Yes / This article examines local non-governmental organizations (LNGOs) approaches to women's empowerment amid crisis and the implications for decolonizing women's empowerment praxis. The article draws on lessons from the Covid-19 pandemic and decolonial critique of development praxis to analyse LNGOs approach to women's empowerment. The study relied on snowballing to select twenty-six LNGOs operating in northern Ghana for in-depth interviews. Our study found that LNGOs deploy local and international frameworks on women's rights and combine these with indigenous knowledge principles and economic empowerment. Yet there are tensions between negotiating culturally appropriate approaches and meeting the interests of philanthro-capitalist donor agencies. The LNGOs are dependent on Western donors for financial resources and have become more vulnerable due to Covid-19 pandemic and its aftermath as funding for women's empowerment work continues to dwindle. LNGOs have modified their interventions to address specific needs of beneficiaries arising from the consequences of the crises. This study enriches understandings of the specific vulnerabilities of LNGOs in northern Ghana, resource-scarce and semi-arid settings across the global South. For women's empowerment to achieve meaningful results, especially during and after crisis, activism needs to be centred on indigenous knowledge. This is central to building the resilience of LNGOs and women beneficiaries to effectively position themselves to absorb the shocks that attend crisis and to cope more effectively with it.

Enforced disappearances has been used as a repressive strategy by numerous Latin American states against tens of thousands of presumed political opponents and adversaries, starting in the 1960’s in Guatemala. In contemporary Latin America, Mexico holds the record for disappearances, both politically and non-politically motivated, with more than 30 000 cases reported since the beginning of the drug war in 2006. In response to the silence and impunity from the state, family members have been forced to organize in order to advance in the search for their relatives and for justice. Most of these family members are women. The aim of this study is to analyze women’s experiences of organizing as relatives to the forcefully disappeared in Mexico to explore possible connections between organization and empowerment. Empowerment is here understood from a feminist perspective, as a transformative factor that gives women increased feelings of ‘power to’, ‘power with’ and ‘power within’. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with five women organized in four different family members’ organizations in Mexico. The results were analyzed against a theoretical framework consisting of previous research and theories on women’s organizing in Latin America, focusing on strategic and practical gender interests and theories on women’s empowerment, from a feminist and sociologist perspective. The analysis revealed that through the process of organizing, women developed a critical consciousness and access to new skills and resources that resulted in the women becoming more active, political and empowered subjects. The results also showed that despite women’s reasons for organizing being originally practical, to find their loved ones, during the process of organization, these reasons became more strategic and political, as a result of the empowerment process. The study concludes that women’s collective action is a source of empowerment even within organizations that does not have this as an outspoken aim and that the collectives of family members have provided a space for women to become active, conscious and critical citizens.

The aim of this thesis is to analyse the position of women in Nigerian family and to estimate the extent of their emancipation and/or dependence on men in Nigerian society, traditionally considered to be patriarchal. The analysis is based on the interpretation of the novels Purple Hibiscus and Half of a Yellow Sun and the short story collection The Thing around Your Neck, written by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, a prominent contemporary Nigerian author. The theoretical part focuses on political, social and economic representations of women in pre- colonial Nigeria and in colonial and modern, post-colonial Nigeria. An antidote to the stereotypical depiction of women in African literature, Adichie's work typically presents female characters who are educated, independent and emancipated. This stands to challenge the image of Nigerian women who are dominated and controlled by men.

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The study presented in this thesis aimed to explore how gender norms in four rural districts in Kilimanjaro and Lindi Region of Tanzania might influence rural women chicken farmers' economic empowerment when an urban vendor introduces an improved breed of chicken. More specifically, the following aims were explored: the normative expectations for husbands and wives in the communities researched, and how these expectations may influence intra-household negotiation processes following a market-led intervention within the Tanzanian poultry value-chain;                                                                                                                                                                   if and how intra-household resource allocation may be changed if profits were to increase within a women-led business. To achieve the aim of this study, the experiences and insights from the study participants were collected through focus group discussions in a case study methodology of the Tanzanian poultry value-chain in four rural districts of Tanzania applying a qualitative research approach within the research paradigm of Feminist Critical Theory. Data was collected through scenario responses in eight focus group discussions (FGDs) in Hai and Siha districts of Kilimanjaro Region and Ruangwa and Lindi Rural districts of Lindi Region and analyzed by applying a thematic analysis. Three findings are presented in this thesis. First, women and men in the researched communities witness a changing society in which women increase their presence in the economy. In contrast, men struggle to live up to the expectations associated with being constructed as the household's breadwinner. Second, women's economic agency may both improve but also compromise women's ability to adopt a practice of innovation if the practice is introduced without acknowledging gender dynamics present in the communities. Finally, findings imply that development opportunities in the Tanzanian poultry sector add levels of negotiations where women and men need to negotiate gender norms in their communities while deciding on resource allocation in a growing business.  In addition, the term Male Capture is brought forward as a central theme throughout the thesis. It is used to frame a dynamic in which men seize control over a previously women-controlled asset once women have demonstrated the success of an innovation. Insights are presented into the norms that trigger and legitimize the event of Male Capture in the researched communities and provide stakeholders in the Tanzanian poultry value-chain with information on how to approach market-led interventions without running the risk of marginalizing women. Finally, the thesis concludes that for researchers that aim to challenge the longstanding gender inequalities which legitimize Male Capture, Gender Transformative Approaches (GTAs) should be adopted.

