Suchergebnisse

North Korean women's fashion has changed in the context of women's relatively recently assumed role as critical actors in North Korea's market-dependent economy. Through examination of changes in women's fashion we learn more about how the way women choose to dress can become an agentic and empowering process. The article argues that the case of North Korean women and their dress practice can inform our understanding of how women, even in the most oppressive of circumstances, develop tactics to manipulate the systems and social order that seek to control them. North Korean women have enacted upon their agency deliberately, getting away with what they can while simultaneously skilfully avoiding the dire consequences of being identified as actors who dare to disrupt the status quo. This type of agency is not always understood or appreciated by Western liberal frames and sensibilities of agency that centralise notions of individualism and freedom. This nuanced appreciation of women's agency has the potential to expand the "rights, choices and autonomy" Western discourse of women's agency in ways that are inclusive of women who live, and sometimes manage to thrive, in the face of extreme oppression. This paper is informed by the authors' field notes from trips to North Korea and by 45 in-depth interviews with North Korean refugees, regular visitors to North Korea and NGO workers.

In this comprehensive study of the role of women in the Italian mafia, Ombretta Ingrascì assesses the roles, identities and spaces of women within traditionally male, patriarchal organized crime units. The study draws on an extensive range of research, legal reports and interviews with women involved with the mafia, public officials and police. Placed within a framework of political, social, cultural and religious history, post-1945, this book provides an excellent account of women and organized crime in modern Italy.

Contemporary debates about collective action in civil society have given prominent place to the connections between voluntary associations and social capital. Social capital research, however, commonly over-emphasises the role of associations in generating societal-level outcomes, to the neglect of the specific contexts in which associations reside and the different opportunities individuals and groups have to access resources for and through collective action. Also largely ignored are considerations of gender. This thesis addresses these issues, presenting evidence from a case study of a large women s service organisation the VIEW Clubs of Australia to examine how social capital and women s agency intersect. The thesis adopts a social-structural approach to social capital, highlighting its role as a resource brokered through networks that both enable and constrain action. This approach attends to the inter-relations of particular types of social capital, such as bonding and bridging; specific elements of social capital, such as reciprocity, trust, and shared values, identities and purposes; and addresses the broader socio-historical context in which social capital networks are located. The thesis employs a model of agency that encompasses three core fields of agency individual, social and political. These fields of agency encapsulate the capacity for women to act and exercise choice and change in their own lives, in the community, and in the polity, and to do this through collective action. The thesis applies these ideas using an embedded case study model combining documentary analysis, participant observation and in-depth interviews. The findings reveal agency and social capital to be in tension. Activities that feed the agential capacity of the organisation and its members are more successfully realised in areas closest to women s past experiences than in those addressing the public sphere. The research nevertheless shows that a voluntary association such as VIEW can foster women s agency. Indeed, building ...

The article discusses the agency of four influential women in conjunction with Finnish population policies represented by the Population and Family Welfare Federation in Finland (founded 1941). The policies pursued by Rakel Jalas (1892-1955), a doctor of medicine and MP for the National Coalition Party, Elsa Enäjärvi-Haavio (1901-1951), academic researcher and activist, Martta Salmela-Järvinen (1892-1987), a writer, activist and MP for the Social Democratic Party, and Leena Valvanne (1920-) a midwife and trade union activist, can be characterized as maternalist. The Finnish Abortion Law (in 1971) is interpreted as an expression of the change of the era and the emphasis of the Finnish women's movement. ; The article discusses the agency of four influential women in conjunction with Finnish population policies represented by the Population and Family Welfare Federation in Finland (founded 1941). The policies pursued by Rakel Jalas (1892-1955), a doctor of medicine and MP for the National Coalition Party, Elsa Enäjärvi-Haavio (1901-1951), academic researcher and activist, Martta Salmela-Järvinen (1892-1987), a writer, activist and MP for the Social Democratic Party, and Leena Valvanne (1920-) a midwife and trade union activist, can be characterized as maternalist. The Finnish Abortion Law (in 1971) is interpreted as an expression of the change of the era and the emphasis of the Finnish women's movement.

This research reveals a hidden history of working-class women's lives and agency in industrial East London, 1840 to 1914. "Sweated" industrial women were integral to East London's industrial labour geographies, as demonstrated in the specific trades of bookbinding, upholstery, garment making and tailoring, confectionery and ropemaking, amongst others. Women were ideologically restricted into the sphere of domesticity, which limited their equal access to the labour force and disavowed their public voice. Working-class women developed resilience and feminist resistance to their class exploitation through their local labour geographies. As women learned from the previous generations' resistance, they created and developed conduits of self-expression within the labour movements' platforms. As middle-class women joined working-class women in the labour force, they intersected in a labour movement in which class both differentiated and consolidated people. A prosopography shows that working-class women workers' public manifestation of agency was through trade unionism. Between 1840 and 1914, working-class women's self-expression grew louder. This thesis examines agency through a framework of four pillars of volition, materialist, political and corporeal agency. As working-class women claimed their right to the public sphere, they developed their feminist citizenship from below.

