Comparative Practices and Perspectives : Gender, Development, and Empowerment in Uttarakhand, India and Northern Virginia

ISBN-13: 9783639116595 / Angielski / Miękka / 2009 / 176 str.

Sara Duke

Opis

This is a qualitative comparative case study which investigated the values, practices, perspectives, and strategies of Indian and American community organizers (practitioners and volunteers of non-profits and non-governmental organizations) who use microfinance, including savings schemes, as an instrument within the social intermediation process of developing disadvantaged women's capacities for self-sufficiency/empowerment. The focused inquiry was conducted through in-depth interviews of directors, staff members and volunteers/community-based organizers of a women s business center in Northern Virginia, a large US metropolitan area, and a women s federation in the rural Himalayas. Katz s framework for constructing analytical topographies, contour lines and countertopographies was used to structure the various levels of analysis. Differences were explained by situating each organization in Mayoux s theoretical paradigms of Women s Empowerment through Microfinance. Analyses concluded with the construction of countertopographies on practices andstrategies aimed towards collectively empowering women in disparate places around the world.

O autorze

Sara Duke earned a Master s of Urban and Regional Planning, a
Post-baccalaureate in Applied Social Science Research and a
Bachelor of Science in Economics from Virginia Commonwealth
University. She was awarded the 2008 Presidential Award for
Community Multicultural Enrichment from Virginia Commonwealth
University for community leadership.