Introduction: Interrogating development. Feminism gender and policy.

Abstract

Shortly before the 4th UN Conference on Women in Beijing a group of academics and feminists concerned with gender and development gathered at the University of East Anglia to discuss where we were and where we might be heading in a field now at least 25 years old. The essays in this book are a selection of what was presented there. What emerged was a diversity of work all of which examined development in its many meanings from which we have collected a group of papers which are not about projects and donors but address broad and longstanding concerns emerging from particular discourses with roots in 1970s socialist feminism. Much has changed since the early 1970s. Now it may be strange to many (potential) readers that this book is not about NGOs (non-government organisations) and development projects - or even donor led efforts to empower women in spite of the pervasive fashion ability of such endeavours. The essays here are concerned with an interrogation of development from the perspective of gender analysis. Given that we understand by development both development policy and social and economic change the chapters take up issues of macro-policy design and implementation as well as theoretical debates and analytical frameworks. (excerpt)