Cynthia Enloe
Back to ListMay 12, 2009
Cynthia Enloe is the academic equivalent of a rock star. During her presentation at Emory on May 6th, 50 pairs of eyes didn't stray from her as she she made a case for re-inserting feminist back into development studies.
I agree that, in many ways, research on women in the developing world has become stagnant. Gender and development strategies, such as gender mainstreaming, are supposed to promote gender equity, but too often they become part of unwieldy bureaucracies and derail meaningful social change. Academic research on gender and development has also become disconnected from meaningful social transformation by becoming focused specific issues like gender-based violence, women and microfinance, and women and HIV/AIDS, to name just a few. Cynthia Enloe reminded us that this focused research often has the effect of downplaying connections between these issues and broader economic and political dynamics. Each one of these is important, to be sure; but, analyzing them apart from broader social and political dynamics limits possibilities for meaningful social transformation.
What is the difference between exploring the gender dimensions of development and adopting a feminist perspective on the analysis of the gender dimensions of development? Enloe argued that the former explores the roles of masculinities and femininities in development projects and within broader processes of social and political inclusion and exclusion. But a feminist approach goes further to understand how those gender identities and relations are infused with power. Feminist analysis is explicit about the workings of power within institutional cultures. Feminist analysis allows us to ask, "How are criteria for measuring the success of development policies and performance within development institutions gendered?" According to Enloe, feminist analysis makes those of us working in development - scholars, practitioners, and policy makers - more realistic.
Generations of students and scholars have followed Cynthia Enloe in asking "where are the women?" At last Wednesday's seminar she reminded us that we must also ask about how they got there. Rock on Cynthia, rock on.
Director, Institute for Developing Nations,
Emory University
