The relationship between agency and empowerment: a case study of the Ikhowe craft group.
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Date
2010
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Abstract
There has been considerable debate in the gender and development literature on income earning
opportunities and their empowerment potential for women, particularly rural
women, in developing countries. In this, a critical question for the empowerment of
women is, does access to resources, for example, enterprise income, translate into power
and its various manifestations for women within their households? This study argues that
access to resources alone is not a sufficient prerequisite for empowerment. Improved
access to resources will only transform into empowerment outcomes if women are able to
exercise their agency to achieve desired outcomes. The study, therefore, highlights the
centrality of agency in the empowerment process. Agency acts as a link between
resources on the one hand and empowerment outcomes on the other. Furthermore, the
relationship between agency and empowerment is dialectical as the two concepts under
investigation are constitutive of each other. Put differently, enhanced agency results in
empowerment, which in turn feeds back to increased agency, leading to further
empowerment. Hence, empowerment is presented as both an outcome of the exercise of
agency and a driver of agency.
The study frames the question of agency and empowerment within feminist theory of
agency - Western, African and South African. Using a case study of the Ikhowe Craft
Group in rural Eshowe, the study examines the role of agency in the empowerment
process for rural women crafters in two ways. Firstly, through the feminist political
ecology approach, it evaluates their ability to access the natural resource, Cyperus spp.
for use in craft making. Secondly, it examines their individual agency within their
households and their collective agency in the Craft Group. Within the overarching
feminist research paradigm, a mixed methods research methodology was used, which
entailed embedding quantitative data collection and presentation within qualitative
research techniques.
The empirical evidence suggests that the women crafters’ agency was enacted and
empowerment achieved within a context of enablement and constraints, with gender culture and traditional leadership emerging as significant variables that mediate the rural
women’s agency within their households and in accessing the raw material for their craft.
Gender and culture intersect to influence how the women construct their identities, roles
and responsibilities within their households. Despite the constraints of social structure,
the women emerge as important agents of social change in their households. In addition,
the study has revealed the private sphere to be a significant site of both the women
crafters’ agency and subordination. Hence, any conceptualization of women’s agency and
empowerment, particularly that of rural women, needs to be context-specific to be able to
adequately capture the realities of the women that impinge on their ability to act.
Description
Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2010.
Keywords
Small business--KwaZulu-Natal--Eshowe., Rural women--Employment--KwaZulu-Natal--Eshowe., Handicraft industries--KwaZulu-Natal--Eshowe., Women artisans--KwaZulu-Natal--Eshowe., Theses--Environmental science.