The economic and political empowerment of women continues to be a central focus for development agencies worldwide; access to medical care, education and employment, as well as women's reproductive rights remain key factors effecting women's autonomy. Feminisms, Empowerment and Development explores what women are doing to change their own personal circumstances whilst providing an in-depth analysis of collective action and institutionalized mechanisms aimed at changing structural relations.
Drawing on unique, original research and approaching empowerment as a complex process of negotiation, rather than a linear sequence of inputs and outcomes, this crucial collection highlights the difficulty of creating common agendas for the advancement of women's power and rights, and argues for a more nuanced, context-based approach to development theory and practice. An indispensible text for anyone interested in gender and development, this book shows that policies and approaches to development that view women as instrumental to other objectives will never promote women's empowerment as they fail to address the structures by which gender inequality is perpetuated over time.

Andrea Cornwall is the director of the Pathways of Women's Empowerment programme and professor of anthropology and development in the School of Global Studies at the University of Sussex. She has written widely on gender issues in development, sexuality and development and participatory governance. Her publications include Women, Sexuality and the Politics of Pleasure (Zed 2013), Men and Development: Politicising Masculinities (Zed 2012) and The Politics of Rights: Dilemmas for Feminist Praxis (2009).
Jenny Edwards has been the programme officer for the Pathways of Women's Empowerment programme at the Institute of Development Studies since 2006. She studied cultures and communities at the University of Sussex and her dissertation was on the politics of stepmothering as portrayed in children's literature. Her interests are in the issues of gender stereotyping, particularly in popular culture, and women's political representation.

Introduction: Negotiating Empowerment - Andrea Cornwall and Jenny Edwards
1. Legal Reform, Women's Empowerment and Social Change: The Case of Egypt - Mulki Al-Sharmani
2. Quotas: A Pathway of Political Empowerment? - Ana Alice Alcantara Costa
3. Advancing Women's Empowerment or Rolling Back the Gains? Peace Building in Post-Conflict Sierra Leone - Hussaina J. Abdullah
4. Education: Pathway to Empowerment for Ghanaian Women? - Akosua K. Darkwah
5. Paid Work as a Pathway of Empowerment: Pakistan's Lady Health Worker Programme - Ayesha Khan
6. Steady Money, State Support and Respect Can Equal Women's Empowerment in Egypt - Hania Sholkamy
7. Changing Representations of Women in Ghanaian Popular Music - Akosua Adomako Ampofo and Awo Mana Asiedu
8. Subversively Accommodating: Feminist Bureaucrats and Gender Mainstreaming - Rosalind Eyben
9. Reciprocity, Distancing and Opportunistic Overtures: Women's Organizations Negotiating Legitimacy and Space in Bangladesh - Sohela Nazneen and Maheen Sultan
10. Empowerment as Resistance: Conceptualizing Palestinian Women's Empowerment - Eileen Kuttab
11. Crossroads of Empowerment: The Organization of Women Domestic Workers in Brazil - Terezinha Gonçalves
12. Women's Dars and the Limitations of Desire: The Pakistan Case - Neelam Hussain
13. The Power of Relationships: Money, Love and Solidarity in a Landless Women's Organization in Rural Bangladesh - Naila Kabeer and Lopita Huq
14. Women Watching Television: Surfing between Fantasy and Reality - Aanmona Priyadarshini and Samia Afroz Rahim
15. Family, Households and Women's Empowerment through the Generations in Bahia, Brazil: Continuities or Change? - Cecilia M. B. Sardenberg