Missionaries and mandarins : feminist engagement with development institutions
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
Missionaries and mandarins : feminist engagement with development institutions
Intermediate Technology in association with the United Nations Research Instiute for Social Development, 1998
Available at 4 libraries
  Aomori
  Iwate
  Miyagi
  Akita
  Yamagata
  Fukushima
  Ibaraki
  Tochigi
  Gunma
  Saitama
  Chiba
  Tokyo
  Kanagawa
  Niigata
  Toyama
  Ishikawa
  Fukui
  Yamanashi
  Nagano
  Gifu
  Shizuoka
  Aichi
  Mie
  Shiga
  Kyoto
  Osaka
  Hyogo
  Nara
  Wakayama
  Tottori
  Shimane
  Okayama
  Hiroshima
  Yamaguchi
  Tokushima
  Kagawa
  Ehime
  Kochi
  Fukuoka
  Saga
  Nagasaki
  Kumamoto
  Oita
  Miyazaki
  Kagoshima
  Okinawa
  Korea
  China
  Thailand
  United Kingdom
  Germany
  Switzerland
  France
  Belgium
  Netherlands
  Sweden
  Norway
  United States of America
Note
Includes bibliographical references (p. 205-221) and index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
This book examines the various strategies of engagement employed by women working to transform the bureaucratic structures of state organizations, multilateral institutions and NGOs to make them more gender-equitable. These strategies involve combining the task of pursuing transformative agendas from within bureaucracies - of being 'missionaries' - while adapting to the techniques and practices of the bureaucracy as a 'mandarin' would have to do. The contributors examine struggles not only at the discursive level, where women's needs are constructed and contested, but also at the institutional level of the rules and procedures of bureaucratic actors, and at the level of resource allocation. Studies from many different countries, including Vietnam, Australia, the United States and Morocco, illustrate both the variety of institutional strategies adopted by feminists in different political and cultural settings, and the highly diverse forms of political action by women which can be seen to constitute feminist politics.
From their different perspectives the contributors acknowledge the gendered nature of bureaucracies but argue against the view that these institutions are monolithic and impermeable. This book has much to say to all those feminists working within bureaucracies - whether state or civil society institutions - with the aim of promoting women's concerns; it will also interest those who have chosen a strategy of 'disengagement'. In addition, the book makes a significant contribution to recent developments in the anthropological study of organizations.
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