This article examines how Indonesian civil society organisations (CSOs) working for women's empowerment and gender equality have worked together with members of parliament (MPs) to support processes of developmental change. Examples are taken from initiatives supported by MAMPU, an Australian government funded project that promotes gender equality and women's empowerment in Indonesia, describing ways in which gender-focused organisations have engaged with, and had an impact upon, the actions of political leaders in parliament. The article focuses on interaction between institutions and the agency exercised by individuals within institutions. MPs act within a structure of institutional and political incentives, but they also have the power to make choices about how they respond to incentives. Moreover, the leaders of outside actors such as CSOs can modify the structure of incentives by both applying pressure on MPs and providing opportunities for legislators to make different choices. One of MAMPU's tools for targeting MPs has been political economy analysis. Having correctly understood the pressures and incentives facing MPs, CSOs can target their actions to bring about outcomes favourable to both sides in what the article calls 'alliances of instrumental advantage.' Organisations supported by MAMPU achieved success where relationships were forged between the organisations and politicians based on the identification of mutual advantage.

The current economic crisis which, at the same time, is social, political and cultural, reveals the impossibility of emerging from the worldwide destabilization produced by globalization without taking into account the centrality of human life as the result of interdependent relationships both in the public sphere and in the private sphere. Such a vision exactly corresponds to what women's transnational movements have tried to take forward in the context of development cooperation over the last three decades. In this article Pomeranzi, drawing on the "Mediterranean approach to the empowerment of women" as well as her own experience, considers the political responsibility of professionals working in development agencies, and suggests that the concepts of women's agency and empowerment could be a useful tool for resolving the intersecting elements of the present development crisis.

While scholars increasingly focus on the gendered elements of genocide, these are not often holistically discussed in the prevention literature. There is a tendency to fall into a gendered binary, whereby prevention is a masculine activity, while peacebuilding is represented as more maternal and feminine. However, women do not always exclusively mobilise for others, nor do they fit neatly within circumscribed categories of victims or peacebuilders. Rather, they have the ability to develop and refine a contextually relevant style of feminist agency that allows them to navigate and make sense of the everyday violences to which they are exposed. This article challenges trends of gendered essentialism and critically reads genocide and atrocity crimes "from the bottom up." It expands beyond case studies to highlight the emergent lessons of Zulver's High Risk Feminism framework for critical genocide prevention studies.

While scholars increasingly focus on the gendered elements of genocide, these are not often holistically discussed in the prevention literature. There is a tendency to fall into a gendered binary, whereby prevention is a masculine activity, while peacebuilding is represented as more maternal and feminine. However, women do not always exclusively mobilise for others, nor do they fit neatly within circumscribed categories of victims or peacebuilders. Rather, they have the ability to develop and refine a contextually relevant style of feminist agency that allows them to navigate and make sense of the everyday violences to which they are exposed. This article challenges trends of gendered essentialism and critically reads genocide and atrocity crimes "from the bottom up." It expands beyond case studies to highlight the emergent lessons of Zulver's High Risk Feminism framework for critical genocide prevention studies.

Using an ethnographic approach, the authors explored the awareness among women in southern Africa of the HIV epidemic and the methods they might use to protect themselves from the virus. The research, conducted from 1992 through 1999, focused specifically on heterosexual transmission in 5 sites that were selected to reflect urban and rural experiences, various populations, and economic and political opportunities for women at different historical moments over the course of the HIV epidemic. The authors found that the female condom and other woman-controlled methods are regarded as culturally appropriate among many men and women in southern Africa and are crucial to the future of HIV/AIDS prevention. The data reported in this article demonstrate that cultural acceptability for such methods among women varies along different axes, both over time and among different populations. For this reason, local circumstances need to be taken into account. Given that women have been clearly asking for protective methods they can use, however, political and economic concerns, combined with historically powerful patterns of gender discrimination and neglect of women's sexuality, must be viewed as the main obstacles to the development and distribution of methods women can control.

