TISS Courseware

This course will examine the twin aspects of women's incorporation in development programmes on the one hand and women's articulation through campaigns, struggles and movements, on the other. Integration and mainstreaming of gender in development programmes has been a major policy approach in India since the last two decades. However, the understanding of how this integration is done can range on a continuum to merely registering women's participation in the programme to actually engendering all facets of the programme and also providing spaces for women's empowerment. While this happens at the policy levels, women continue to participate 

at various levels in campaigns, struggles and movements (CSMs) with different degrees of involvement independent of or interlinked with development programmes. The CSMs engage with gender issues with differing degrees of commitment, clarity and compatibility with their own ideological positions on varied issues. 

The course will attempt to analytically examine development initiatives that emphasize the productive or economic aspects of women's role as opposed to movements that are built around women's identity within the larger context of gender, caste, class and ethnic identity politics. The moot question is what methodology is emancipatory and which of these modes of mobilization or participation of women facilitates social change and transformation of gender relations. There is a lot to learn through a close examination of 'successful' and 'unsuccessful' sectoral initiatives as well as through examination of mobilizing women around identity, sexuality, religion, gender roles and so on. 

WCP2