Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

Women’s empowerment and the development research agenda: A personal account from the Bangladesh flood action plan

  • Articles
  • Published:
Gender Issues Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

This article describes the evolution of an applied research project from the point of view of a consultant researcher working on a Bangladesh Flood Action Plan study. As the author familiarized herself with a new working environment and a new country, her view of project goals expanded from straightforward information gathering to include having an impact on attitudes of policymakers. Study findings eventually laid the groundwork for a case to include a gender-balanced approach to planning for floods in Bangladesh. The article defines four phases in feminist social research oriented to women’s empowerment: (1) pressure for change in the research agenda; (2) gathering informationabout women; (3) gathering informationfrom women; and (4) consultation with women. The article argues for connecting externally funded research and communication process with local groups and institutionalized planning processes.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Abdullah, Tahrunnessa A., and Sondra A. Zeidenstein. 1982.Village Women of Bangladesh: Prospects for Change. Elmsford, NY: Pergamon Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Adnan, Shapan. 1990.“Birds in a Cage”: Institutional Factors and Changes in Women’s Position in Bangladesh. Farm Gate, Dhaka: Winrock International (HRDP), Bangladesh Agricultural Research Council. Revised version, 37 pages. (Previous version published inThe Journal of Social Studies, no. 46: 1–34.)

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1991.Floods, People and the Environment. Dhaka: Research and Advisory Services.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS). 1989.Selected Statistics and Indicators on Demographic and Socio-Economic Situation of Women in Bangladesh. Proceedings of a National Workshop, Dhaka, May 29–30, 1989. Dhaka: Government of Bangladesh, Ministry of Planning, Statistics Division, Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, Bangladesh Household Survey Capability Programme.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1991.Statistical Pocket Book of Bangladesh. Dhaka: Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, Statistics Division, Ministry of Planning.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1995.Statistical Pocketbook of Bangladesh. Dhaka: Statistics Division, Ministry of Planning.

    Google Scholar 

  • Blanchet, Thérèse. 1984.Women, Pollution and Marginality; Meanings and Rituals of Birth in Rural Bangladesh. Dhaka: University Press Limited.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cain, Mead, Syeda Rokeya, and Shamsun Nahar. 1979. “Class, Patriarchy, and Women’s Work in Bangladesh.”Population and Development Review 5 (3):405–38.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Chen, M. 1986. “Poverty, Gender and Work in Bangladesh.”Economic and Political Weekly 21 (5):217–22.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chen, Martha Alter. 1986.A Quiet Revolution; Women in Transition in Rural Bangladesh. Dhaka: BRAC Prokashana (also Cambridge, MA: Schenkman Publishing Company).

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1991.Coping with Seasonality and Drought. New Delhi: Sage Publications.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chen, Marty. 1991. “A Matter of Survival: Women’s Right to Employment in India and Bangladesh.” Harvard Institute for International Development, Cambridge, Mass. Paper prepared for the UNU Conference on “Human Capabilities: Women, Men and Equality,” Helsinki, Finland, draft, 22 pages.

  • Chen, Marty, and Ruby Ghuznavi. 1980. “Women in Bangladesh: Food-for-Work and Socioeconomic Change.” InWomen in Contemporary India and South Asia, ed. Alfred de Souza, pp. 141–64.

  • Duyne, Jennifer E. 1994. “Ushering in Participation; Current Attempts to Mobilize Farmers in Large Scale Water Management Systems in Bangladesh.” Paper presented to the 1994 Workshop of the European Network for Bangladesh Studies, Woudschoten, The Netherlands, August 1994.

  • ---. 1995. “Creating Accountability in the Water Sector in Bangladesh. Paper presented to the Euroconsult Workshop on ‘Creating Accountability in Irrigation and Drainage Projects.’” Arnhem, The Netherlands, January.

  • Feldman, Shelley, and Florence E. McCarthy. 1981. “Conditions Influencing Rural and Town Women’s Participation in the Labour Force.” InWomen, Politics and Literature in Bengal, ed. Clinton B. Seely. East Lansing: Asian Studies Centre, Michigan State University.

    Google Scholar 

  • ---. 1983. “Purdah and Changing Patterns of Social Control Among Rural Women in Bangladesh.”Journal of Marriage and the Family 45, (5).

  • Flood Action Plan [FAP]. n.d.Flood Response Study (FAP 14) Main Survey Report. Arlington, Virginia: Irrigation Support Network for Asia and the Near East (ISPAN).

  • ———. 1992a.FAP 14 Workshop Briefing Papers. Arlington, Virginia: Irrigation Support Network for Asia and the Near East (ISPAN).

    Google Scholar 

  • ---. 1992b.Flood Response Study (FAP 14); Draft Final Report. Dhaka: Flood Plan Coordination Organization, Ministry of Irrigation, Water Development and Flood Control. Report prepared by ISPAN.

  • Guhathakurta, Meghna. 1994. “The Aid Discourse and the Politics of Gender: A Perspective from Bangladesh.”The Journal of Social Studies (Dhaka University), 65: 101–14.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hamid, Shamim. 1992a. “Gender Dimensions of Poverty.” InRethinking Rural Poverty; A Case for Bangladesh, ed. Hossain Zillur Rahman and Mahabub Hossain. Dhaka: Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies, pp. 84–100.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1992b. “Female-headed Households.” InRethinking Rural Poverty; A Case for Bangladesh, ed. Hossain Zillur Rahman and Mahabub Hossain. Dhaka: Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies. pp, 118–131.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hanchett, Suzanne. 1997. “Participation and Policy Development: The Case of the Bangladesh Flood Action Plan.”Overseas Development Review, vol. 15 (in press).

