Since the late 1990s, development institutions have increasingly used the language of rights in their policy and practice. This special issue on feminist perspectives on politics of rights explores the strategies, tensions and challenges associated with rights work' in a variety of settings.

Articles on the Middle East, Africa, Latin America, East and South Asia explore the dilemmas that arise for feminist praxis in these diverse locations, and address the question of what rights can contribute to struggles for gender justice. Exploring the intersection of formal rights - whether international human rights conventions, constitutional rights or national legislation - with the everyday realities of women in settings characterized by entrenched gender inequalities and poverty, plural legal systems and cultural norms that can constitute formidable obstacles to realizing rights. The contributors suggest that these sites of struggle can create new possibilities and meanings - and a politics of rights animated by demands for social and gender justice.

A student's textbook suitable for course adoption A comprehensive overview of the existing literature on gender, bringing together important and influential essays from widely disparate sources. A valuable collection for scholars and students. ANDREA CORNWALL is a Research Fellow at the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex Contributors include: JOSEPHINE BEOKU-BETTS, NIARA SUDARKASA, OBIOMA NNAEMEKA, RUDOLF P. GAUDIO, TIMOTHY BURKE, JANE I. GUYER, MEGAN VAUGHAN, JANET M. BUJRA, IRIS BERGER, BARBARA COOPER, DEBORAH GAITSKELL, STEPHAN E. MEISCHER, BOLANLE AWE, JEAN ALLMAN, SUSAN GEIGER Published in association with the International African Institute North America: Indiana U Press

Originally published in 1994, and now a feminist classic, Dislocating Masculinity offers a penetrating critique of writing on and by men. Bringing together anthropologists, sociologists, linguists and historians, it raises important comparative questions about how gender operates, addressing issues of embodiment, agency, gender inequality and the variety of masculine styles.

Since the late 1990s, development institutions have increasingly used the language of rights in their policy and practice. This special issue on feminist perspectives on politics of rights explores the strategies, tensions and challenges associated with 'rights work' in a variety of settings. Articles on the Middle East, Africa, Latin America, East and South Asia explore the dilemmas that arise for feminist praxis in these diverse locations, and address the question of what rights can contribute to struggles for gender justice. Exploring the intersection of formal rights - whether international human rights conventions, constitutional rights or national legislation - with the everyday realities of women in settings characterized by entrenched gender inequalities and poverty, plural legal systems and cultural norms that can constitute formidable obstacles to realizing rights. The contributors suggest that these sites of struggle can create new possibilities and meanings - and a politics of rights animated by demands for social and gender justice.

- Comprehensive examination of how labels such as 'The Poor, ' or 'Asylum Seeker' are created and applied and how these labels shape power relations in development and aid work- Authored by leading development practitioners and researchers from the Institute of Development Studies and including international case studies addressing gender, race, religion, poverty and power in various contexts- Hands-on recommendations for tackling stigmatizing labels and methods for creating new, empowering labels and constructive ways to frame development problemsWhat does it mean to be part of the mass known as "The Poor"? What visions are conjured up in our minds when someone is labeled Muslim? And what assumptions do we make about their needs, desirability, security and disposability? How do we react individually and as a society? Who develops these labels, what power do the labels carry and how do such labels affect how people are treated?This timely book tackles the critical and controversial issue of how people are labeled and categorized and how their problems are framed and dealt with. Drawing on vast international experience and current theory, the authors examine how labels are constituted and applied by governments and aid agencies. It also examines how power relations are amplified or set on collision courses by labeling, and how the labeled view themselves and often act contrary to their externally applied labels or, in some cases, accept the labels. Coverage includes analysis of labels in current development and aid practice in a number of contexts. Importantly, the authors provide suggestions for how policy makers and professionals can tackle negative forms of labeling, including howcounter-labeling might influence key concerns such as poverty reduction, human rights, race relations, and security.

Originally published in 1994, and now a feminist classic, Dislocating Masculinity offers a penetrating critique of writing on and by men. Bringing together anthropologists, sociologists, linguists and historians, it raises important comparative questions about how gender operates, addressing issues of embodiment, agency, gender inequality and the variety of masculine styles.

This book tells the story of development studies in practice over the last fifty years through the work of one remarkable individual, Robert Chambers. His work has taken him from being a colonial officer in Kenya through training and managing large rural development projects to a fundamental critique of top-down development and the championing of participatory approaches. The contributors eloquently demonstrate how he has been at the centre of major shifts in development thinking and practice over this period, popularising terms that are now at the centre of the development lexicon such as vulnerability, multi-dimensional poverty, sustainable livelihoods and 'farmer first'. Robert Chambers played a major role in the massive growth in participatory approaches to development, and particularly the application of participatory methods in development research and appraisal. This has led to fundamental challenges to development practice, ranging from approaches to monitoring and evaluation to institutional learning and professional training. There is probably no-one who has had more influence on approaches to development in the past decades. Revolutionizing Development offers a unique overview of these contributions in thirty-two concise chapters from authors who have been intimately involved as collaborators, critics and colleagues of Robert Chambers.

