Prof Naila Kabeer COL.5.04C

This course is available on the MSc in Development Management, MSc in Development Studies, MSc in Gender, MSc in Gender (Research), MSc in Gender, Media and Culture, MSc in Gender, Policy and Inequalities, MSc in Global Politics, MSc in Human Rights, MSc in Management, MSc in Management (CEMS MIM), MSc in Management (MiM Exchange) and MSc in Urban Policy (LSE and Sciences Po). This course is available as an outside option to students on other programmes where regulations permit.

This course cannot be taken alongside GI407 Globalisation, Gender and Development.

This course deals with theories relating to policy, politics and power in the field of gender and international development. These are explored in greater detail through case studies of feminist struggles over recognition, redistribution,  and representation and rights as they play out in relation to various policy issues, including gender-based violence, the care economy, sexuality and reproduction, gender mainstreaming, microfinance, social protection, land rights, gender quotas and collective action. Emphasis is placed on understanding the politics of framing within the policy domain, the tactics and strategies deployed by feminist scholars, advocates and activists in their struggles for interpretive power and the interactions between global institutions and local movements in shaping policy outcomes.

15 hours of lectures and 10 hours of classes in the LT.

Lectures  will be 90 minutes with time for Q and A and followed by 60 minute seminars.  

There will be a reading week in week 6 in line with departmental policy.

One essay of 1500 words to be handed in midway through the LT.

• Benería, L. Berik, G and Floro, M.  (2015) Gender, Development and Globalization: Economics as if All people Mattered, London: Routledge. (2nd Edition).

• Chant, S. (ed.) (2010) International Handbook of Gender and Poverty: Concepts, Research, Policy, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.

• Cook, S. and Kabeer, N. (2010) Social Protection as Development Strategy, London: Routledge.

• Cornwall, A.,Edstrom, J. and Greig, A. eds. (2011) Men and Development: Politicising Masculinities, London: Zed Books.

• Cornwall, A., Harrison, E. & Whitehead, A. (eds) (2007) Feminisms in Development: contradictions, contestations, and challenges, London: Zed Books.

• Devaki, J. and Elson, D. (2011) Harvesting Feminist Knowledge for Public Policy, IDRC, London: Sage

• Escobar, A. (2011) Encountering Development: The Making and Unmaking of the Third World, Princeton Princeton University Press

• Jaggar, A. (2014) Gender and Global Justice, Bristol: Polity

• Kabeer, N. (2001) The Power to Chose. Bangladeshi women and labour market decisions in London and Dhaka, London: Verso.

• Kabeer, N. (2003) Gender Mainstreaming in Poverty Eradication and the Millennium Development Goals: a handbook for policy-makers and other stakeholders, London: Commonwealth Secretariat.

•  Long, N., Jingzhong,Y., Yihuan,W. (2012)  Rural transformations and development- China in context: the everyday lives of policies and people, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.

• Marchand, M. and Runyan, A. (2011) Gender and Global Restructuring, second edition London: Routledge.

• Milanovic, B. (2016) Global Inequality: A New Approach for the Age of Globalization, Harvard: Harvard University Press

• Mirchandani, K. (2012) Phone Clones. Authenticity Work in the Transnational Service Economy, Ithaca: ILR Press.

• Ong, A. (2010) Spirits of Resistance and capitalist Discipline, 2nd Edition New York: Suny Press.

• Patel, R. (2010) Working the Night Shift. Women in India’s Call Centres, Stanford: University Press.

• Perrons, D. (2004) Globalization and Social Change, London: Routledge.

• Visvanathan, N. et.al. (2012) The Women, Gender and Development Reader, London: Zed Books.

• Selwyn, B. (2014) The Global Development Crisis, Cambridge: Polity Press.

• Stiglitz, J. (2015) The Great Divide. Unequal Societies and What We Can Do About Them, London: Penguin.



In addition a range of institutional reports will be referred to including for example

• ILO (2015) World Employment and Social Outlook: The Changing Nature of Jobs, Available at: http://www.ilo.org/global/research/global-reports/weso/2015-changing-nature-of-jobs/WCMS_368626/lang--en/index.htm

• UNDP (2014) Gender Equality Strategy 2014-2017. Available at: http://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/librarypage/womens-empowerment/gender-equality-strategy-2014-2017/

• UNDP (2012) Powerful Synergies: Gender Equality, Economic Development and Environmental Sustainability. Available at: http://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/librarypage/womens-empowerment/powerful-synergies/

• UN Women (2015) Progress of the World’s Women. Transforing Economies, Realizing Rights. Available at: http://progress.unwomen.org/en/2015/

• UNRISD (2015) UNRISD Classics, Volume II: Gendered Dimensions of Development. Available at: http://www.unrisd.org/80256B3C005BCCF9/(httpPublications)/1585F4AEF409C253C1257E2700652AA8?OpenDocument

[Note this is an edited collection of classic articles – take a look at these – you may find some on the reading list – but also see the recently written introduction by Silke Staab and Shahra Razavi]

World Bank (2012) World Development Report 2012: Gender Equality and Development. 

Essay (100%, 4000 words) in the ST.