Paradoxes of Empowerment : Development, Gender and Governance in Neoliberal India

Contents: Abbreviations. Acknowledgements. Introduction: the politics of empowerment. 1. Empowerment assemblages: a layered picture of the term. 2. Engendering neoliberal governance: welfare, empowerment, and state formation. 3. Empowering moves: paradoxes, subversions, dangers. 4. Staging development: a drama in North India. 5. (Cross)Talking development: state and citizen acts. 6. Between women? The micropolitics of community and collectivism. Conclusion: terra incognita, or a politics without guarantees. Notes. Bibliography. Index.

"Celebratory news features about India\'s thriving middle-class tell only part of the story of the country\'s recent economic rise, frequently glossing over the 300 million Indians who live on the margins and struggle to survive under economic liberalization. How do these, cast out of their country\'s successes, perceive and respond to their position and mobilize against disempowerment?

Aradhana Sharma takes up these questions, focusing on the work of an innovative women\'s programme called Mahila Samakhya, that is part governmental and part non-governmental and strives to empower those rural Indian women who have been pushed aside. Detailing the awkward ideological articulations and paradoxical outcomes of this unique activist-cum-government organization, paradoxes of empowerment fosters a deeper understanding of development and politics in contemporary India." (jacket)