Power, Gender and Social Change in AfricaRaj Bardouille, Margaret Grieco Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009 M03 26 - 359 pages Gender plays a hugely significant and too often under-considered role in predicting how accessible resources such as education, wage-based employment, physical and mental health care, adequate nutrition and housing will be to an individual or community. According to a 2001 World Bank report titled Engendering Development—Through Gender Equality in Rights, Resources, and Voice, enormous disparities exist between men and women in terms of basic rights and the power to determine the future, both in Africa and around the globe. A better understanding of the links between gender, public policy and development outcomes would allow for more effective policy formulation and implementation at many levels. This book, through its discussion of the challenges, achievements and lessons learned in efforts to attain gender equality, sheds light on these important issues. The book contains chapters from an interdisciplinary group of scholars, including sociologists, economists, political scientists, scholars of law, anthropologists, historians and others. The work includes analysis of strategic gender initiatives, case studies, research, and policies as well as conceptual and theoretical pieces. With its format of ideas, resources and recorded experiences as well as theoretical models and best practices, the book is an important contribution to academic and political discourse on the intricate links between gender, power, and social change in Africa and around the world. |
From inside the book
... colonial laws; and, more recently, norms and laws promoted by multilateral and bilateral donors. Placing primary attention on state-enacted laws tends to ignore the fact that people can always continue practices despite laws (such as in ...
... colonial law did not reach beyond a limited geographic and demographic range—leaving the rest of the population to continue using and relying on customary law or other sources of reglementation. “Legal Literacy and Law Enforcement ...
... colonialism to African societies through law and missionary practices, where it merged and interconnected with African structuring of leadership as “male,” systems in which male ... colonial dual systems, women had their own CHAPTER THREE.
Raj Bardouille, Margaret Grieco. argued, in African pre-colonial dual systems, women had their own political sphere ... colonialism's “unification” of political authority into malegendered political institutions (Clark 1980; Mba 1982; O ...
... colonial authorities. That is, African constructions of women as “mothers” have historically been sources of power ... colonialism, against their “own” national governments, against white settler regimes, against soldiers in genocidal ...