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Title Women's Empowerment - en undersøgelse af mikro-kreditgrupper i Tanzania
Full text http://rudar.ruc.dk/handle/1800/24642
Date 2015
Author(s) Rasmussen, Astrid Louise
Contributor(s) Groes Green, Christian
Abstract This project examines the concept of women's empowerment with a narrative and feminist approach. The empirical production consists of narrative interviews with two women from the village Kimunyu in the Northeastern part of Tanzania. Research questions are as follows: In what way do two Tanzanian women narratively construct themselves with reference to their participation in micro-credit groups? And how do these narratives relate to the conception of women's empowerment? These questions are sought answered by means of both a vertical narrative analysis of each interview as well as a horizontal discussion taking reflections upon the conceptualization of empowerment into account. Where the former aims to treat each narrative on its own terms, the latter works towards identifying the possibilities and challenges of the women's empowerment through micro-credit groups. The theoretical framework consists of methodological theory on narratives, theory concerned with language and identity (Stuart Hall) as well as feminist theories on women's empowerment and its compliance with the concept of power. By analyzing the narratives it has been possible to uncover how empowerment emerges both individually in the form of an inner 'sense of self', in the power over assets as well as collectively as the women are engaging in their community. In this way empowerment can be traced both directly as rights of disposal over assets and indirectly by narratively challenging norms and discursively defined power structures. However, this agency is contextually bound as to why the importance of considering how power relations influence and constrain the informants is underlined. Women's empowerment are therefore both difficult to define and to measure as to why we must be aware of the processual possibilities of empowerment, in order not to miss the transformations that do actually occur.
Subject(s) Women's empwerment; Tanzania; Mikro-kredit; Udviking; Narrativer
Language da_DK
Type of publication Thesis; Kultur- og sprogmødestudier / Cultural Encounters - not master thesis
Repository Roskilde - Roskilde University Digital Archive (RUDAR)
Added to C-A: 2015-09-08;09:15:52