Writing from diverse locations, the contributors to this volume examine some of the key terms in current development discourse. Why should language matter to those who are doing development? Surely, there are more urgent things to do than sit around mulling over semantics? But language does matter. Whether emptied of their original meaning, essentially vacuous, or hotly contested, the language of development not only shapes our imagined worlds, but also justifies interventions in real people s lives. If development buzzwords conceal ideological differences or sloppy thinking, then the process of constructive deconstruction make it possible to re-examine what have become catch-all terms like civil society and poverty reduction, or bland aid-agency terms such as partnership or empowerment. Such engagement is far more than a matter of playing word games. The reflections included here raise major questions about how we think about development itself.The 30 contributors to this volume include Cassandra Balchin, Srilatha Batliwala, Robert Chambers, Neera Chandhoke, Ben Fine, Shalmali Guttal, Pablo Alejandro Leal, Islah Jad, Thandika Mkandawire, John Samuel, John Toye, and Peter Uvin."

Calls for greater participation of those affected by development interventions have a long history. This expert reader explores the conceptual and methodological dimensions of participatory research and the politics and practice of participation in development. Through excerpts from the texts that have inspired contemporary advocates of participation, accounts of the principles of participatory research, and empirical studies that show some of the complexities of participation in practice, it offers a range of reflections on participation that will be of interest to both those new to the field and experienced practitioners alike. Bringing together for the first time classic and contemporary writings from a literature that spans a century, it offers a unique perspective on the possibilities and dilemmas that face those seeking to enable those affected by development projects, programs, and policies.

Sexuality is a complex and multifaceted domain - encompassing bodily, contextual and subjective experiences that resist ready categorisation. To claim the sexual as a viable research object therefore raises a number of important methodological questions: what is it possible to know about experiences, practices and perceptions of sex and sexualities? What approaches might help or hinder our efforts to probe such experiences? This collection explores the creative, personal and contextual parameters involved in researching sexuality, cutting across disciplinary boundaries and drawing on case studies from a variety of countries and contexts. Combining a wide range of expertise, its contributors address such key areas as pornography, sex work, intersectionality and LGBT perspectives. The contributors also share their own experiences of researching sexuality within contrasting disciplines, as well as interrogating how the sexual identities of researchers themselves can relate to, and inform, their work. The result is a unique and diverse collection that combines practical insights on field work with novel theoretical reflections.

Neoliberalism has had a radical impact on the lived, gendered experiences of people around the world. But while the gendered dimensions of neoliberalism have already received significant scholarly attention, the existing literature has given little consideration to men's identities and experiences. Building on the work of Cornwall and Lindisfarne's landmark text Dislocating Masculinity, this collection provides a fresh perspective on gender dynamics under neoliberalism. Bringing together a series of short, readable case studies drawn from new ethnographic fieldwork, its subjects range from the experiences of working-class men in Putin's Russia to colonial masculinities in Southern Rhodesia, and from young British Muslim men to amateur footballers in Jamaica.

Sexuality is a complex and multifaceted domain - encompassing bodily, contextual and subjective experiences that resist ready categorisation. To claim the sexual as a viable research object therefore raises a number of important methodological questions: what is it possible to know about experiences, practices and perceptions of sex and sexualities? What approaches might help or hinder our efforts to probe such experiences? This collection explores the creative, personal and contextual parameters involved in researching sexuality, cutting across disciplinary boundaries and drawing on case studies from a variety of countries and contexts. Combining a wide range of expertise, its contributors address such key areas as pornography, sex work, intersectionality and LGBT perspectives. The contributors also share their own experiences of researching sexuality within contrasting disciplines, as well as interrogating how the sexual identities of researchers themselves can relate to, and inform, their work. The result is a unique and diverse collection that combines practical insights on field work with novel theoretical reflections.

Neoliberalism has had a radical impact on the lived, gendered experiences of people around the world. But while the gendered dimensions of neoliberalism have already received significant scholarly attention, the existing literature has given little consideration to men's identities and experiences. Building on the work of Cornwall and Lindisfarne's landmark text Dislocating Masculinity, this collection provides a fresh perspective on gender dynamics under neoliberalism. Bringing together a series of short, readable case studies drawn from new ethnographic fieldwork, its subjects range from the experiences of working-class men in Putin's Russia to colonial masculinities in Southern Rhodesia, and from young British Muslim men to amateur footballers in Jamaica.

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.

