Predicaments of empowerment: women's experiences of change from northern Pakistan

Abstract

This thesis traces empowerment as an intimate process of personal change, that is dynamic, demanding and involves constant personal labour. The primary aim of the thesis is to examine empowerment and the ways it works in the day-to-day actions and interactions of ordinary women. I investigate the series of processes through which women empower themselves beyond and outside formal development interventions. This is carried out through engagement with women s lived experiences of change and their struggles in pursuit of empowerment on the ground. Building on the work of feminist scholars adopting the Gender and Development (GAD) approach to development, I argue that the ideologies and policies of mainstream development limit women s attempts at personal change as they overlook the contextual needs and personal desires of women. Empirical data for this thesis was collected through life histories, in-depth interviews, and participant/non-participant observations during a period of six months field study in Chitral Pakistan. The findings demonstrate that empowerment involves visible changes in personality and behaviour of individuals, performing tasks differently as compared to the past, fulfilling new responsibilities, and acquiring new skills and knowledge. These changes in turn translate into active agency leading to pleasure and fulfilment. Nevertheless, due to the newfound knowledge and awareness women also encounter new challenges, conflicts and roadblocks. The study demonstrates that empowerment is a contingent journey made up of more than project interventions, setting examples, or open defiance; it comprises of diverse set of factors that produce empowerment within the socio-cultural contexts of individuals. I argue that empowerment happens when individual women desire, struggle for, and are able to bring substantial changes in relations of power at different levels in their lives. Consciousness of one s disadvantaged position is a key to initiate the process of change. The process is facilitated by education but only upon the realization of its value and when used reflexively by women. The thesis contributes to the scholarship around women s empowerment by re-conceptualizing its utility and highlighting the contextual, multi-level sites, images and values of empowerment for different individuals at the ground.