Tanya Jakimow

Empowering Women A Critique of the Blueprint for Self-help Groups in India

Development agencies have increasingly regarded ‘empowerment’ as an essential objective to improve the well-being of marginalised women in India. The perceived success of self-help group (SHG) programmes in this project has encouraged their widespread application across India, becoming the primary mechanism to empower women. However, this success has often been assumed rather than proven, with evaluations generally lacking a conceptualisation of empowerment based on theoretical understandings of power relations. This article aims to overcome this by evaluating the potential of SHG programmes through the reduction of internal, institutional and social constraints that prevent the marginalised from pursuing their interests. An analysis of the ‘normative’ model of SHG programmes, and its actual application shows that while SHG programmes have the potential to empower women, this is often not realised through the persistence of ‘top-down’ approaches in implementation. SHG programmes are further limited in their ability to transform social relations due to their apparent insistence that the marginalised are the only legitimate actors in their own empowerment. Rather than argue for the discontinuation of SHG programmes in India, their potential to empower women can be increased through a ‘bottom-up’ orientation in implementation, while recognising that in and of themselves SHG programmes cannot reduce all the constraints preventing the pursuit of interests.

Answering the critics: the potential and limitations of the knowledge agenda as a practical response to post-development critiques

Post-development critiques and subsequent debates have sparked revision in the development sector, influencing recent approaches to knowledge in development. This article examines the extent to which the ‘knowledge strategies’ applied to development agencies are compatible with the normative characteristics of ‘reflexive development’. It argues that although development agencies are seemingly in a process of transforming thinking and practice, reflexivity has not gone far enough in the evaluation of development strategies. This has resulted in several deficiencies in the knowledge agenda: a concentration on organizations rather than the development sector; an emphasis on larger organizations while ignoring smaller development actors; and inadequate conceptualizations of ‘learning’.

‘Breaking the backbone of farmers’: contestations in a rural employment guarantee scheme

This paper examines narratives about the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGA) to reveal peoples interpretations of changes to agrarian relations in Andhra Pradesh. Through narratives, we are able to reveal more than just the material relations of production, unveiling internalised modes of control, how these have come under threat in recent times, and discursive strategies to restore them – albeit in modified form. It argues that the MGNREGA has become a site of ideological contestation, in which the scheme means either an entitlement to government support, or alternatively a threat to existing modes of control that can only be reinstated through the scheme itself.

Unlocking the Black Box of Institutions in Livelihoods Analysis: Case Study from Andhra Pradesh, India

Weaknesses of sustainable-livelihoods analysis include the neglect of power relations; a focus on the material bases of livelihoods, ignoring social and cultural aspects; and failing to incorporate dynamism. This paper seeks to reinvigorate sustainable-livelihoods frameworks through a broader conceptualisation of institutions which identifies the multiple ways in which they mediate livelihoods. It draws upon Scotts (1995) three pillars of institutions (regulative, normative and cognitive) and the three schools of neo-institutionalism (rational, cultural and historical) to present a more comprehensive approach to understanding the ways in which institutions mediate livelihoods. These approaches are in themselves limited in their understanding of agency and institutional transformation. The paper argues that attention to “complex subjectivities” and contestations over meaning within a broader institutional context can identify entry points for strategic development interventions. The utility of the approach for development practice and research is demonstrated through its application to rural livelihoods in Andhra Pradesh, India.

Household types as a tool to understand adaptive capacity: case studies from Cambodia, Lao PDR, Bangladesh and India

Supporting smallholder households to adapt to climate variability is a high priority for development agencies and national governments. Efforts to support climate adaptation in developing countries occur within highly dynamic contexts. Macro-level changes in national and regional economies manifest in dynamic local conditions, such as migration, changing household labour dynamics, market access and land-use options. Research aimed at developing adaptation options is often focused on particular activities or industries and struggles to take into account the broader, interrelated suite of household livelihood activities or the non-climate stressors driving change and adaptation. This paper explores the use of household types to (a) understand the diversity of household circumstances and (b) place agricultural adaptation options within the broader context of household livelihoods. Results from application in four countries are discussed, which highlight the utility of the method and identify broader level trends and drivers that are common challenges (experienced differently) across multiple contexts.