Forces of globalization, local culture, and Islam continuously inform one another and dynamically manifest in cultures across the world. Scholars often assume that these influences may have distinct and independent effects. However, we argue that these global forces occur simultaneously and they may contradict or complement each other along a spectrum within Aceh, Indonesia. The manifestations and responses vary depending on the nature of the interactions of global and local factors. This spectrum represents various ways in which women negotiate identity and agency, specifically within the context of the implementation of Shari'ah Law. This research investigates the specific ways in which women's identities influence and are influenced by the globalization of feminism, matrifocal traditions, and Islamic veiling practices in Aceh. In the summer of 2012, the authors conducted field research in Aceh, Indonesia through interviews and observations. These included over 70 participants and 20 organizations which varied in formality and size. The interview participants include: activists, academicians, spiritual leaders, government officials, law enforcement agents, university students, and other community members from both rural and urban areas.

The major objective of this study is to identify and analyze cultural and economic barriers to sustained adoption of LPG (liquefied petroleum gas) as the primary clean cooking energy in India, and examining underpinning values and norms in socio-technical energy system of the country. In 2016, the Government of India introduced a mega scheme called Ujjwala for clean cooking energy with LPG connects in women's name. This policy, however, experienced limited implementation, but did lead to enhancing women's agency in many areas. Women's agency is defined briefly as their ability to set goals, develop capacities, and act on their defined goals to realize desired outcomes in wellbeing and capabilities. In the case of switching to clean cooking energy, the question can be posed as: as women are the ones who carry out most of the onerous work of collecting and cooking with wood, are they able to make decisions on the adoption of clean cooking fuel, that enhance their agency and the wellbeing of their families? Male-centred cultural and economic norms can be changed by the exercise of women's agency, when (1) women have unmediated asset ownership rights to land, houses, and energy technology ; (2) they are organized in groups for earning cash incomes and energy access ; (3) they have acquired new knowledge, skills, and finances to acquire and operate new technologies ; and (4) women have experienced the effects of policy change addressing gendered norms.

This study is part of the ongoing research program on Leveraging Agriculture for Nutrition in South Asia (LANSA) funded by UK Aid from the Department for International Development, UK. The authors are consultants or regular staff of M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation, India, one of the six partner institutions of LANSA. ; A recent global hunger index indicated a 12 percent decline in child underweight rates. This study attempts an empirical explanation of the factors that influence child underweight rates at the district level. Agricultural land productivity, share of women educated above the secondary level and participating in work, maternal, and child health seem to contribute to the reduction in child underweight. However government health and water supply facilities turn out to be ineffective.

The myth of the Maid of the Mist of Niagara Falls is a settler story of an Indigenous woman who kills herself by piloting her canoe over the cataract. This is presented not as a tragedy, but as a cultural necessity. So compelling was this settler myth that until recently it was the focus of settler cultural production at Niagara. I argue that the creation and subsequent fixation upon the myth attempted to displace Indigenous stories, and the centrality of Indigenous women to Indigenous epistemologies and in decolonial action. The recent move to banish the myth from tourist audiences does further violence by moving colonial cultural production to the fringes of visibility and away from critical interrogation. The myth and the ways it is called upon and subsequently banished indicates the normalizing practices of settler colonialism and must be pulled from the brink of unnameability and unknowability into critical discourse.

En este trabajo se considera la historia de las mujeres desde una doble perspectiva. Por un lado, se hacen algunas precisiones sobre los conceptos necesarios para entender cómo es posible la agencia femenina y la relación que establece con las condiciones dadas en las que se produce. En segundo lugar, se analizan las discusiones sobre el objeto que estudia la historia de las mujeres vinculándolas con las demandas políticas a las que intenta responder. El trabajo está recorrido por la ambigüedad que subyace al vocablo "historia", que refiere tanto a una ciencia fáctica y social como al pasado que estudia. Se pretende mostrar que esa ambigüedad es crucial para entender los desafíos epistemológicos a los que debe responder una historia de las mujeres que se propone no solo como un tipo de conocimiento, sino también como una forma de intervenir en el mundo social y cultural. ; This paper analyzes the history of women under a double perspective. On one side, some remarks are made about the necessary concepts to understand women's agency and its relation to given social conditions. On the other side, the subject-matter of the history of women is considered according to the political demands of the feminist agenda. The ambiguity of term "history" goes through this paper referring inasmuch the past as the science which studies it. This is crucial to understand the epistemological challenges of the history of women trying to generate not only knowledge but also a tool to intervene in the social and cultural world. ; Una versión previa de este trabajo fue leída en el XVth. International Association of Women Philosophers (IAPh) Symposium, Alcalá de Henares (2014). También se presentó una versión preliminar en la mesa redonda La transversalidad de la perspectiva de género, organizada por el proyecto Worldbridges (Madrid, 2018). ; Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias de la Educación