Theorizing NGOs: States, Feminisms, and Neoliberalism (Next Wave: New Directions in Women's Studies) - Softcover

"In representing more than a decade of energetic discussion and debate, this collection provides fantastic evidence of the dynamism and creativity of feminist activism in all of its forms.... It is a welcome and valuable contribution." -- Miranda Joseph * Women's Review of Books * "Theorizing NGOs offers timely and insightful perspectives on the intersection between NGOs, women's experiences of NGOs and feminism across the world. Bringing together scholarly writings on women's experiences with NGOs from different parts of the globe is definitely one of the highlights of the volume. . . . This volume is a must read for anyone interested in gender and development, and in the anthropology of the state." -- Lipika Kamra * Social Anthropology *

Theorizing NGOs examines how the rise of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) has transformed the conditions of women's lives and of feminist organizing. Victoria Bernal and Inderpal Grewal suggest that we can understand the proliferation of NGOs through a focus on the NGO as a unified form despite the enormous variation and diversity contained within that form. Theorizing NGOs brings together cutting-edge feminist research on NGOs from various perspectives and disciplines. Contributors locate NGOs within local and transnational configurations of power, interrogate the relationships of nongovernmental organizations to states and to privatization, and map the complex, ambiguous, and ultimately unstable synergies between feminisms and NGOs. While some of the contributors draw on personal experience with NGOs, others employ regional or national perspectives. Spanning a broad range of issues with which NGOs are engaged, from microcredit and domestic violence to democratization, this groundbreaking collection shows that NGOs are, themselves, fields of gendered struggles over power, resources, and status. Contributors. Sonia E. Alvarez, Victoria Bernal, LeeRay M. Costa, Inderpal Grewal, Laura Grunberg, Elissa Helms, Julie Hemment, Saida Hodzic, Lamia Karim, Sabine Lang, Lauren Leve, Kathleen O'Reilly, Aradhana Sharma