*Women's Empowerment in India: From Rights to Agency *documents and discusses diverse ways in which Indian women have struggled for empowerment, political voice and representation, and rallied against injustice and discrimination. The volume brings together chapters describing a range of less-traversed aspects and transferences of women’s struggles in India to develop a comprehensive understanding of the interface between women’s activism and politics. The book primarily based on field research by the contributors. This volume
Against the backdrop of women’s assertion of rights and negotiations for empowerment, the chapters in this volume explore diverse facets of collective agency, and emanations of women’s politico-legal struggles against stereotypes of gender and class in post-independence India. While the donor-driven international community has been eager to celebrate the successes of its global normative agenda-setting and ‘best practices’ approach, this book showcases authentic local ownership and women’s own agency, taking seriously the need to understand the cultural context and pay attention to intersectionality. The volume presents various examples of women’s activism for change, reflecting on quotidian struggles and dynamic assertions of voice and political power, within and outside of formal political institutions.
This book is a contribution to the debate about agency and ownership as key aspects of empowerment, highlighting women who defy dominant narratives.
About the editors.
- Anjoo Sharan Upadhyaya is a professor of Political Science from Banaras Hindu University and a Distinguished Professor of Public Policy at MIT-World Peace University, Pune.
- Åshild Kolås is a social anthropologist and research professor at the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO). She has written extensively on governance, identity politics, gender, nationhood and representation.
- Eileen Connolly was the Director of the Ireland India Institute at Dublin City University. She is a specialist in gender and politics.
