This book provides an insightful approach to understanding the contemporary circulations of feminist repertoires and shows how the international/transnational circulations of gender are interconnected, even coextensive, with the globalization process itself. Fed by a shared reflexivity on relations among activist groups, state institutions, and international actors involved in the production and dissemination of contemporary norms dealing with gender, each chapter shares methodological premises and studies the circulation of gender-related norms and knowledge in situ and by varying standpoints. Specifically, the authors de-compartmentalize the academic disciplines and go beyond classical geographic divisions, in order to map social spaces and networks of actors involved in the production and circulation of gender-related repertoires. Last, the book grasps circulatory processes and entangled social phenomena, which are usually subject to disciplinary and thematic divisions separating collective action and public action, development aid and feminism, law and international relations. Focused on collective and individual experiences within women’s organizations, activist careers, unstable mobilizations, public policies temporalities, the chapters reveal the mechanisms through which these arrangements are made and shed light on strategies deployed by actors rooted in specific social and political contexts. This book will be of key interest to students and scholars of gender studies and more broadly to politics, International Relations, sociology, geography, history, and anthropology.

With Cold War politics lost as the organizing principle behind international politics, development has become the most import policy goal of every international organization. There is an underside (and a human side) to development, and feminism has made inroads into the highly technical debates and frothy prophecies by examining what the future really holds for the people who will live it. This book highlights the ways in which feminist analysis has contributed to a richer understanding of international development and globalization. By combining theoretical, empirical, and political perspectives and discussing cutting-edge debates around development, globalization, economic restructuring, and feminist economics, Gender, Development and Globalization presents the ultimate primer on global feminist economics.

Gender, Development, and Globalization is the leading primer on global feminist economics and development. Lourdes Benería, a pioneer in the field of feminist economics, is joined in this second edition by Gunseli Berik and Maria Floro to update the text to reflect the major theoretical, empirical, and methodological contributions and global developments in the last decade. Its interdisciplinary investigation remains accessible to a broad audience interested in an analytical treatment of the impact of globalization processes on development and wellbeing in general and on social and gender equality in particular. The revision will continue to provide a wide-ranging discussion of the strategies and policies that hold the most promise in promoting equitable and sustainable development. The authors make the case for feminist economics as a useful framework to address major contemporary global challenges, such as inequalities between the global South and North as well as within single countries; persistent poverty; and increasing vulnerability to financial crises, food crises, and climate change. The authors’ approach is grounded in the intellectual current of feminism and human development, drawing on Amartya Sen’s capability approach and focused on the importance of the care economy, increasing pressures faced by women, and the failures of neoliberal reforms to bring about sustainable development, reduction in poverty, inequality, and vulnerability to economic crisis.

Women increasingly make up a significant percentage of the labor force throughout the world. This transformation is impacting everyone's lives. This book examines the resulting gender role, work, and family issues from a comparative worldwide perspective. Working allows women to earn an income, acquire new skills, and forge social connections. It also brings challenges such as simultaneously managing domestic responsibilities and family relationships. The social, political, and economic implications of this global transformation are explored from an interdisciplinary perspective in this book. The commonalities and the differences of women’s experiences depending on their social class, education, and location in industrialized and developing countries are highlighted throughout. Practical implications are examined including the consequences of these changes for men. Engaging vignettes and case studies from around the world bring the topics to life. The book argues that despite policy reforms and a rhetoric of equality, women still have unique experiences from men both at work and at home. Women, Work, and Globalization explores: Key issues surrounding work and families from a global cross-cultural perspective. The positive and negative experiences of more women in the global workforce. The spread of women’s empowerment on changes in ideologies and behaviors throughout the world. Key literature from family studies, IO, sociology, anthropology, and economics. The changing role of men in the global work-family arena. The impact of sexual trafficking and exploitation, care labor, and transnational migration on women. Best practices and policies that have benefited women, men, and their families. Part 1 reviews the research on gender in the industrialized and developing world, global changes that pertain to women’s gender roles, women’s labor market participation, globalization, and the spread of the women’s movement. Issues that pertain to women in a globalized world including gender socialization, sexual trafficking and exploitation, labor migration and transnational motherhood, and the complexities entailed in care labor are explored in Part 2. Programs and policies that have effectively assisted women are explored in Part 3 including initiatives instituted by NGOs and governments in developing countries and (programs) policies that help women balance work and family in industrialized countries. The book concludes with suggestions for global initiatives that assist women in balancing work and family responsibilities while decreasing their vulnerabilities. Intended as a supplemental text for advanced undergraduate and/or graduate courses in Women/Gender Issues, Work and Family, Gender and Families, Global/International Families, Family Diversity, Multicultural Families, and Urban Sociology taught in psychology, human development and family studies, gender and/or women’s studies, business, sociology, social work, political science, and anthropology. Researchers, policy makers, and practitioners in these fields will also appreciate this thought provoking book.