This pioneering collection explores the ways in which women's sexual desires are experienced by them and how this experience effects women's empowerment. It shows that an exploration of pleasure can have a hugely positive impact for women at the personal, social and political levels. Traditional gender and development discourses tend to engage with sexuality in relation to violence and ill-health. Although this has been hugely important in challenging violence against women, over emphasizing these negative aspects has subsumed women's sexualities under violence, danger and fear. The media, the pharmaceutical market, pornography and the market more broadly on the other hand celebrate the pleasures of sex in ways that can be just as oppressive, often implying that only certain types of (young, heterosexual, able-bodied, HIV negative) people are 'eligible' for sexual pleasure. The book brings together challenges to these strictures and exclusions from both south and north of the globe. It demonstrates both conceptually and through examples of mobilisation, programming and policy, how positive approaches to pleasure and sexuality can enhance equality and empowerment for all.

This pioneering collection explores the ways in which women's sexual desires are experienced by them and how this experience effects women's empowerment. It shows that an exploration of pleasure can have a hugely positive impact for women at the personal, social and political levels. Traditional gender and development discourses tend to engage with sexuality in relation to violence and ill-health. Although this has been hugely important in challenging violence against women, over emphasizing these negative aspects has subsumed women's sexualities under violence, danger and fear. The media, the pharmaceutical market, pornography and the market more broadly on the other hand celebrate the pleasures of sex in ways that can be just as oppressive, often implying that only certain types of (young, heterosexual, able-bodied, HIV negative) people are 'eligible' for sexual pleasure. The book brings together challenges to these strictures and exclusions from both south and north of the globe. It demonstrates both conceptually and through examples of mobilisation, programming and policy, how positive approaches to pleasure and sexuality can enhance equality and empowerment for all.

"Men and Development: Politicizing Masculinities" features an exciting collection of contributions from some of today's leading thinkers and practitioners in the field of men, masculinities, and development. Together, contributors challenge the neglect of the structural dimensions of patriarchal power relations in current development policy and practice, and the failure to adequately engage with the effects of inequitable sex and gender orders on both men's and women's lives. The book calls for renewed engagement in efforts to challenge and change stereotypes of men, to dismantle the structural barriers to gender equality, and to mobilize men to build new alliances with women's movements and other movements for social and gender justice.

'We used to talk about development with a human face. We should be talking about development with a body' Arit Oku-Egbas, African Regional Sexuality Resource Centre, Nigeria Sex and sexuality have always had a place at the heart of the development agenda - from concerns regarding population and environment, to practices in education and efforts for protecting reproductive health and rights. Yet this agenda has largely focused on negative dimensions of sexuality - disease, risk, violation - rather than positive aspects, including rights to sexual fulfillment, wellbeing and pleasure. The shift towards a rights-based approach to development has brought the human rights dimensions of sexuality into clearer view, and consequently the need to address discriminatory laws and violations of the human rights of those whose sexual identity and practices diverge from dominant sexual orders/norms. This book offers compelling insights into contemporary challenges and transformative possibilities of the struggle for sexual rights. It combines the conceptual with the political, and offering inspiring examples of practical interventions and campaigns that emphasize the positive dimensions of sexuality. It brings together reflections and experiences of researchers, activists and practitioners from Brazil, India, Nigeria, Peru, Serbia, South Africa, Turkey, the UK and Zambia. From political discourse on sex and masculinity to sex work and trafficking, from HIV and sexuality to struggles for legal reform and citizenship, the authors explore the gains of creating stronger linkages between sexuality, human rights and development.

- Comprehensive examination of how labels such as 'The Poor, ' or 'Asylum Seeker' are created and applied and how these labels shape power relations in development and aid work- Authored by leading development practitioners and researchers from the Institute of Development Studies and including international case studies addressing gender, race, religion, poverty and power in various contexts- Hands-on recommendations for tackling stigmatizing labels and methods for creating new, empowering labels and constructive ways to frame development problemsWhat does it mean to be part of the mass known as "The Poor"? What visions are conjured up in our minds when someone is labeled Muslim? And what assumptions do we make about their needs, desirability, security and disposability? How do we react individually and as a society? Who develops these labels, what power do the labels carry and how do such labels affect how people are treated?This timely book tackles the critical and controversial issue of how people are labeled and categorized and how their problems are framed and dealt with. Drawing on vast international experience and current theory, the authors examine how labels are constituted and applied by governments and aid agencies. It also examines how power relations are amplified or set on collision courses by labeling, and how the labeled view themselves and often act contrary to their externally applied labels or, in some cases, accept the labels. Coverage includes analysis of labels in current development and aid practice in a number of contexts. Importantly, the authors provide suggestions for how policy makers and professionals can tackle negative forms of labeling, including howcounter-labeling might influence key concerns such as poverty reduction, human rights, race relations, and security.

