate male privilege. M. Pflum

Until very recently social work and other child care agencies in Britain have paid little, if any, attention to the impact of domestic violence on children. Audrey Mullender — a pioneer of research in this field — argues the need for a radical improvement in agencies' response to domestic violence, based on a general raising of sensitivity and awareness at both worker and agency level. Among the specific areas for development suggested are an emphasis on safety planning with women and children, the need for better links between women's services such as Women's Aid, and child care and child protection agencies, and the promotion of positive and healing work with child survivors of living with abuse.