Third World Women: Gender equity
Program Titles
- Postcolonial feminist theories
- Essentializing notions of a homogeneous women
- Adjustment with a Woman’s Face: Gender and Macroeconomic Policy at the World Bank
- Sustainability Economic Development.
Cynthia A. Wood, Ph.D. (Economics) her research interests include critical development studies, gender equity, sustainable development in Latin America, alternative appraoches to economics, and postcolonial feminist theory.
Her work has appeared in publications such as Nepantla: Views from South , Struggles for Social Rights in Latin America , and Toward a Feminist Philosophy of Economics.
Much of her writing has focused on the implications of postcolonial and feminist theories for effective critiques of economics, including gender mainstreaming and macroeconomic policies at the World Bank — research which challenges standard development models implicit in the Bank’s approach.
She is working on the impacts of study abroad on local communities from the perspective of sustainable development.
She looks forward to the day when we live more lightly on the earth, with an equitable distribution of burdens and happiness, and an appreciation of the diversity which makes our world a wonderful place to live.
She is pretty sure that sustainable development entails a lot more porch-sitting than she currently does.
She has spent time in the Dominican Republic, Honduras, Guatemala, Cuba, and most recently in Mexico at the Universidad de Quintana Roo, and sometimes in one of the other Latin Americas, including Norte Carolina y Tejas.
Cynthia A. Wood Postmodern and postcolonial feminist theories applied to development have opposed universalizing and essentializing notions of a homogeneous “third world woman” assumed to need saving by first world experts.
From this perspective, alternative constructions of development require that we recognize the diverse experiences and “listen to the previously silenced voices” of third world women.
But can this be done without relying on demands for authenticity from “native informants” that maintain existing structures of power and approaches to development?
“Development” as a discourse is revealed in the theoretical commentary of both academics and “practitioners,” as well as in the application and evaluation of policy by international agencies and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs).
In general, this discourse is one that operates among professionals working “in” development rather than among people designated as the recipients or beneficiaries of policy.
It is difficult, therefore, to avoid confronting the problematics of power in development discourse.
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