This collection of essays by leading feminist thinkers from North and South constitutes a major new attempt to reposition feminism within development studies. Feminism's emphasis on social transformation makes it fundamental to development studies. Yet the relationship between the two disciplines has frequently been a troubled one. At present, the way in which many development institutions function often undermines feminist intent through bureaucratic structures and unequal power quotients. Moreover, the seeming intractability of inequalities and injustice in developing countries have presented feminists with some enormous challenges. Here, emphasizing the importance of a plurality of approaches, the authors argue for the importance of what 'feminisms' have to say to development. Confronting the enormous challenges for feminisms in development studies, this book provides real hope for dialogue and exchange between feminisms and development.

This book addresses one of the greatest challenges of our age: that of building democratic polities where all can realize their rights and claim substantive citizenship. In recent years, innovations in governance have created a plethora of new democratic spaces in many countries. Yet there remains a gap between the intention to institutionalize participation and the reality of exclusion of poorer and marginalized citizens. Through case studies of a diversity of institutions - hospital facility boards in South Africa, a national-level deliberative process in Canada, sectoral management councils and community groups in Brazil, India, Mexico and Bangladesh, participatory budgeting in Argentina, NGO-created forums in Angola and Bangladesh, community forums in the UK, and new intermediary spaces created by social movements in South Africa - contributors examine how the democratic potential of these new spaces might be enhanced.

"Men and Development: Politicizing Masculinities" features an exciting collection of contributions from some of today's leading thinkers and practitioners in the field of men, masculinities, and development. Together, contributors challenge the neglect of the structural dimensions of patriarchal power relations in current development policy and practice, and the failure to adequately engage with the effects of inequitable sex and gender orders on both men's and women's lives. The book calls for renewed engagement in efforts to challenge and change stereotypes of men, to dismantle the structural barriers to gender equality, and to mobilize men to build new alliances with women's movements and other movements for social and gender justice.

Calls for greater participation of those affected by development interventions have a long history. This expert reader explores the conceptual and methodological dimensions of participatory research and the politics and practice of participation in development. Through excerpts from the texts that have inspired contemporary advocates of participation, accounts of the principles of participatory research and empirical studies that show some of the complexities of participation in practice, it offers a range of reflections on participation that will be of interest to those new to the field and experienced practitioners alike. Bringing together for the first time classic and contemporary writings from a literature that spans a century, it offers a unique perspective on the possibilities and dilemmas that face those seeking to enable those affected by development projects, programmes and policies.

'We used to talk about development with a human face. We should be talking about development with a body' Arit Oku-Egbas, African Regional Sexuality Resource Centre, Nigeria Sex and sexuality have always had a place at the heart of the development agenda - from concerns regarding population and environment, to practices in education and efforts for protecting reproductive health and rights. Yet this agenda has largely focused on negative dimensions of sexuality - disease, risk, violation - rather than positive aspects, including rights to sexual fulfillment, wellbeing and pleasure. The shift towards a rights-based approach to development has brought the human rights dimensions of sexuality into clearer view, and consequently the need to address discriminatory laws and violations of the human rights of those whose sexual identity and practices diverge from dominant sexual orders/norms. This book offers compelling insights into contemporary challenges and transformative possibilities of the struggle for sexual rights. It combines the conceptual with the political, and offering inspiring examples of practical interventions and campaigns that emphasize the positive dimensions of sexuality. It brings together reflections and experiences of researchers, activists and practitioners from Brazil, India, Nigeria, Peru, Serbia, South Africa, Turkey, the UK and Zambia. From political discourse on sex and masculinity to sex work and trafficking, from HIV and sexuality to struggles for legal reform and citizenship, the authors explore the gains of creating stronger linkages between sexuality, human rights and development.

This book tells the story of development studies in practice over the last fifty years through the work of one remarkable individual, Robert Chambers. His work has taken him from being a colonial officer in Kenya through training and managing large rural development projects to a fundamental critique of top-down development and the championing of participatory approaches. The contributors eloquently demonstrate how he has been at the centre of major shifts in development thinking and practice over this period, popularising terms that are now at the centre of the development lexicon such as vulnerability, multi-dimensional poverty, sustainable livelihoods and 'farmer first'. Robert Chambers played a major role in the massive growth in participatory approaches to development, and particularly the application of participatory methods in development research and appraisal. This has led to fundamental challenges to development practice, ranging from approaches to monitoring and evaluation to institutional learning and professional training. There is probably no-one who has had more influence on approaches to development in the past decades. Revolutionizing Development offers a unique overview of these contributions in thirty-two concise chapters from authors who have been intimately involved as collaborators, critics and colleagues of Robert Chambers.