ENGENDERING DEVELOPMENT SOCIOLOGY

The Evolution of a Field of Research

Valentine M. Moghadam

Is development "good" or "bad" for women? Does development weaken or strengthen patriarchy and gender inequality? In what ways do economic processes affect women's labor force participation and social positions? How do gender relations change in the course of the social transformations brought about by development and modernization? How do women's political participation, civil society activism, and other forms of female mobilization change the course of politics or influence institutions and policies? These are among the major questions that have preoccupied feminist sociologists of development, who are situated within the broader field of women, gender, and development.

The sociology of development and the field of women/gender and development have sometimes intersected but are, in general, parallel fields of research; although gender and development sociologists are fully conversant with the mainstream literature, the reverse typically is not the case. This argument cannot be developed in the present chapter, although it is worth noting that in international policy circles, the work of feminist development researchers from sociology and the other disciplines represented in the field has tended to have some impact on debates and policy initiatives. Here, the main objective is to provide an overview of the evolution of the field of women, gender, and development, with a focus on contributions by sociologists, and to draw attention to the conceptual and empirical contributions of feminist sociologists of development.

Over the years, at least two features distinguish feminist development sociology from other streams in the development literature. First are the advocacy underpinnings, wherein most studies have approached issues and problems pertaining to women in the development process in terms not only of what is but also of what ought to be. Some studies steeped in Marxist, socialist, or world-systems analysis have offered trenchant critiques of capitalism. Others have been policy-oriented, with recommendations for initiatives or interventions to improve women's conditions. Most studies have analyzed women's participation and rights as well as the contributions of female productive and reproductive labor to economic growth, social development, and democratization. Second, feminist development scholarship is characterized methodologically and conceptually by a holistic approach that eschews positivism in favor of broad analysis and mixed methods; studies also have tended to be inter- and cross-disciplinary, approaching questions and problems from a broad perspective and within a complex framework. As such, both the focus on advocacy and the non-positivist method may be said to conform to what has sometimes been called feminist methodology.

This overview of the wide-ranging research that constitutes the field of women, gender, and development, focused on the feminist sociology of development, touches on the main issues and debates of the early years, the prescient critique of (capitalist) development and growth, the focus on state policies and institutions in connection with women's participation and rights, and elucidation of the operations of gender in development policies and projects. Also included is a brief discussion of the shifts from women in development (WID) to women and development (WAD) and finally to gender and development (GAD).

WOMEN AND GENDERED DEVELOPMENT: THE EARLY YEARS

When theories of economic development were emerging in the 1950s and 1960s, little or no attention was paid to women's productive roles. In policy circles, if women were discussed at all, it was in relation to their role as mothers, an approach that came to be known as the welfare or motherhood approach. Development was still considered to be a technical problem rather than imbued with political or ideological dimensions. Women and children were regarded as real or potential victims of the disruptive nature of development (or of modernization); the...