As "globalization" moves rapidly from buzzword to cliché, evaluating the claims of neoliberal capitalism to empower and enrich remains urgently important. The authors in this volume employ feminist, ethnographic methods to examine what free trade and export processing zones, economic liberalization, and currency reform mean to women in Argentina, Sri Lanka, Mexico, Ghana, the United States, India, Jamaica, and many other places. Heralded as agents of prosperity and liberation, neoliberal economic policies have all too often refigured and redoubled the burdens of gender, race, caste, class, and regional subordination that women bear. Traders, garment factory operatives, hotel managers and maids, small farmers and agricultural laborers, garbage pickers, domestic caregivers, daughters, wives, and mothers--women around the world are struggling to challenge the tendency of globalization talk to veil their marginalization.

What is globalization? How is it gendered? How does it work in Asia and the Pacific? The authors of the sixteen original and innovative essays presented here take fresh stock of globalization’s complexities. They pursue critical feminist inquiry about women, gender, and sexualities and produce original insights into changing life patterns in Asian and Pacific Island societies. Each essay puts the lives and struggles of women at the center of its examination while weaving examples of global circuits in Asian and Pacific societies into a world frame of analysis. The work is generated from within Asian and Pacific spaces, bringing to the fore local voices and claims to knowledge. The geographic emphasis on Asia/Pacific highlights the complexity of globalizing practices among specific people whose dilemmas come alive on these pages. Although the book focuses on global, gendered flows, it expands its investigation to include the media and the arts, intellectual resources, activist agendas, and individual life stories. First-rate ethnographies and interviews reach beyond generalizations and bring Pacific and Asian women and men alive in their struggles against globalization. Globalization cannot be summed up in a neat political agenda but must be actively contested and creatively negotiated. Taking feminist political thinking beyond simple oppositions, the authors ask specific questions about how global practices work, how they come to be, who benefits, and what is at stake. Contributors: Nancie Caraway, Steve Derné, Cynthia Enloe, Kathy Ferguson, Maria Ibarra, Gwyn Kirk, Sally Merry, Virginia Metaxas, Min Dongchao, Monique Mironesco, Rhacel Parrenas, Lucinda Peach, Vivian Price, Jyoti Puri, Judith Raiskin, Nancy Riley, Saskia Sassen, Teresia Teaiwa, Chris Yano, Yau Ching.

Gender Development and Globalization is the leading primer on global feminist economics and development. Gender is a development issue because social considerations are not easily incorporated into institutions such as policies, regulations, markets and organizations. This process is often referred to as the mainstreaming of gender in development institutions. Women are often in a disadvantaged position in terms of access to assets, services, information and formal decision-making status. Gender equality is considered a critical element in achieving Decent Work for All Women and Men, in order to effect social and institutional change that leads to sustainable development with equity and growth. Gender equality refers to equal rights, responsibilities and opportunities that all persons should enjoy, regardless of whether one is born male or female. Gender developmental scientists are concerned with age-related changes in gender typing, and more broadly, with many issues about the emergence and patterning of gendered behaviors and thinking. Description of these changes is vitally important as it informs theoretical approaches to gender development. Using a broad lens on age-related changes provides important information describing how development occurs, but shorter time frames are also useful for identifying processes that may underlie developmental patterns. Gender has been increasingly acknowledged as a critical variable in analysis and development planning. Gender is an expression of power in social relationship between men and women. The book will be very useful to academicians, researchers, planners, students, NGOs, civil societies and all those who are interested in women studies in general and gender issues in contexts in particular.