  • Hanchett, Suzanne, Kazi Rozana Akhter, and Jesmin Akhter. 1997. “Gender and Society in the Bangladesh Flood Action Plan.” InWater, Culture and Power, ed. John M. Donahue and Barbara R. Johnston. Washington, D.C.: Island Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hanchett, Suzanne, and Mahbuba Begum. 1992. “Gender Issues in the Flood Action Plan.” Presentation to November 9, 1992, FAP 14 Workshop, Dhaka.

  • Jahan, Rounaq. 1982. “Purdah and Participation: Women in the Politics of Bangladesh.” InSeparate Worlds: Studies of Purdah in South Asia, ed. Hanna Papanek and Gail Minault. Delhi: Chanakya Publications, pp. 262–82.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lily, Fazila Banu. 1987. “The Role of Rural Bangladeshi Women in Livestock Rearing.” InInvisible Hands, ed. Andrea M. Singh and A. Kelles-Vitanen. New Delhi: Sage Publications.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lindenbaum, Shirley. 1975. “The Value of Women.” InBengal in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, ed. John R. McLane. Michigan State University, South Asia Series, Occasional Paper No. 25, pp. 75–85.

  • Mahmud, Simeen. 1990. “Women’s Roles in Agriculture: Present Trends and Potential for Growth: Rejoinder.”The Bangladesh Development Studies 18 (4):97–99.

    Google Scholar 

  • McCarthy, Florence. 1977. “Bengali Village Women as Mediators of Social Change.”Human Organization 36 (4):363–70.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • McCarthy, Florence E., Taherunessa Abdullah, and Sondra Zeidenstein. 1979. “Program Assessment and the Development of Women’s Programs: The Views of Action Workers.” InWomen and Development; Perspectives from South and Southeast Asia, ed. Rounaq Jahan and Hanna Papanek. Dacca: The Bangladesh Institute of Law and International Affairs, pp. 355–78.

    Google Scholar 

  • McCarthy, F., and S. Feldman. 1983. “Rural Women Discovered: New Sources of Capital and Labour in Bangladesh.”Development and Change 14:211–36.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Miranda, A. 1990. “Women’s Roles in Agriculture: Present Trends and Potential for Growth: A Comment.”The Bangladesh Development Studies 18(4):91–95.

    Google Scholar 

  • Qadir, Sayeda Rowshan. 1984. “Participation of Women in Local Bodies.” InLocal Government in Bangladesh, ed. Kamal Siddiqui. Dhaka: National Institute of Local Governement.

    Google Scholar 

  • Qadir, Sayeda Rowshan, and Mahmuda Islam. 1987.Women Representatives at the Union Level as Change Agent of Development. Dhaka: Women for Women.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rahman, R. I. 1986.The Wage Employment Market for Rural Women in Bangladesh. BIDS Research Monograph No. 6. Dhaka.

  • Rogers, Peter, Peter Lydon, and David Seckler. 1989.Eastern Waters Study: Strategies to Manage Flood and Drought in the Ganges-Brahmaputra Basin. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Agency for International Development, Asia/Near East Bureau, Irrigation Support Project for Asia and the Near East (Contract No. ANE-0289-C-00-7044-00, Project No. 3-7631510).

    Google Scholar 

  • Safilios-Rothschild, Constantina, and Simeen Mahmud. 1989.Women’s Roles in Agriculture; Present Trends and Potential for Growth. Bangladesh Agricultural Sector Review, sponsored by UNDP and UNIFEM. xiii+129 pp. (cf. Miranda 1990; Mahmud 1990).

  • Shaw, Rosalind. 1989. “Living with Floods in Bangladesh.”Anthropology Today/Royal Anthropological Institute Newsletter 5(1):11–13.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sobhan, Rehman. 1992.Planning and Public Action for Asian Women. Dhaka: University Press Limited.

    Google Scholar 

  • United Nations. 1995.The World’s Women 1995: Trends and Statistics. New York.

  • United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). 1994.Human Development Report 1994. New York: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Westergaard, Kirsten. 1992.Pauperisation and Rural Women in Bangladesh: A Case Study. Comilla: Bangladesh Academy for Rural Development.

    Google Scholar 

  • White, Sarah C. 1992.Arguing with the Crocodile; Gender and Class in Bangladesh. Dhaka: University Press Ltd.; also U.K.: Zed Books Ltd.

    Google Scholar 

  • World Bank. 1990.Bangladesh; Strategies for Enhancing the Role of Women in Economic Development. A World Bank Country Study. Washington, D.C.: The World Bank, 150 pp.

    Google Scholar 

  • ——— 1990Flood Control in Bangladesh; A Plan for Action. Washington, D.C.: The World Bank, Asia Region, Technical Department, World Bank Technical Paper No. 119.

    Google Scholar 

  • ——— 1993.World Development Report 1993; Investing in Health. New York: Oxford University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1995.Social Indicators of Development 1995. Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press (published for the World Bank).

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Authors
  1. Suzanne Hanchett
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Additional information

Suzanne Hanchett, Ph.D., is a social anthropologist who has been an independent international development consultant since 1991. She has her own company, Planning Alternatives for Change. Assignments to date have been in Bangladesh and the Middle East, but she hopes to work in other world areas also. Her professional background includes several years in New York City public administration and nonprofit management, mainly in the family planning, child welfare, and adolescent pregnancy prevention fields. She taught anthropology at Queens College, The City University of New York, for several years. She has published a book on her 1960s fieldwork in southern India,Coloured Rice. Symbolic Structure in Hindu Family Festivals (Delhi: Hindustan Publishing Corp., 1988).

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Hanchett, S. Women’s empowerment and the development research agenda: A personal account from the Bangladesh flood action plan. Gender Issues 15, 42–71 (1997). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02860608

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02860608

Keywords

Search

Navigation