Gambling on Livelihoods: Desire, Hope and Fear in Agrarian Telangana, India and Central Lombok, Indonesia

“Farming is just like gambling” is a common saying among villagers in Telangana, India, and Central Lombok, Indonesia. Commercial cultivation has made agriculture more risky, as well as potentially more profitable; it contains the possibility for both ruin and fortune. This paper aims to shed light on how farmers experience this uncertainty by going beyond material conditions to pay attention to hopes, desires and fears. The translocal study examines farmers’ responses to specific material and discursive environments, shaped by transnational flows and processes. It argues that farmers take risk as an ethical action in response to conditions of uncertainty, and that these actions consequently play a part in self-making processes. Risk is critical to people’s evaluation of their lives, evoking feelings of capacity and impotence, dreams and fears.

Non-Government Organisations, Self-Help Groups and Neo-Liberal Discourses

In India the presence of a large number of non-government organisations (NGOs) is often seen to attest to the strength of its civil society. It is claimed that NGOs’ close links with marginalised people can aid in the representation of the poor, thereby strengthening democratic processes in accordance with pluralist conceptions of civil society. Sangeeta Kamat’s analysis of NGOs in India challenges this perspective. Using a Gramscian approach to civil society, she shows how NGOs can be agents in the securing of a consensus of the marginalised over unequal social and economic structures. It is therefore important to analyse the discrepancy between NGOs’ normative and actual roles in civil society processes to understand democracy and development in India more generally.

Affective registers in qualitative team research: interpreting the self in encounters with the state

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present an approach to enhance understandings of personhood and self-becoming through an affective reading of field notes and interview transcripts in cross-cultural research teams. Design/methodology/approach – A research team in Medan, Indonesia, captured the affective and emotive aspects of a research scene in field notes that were subsequently shared. Through prompting and elaboration, researchers were able to reveal the pathways from affect to emotion and thought, and the influence of past affective pedagogies in interpretations of the scene. Findings – Team research can enhance the interpretations of the “self” by drawing upon the diversity of affective registers of researchers. Paying attention to, and discussing in detail the ways researchers are affected in the field provided analytical insights as to the processes of self-becoming made possible within a particular encounter. These insights also added analytical value in team interpretations of interview ...

A site for the empowerment of women? The clash of patriarchal values and development norms in a family-based NGO

Patriarchal norms of the Indian family and normative development goals of gender equity and womens empowerment make uncomfortable bedfellows. This article examines the processes of institutional bricolage that occur with the overlap of these two institutional spaces using ethnographic evidence from two family-based NGOs. It finds that although there is evidence of decoupling between formal structures and actual practices, this does not discount the potential for the transformation of gender norms. I identify three factors that influence this potential: the distance between NGOs and donors; the basis upon which NGOs claim legitimacy with their clientele; and the use of other coercive forms of power. Further, I argue that organizations do not consist of a single institutional space, and that the possibilities for uneven ‘bricolage’ need consideration. These findings are theoretically relevant for understanding processes of institutional bricolage, as well as practically for feminist projects to transform gender norms in, and through, NGOs.

The Rationale of Self-help in Development Interventions A Case Study of a Self-help Group Programme in Tamil Nadu

Self-help is often perceived as a valuable, if not essential, element to development programmes. At the same time, as a concept it has generally escaped scrutiny. Two types of claims are made about the benefits of selfhelp programmes. First, it is suggested that self-help empowers its participants more so than other externally directed or implemented programmes. The second less vocal claim is the compatibility of self-help with cost-reduction strategies: both in terms of material costs and costs to the prevailing social and economic structure. This article explores these two claims through a case study of a self-help group (SHG) programme in Tamil Nadu, India. It argues that although empowering outcomes are stated as the rationale for self-help, these are often neglected in favour of achieving cost-reduction ones. This is an outcome of the concept of self-help being absorbed into the practices and discourses of the dominant development paradigm. Self-help has thus been divorced from its role in enabling self-direction, and has become the rationale for pressuring the marginalised to take responsibility for improving their own condition within a non-negotiable economic and social structure.