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This thesis adopts critical feminist theory, which is a combination of both critical theory and feminist theory, to explore the nature and experiences of Omani women involved in tourism entrepreneurship with particular regard to empowerment. Several studies have identified the potential role of tourism entrepreneurship to empower women due to the many benefits that it provides. However, this potential, and the extent that it empowers women, has been questioned. A review of the literature on women in tourism entrepreneurship reveals that there are several issues that have theoretical and practical implications for women's empowerment through this activity. Furthermore, a review of the development studies literature indicates that there are many prevailing issues and debates surrounding the concept of women's empowerment thatmerit further investigation. The fieldwork for this research took place in Oman during 2013-­‐2014 and included an examination of a hosting group, sewing group and a number of women tourism entrepreneurs. Participant observations and semi-structured/unstructured interviews were conducted to collect information about these women. Thematic analysis was used to analyse the collected information and to develop three ethnographic case studies. The findings of this research reveal that tourism entrepreneurship does not inevitably bring about empowerment for Omani women. It is far from being an activity for women's individual and collective empowerment, given that the scope for such remains dependent on the embedded environment and is influenced by the nature of tourism enterprise work. An empirically informed conceptual framework was developed from the data to present this phenomenon. A grounded conceptualization was also developed from the data to conceptualize the process of women's empowerment for Omani women in tourism entrepreneurship. Theoretical implications of the findings areidentified in relation to the appropriate use of the concept of women's empowerment in tourism research. Practical implications of the findings are also identified in relation to local and international tourism organisations that utilises tourism entrepreneurship opportunities for women's empowerment purposes.

The overall purpose of this study is to assess various market-based versus aid based approaches to financial autonomy for Dalit women in rural India and the goals and assumptions of the multiple stakeholders involved in each method (mainly, national and international NGOs, the state, and micro-finance organizations). I argue that approaches to income generation such as entrepreneurship, capital investment, and skill building, are based on similar objectives of economic agency, but ultimately lend to different results because of their varying assumptions about “women’s empowerment.” By separating these approaches into three methods of income generation based on their objective to promote either wages, labor, or capital, the political incentives of each stakeholder becomes more clear. The research presented in my literature review ultimately led me to predict that for Dalit women in India to experience financial autonomy, wage labor that produces immediate outcomes is a more viable route to overall empowerment than entrepreneurship due to its cultural constraints women fact. However, after analyzing my comparative case studies which focused on three different methods of handicraft and textile production facilitated through state, institutional, private stakeholders, I began to see how a a multiple-income generating approach, such as combining the resources of NGOs, micro-finance, and the state, reduces caste and gender barriers to entrepreneurship. Through a feminist and Marxist analysis, I assess the problems that occur when actors determine a blanket approach to empowering all women without considering their diverse contexts, and more specifically, how different identities and standpoints work to inform and oppress notions of empowerment. My interviews with experts in the field have led me to recommend that methods of income generation facilitated through grassroots Self Help Groups is the best way for rural, Dalit women to women to achieve economic agency.

Gaps exist in the literature on knowledge of how founder behavior affects volunteers and employees in nonprofit organizations. Through exploration of founder relationships with volunteers and employees, this study fills some of those gaps and adds to the body of knowledge of how those relationships are perceived by founders, volunteers, and employees. The purpose of this narrative study was to address the question of the impact of founder behavior on founders, employees and volunteers in nonprofit women's organizations founded by African American and Caucasian women. The theory of psychological ownership was used as the framework to understand founder behavior. The qualitative narrative inquiry design consisted of interviews with 12 participants who work for nonprofit organizations that provide empowerment services to women. Themes such as control, lack of strategy and support, and silenced voices emerged as responses to the question of the impact of founder behavior on the organization. The results indicate that founders, employees, and volunteers report a need for clear policies, role assignments, procedures, and organizational goals. Founders are oblivious to the impact of their behavior on the organization and are not aware of the available resources that may exist in their communities. Implications include state level nonprofit policy that funds training for nonprofit organizations around the themes examined in this study. Recommendations for future research include examination of internal issues and structures related to an organization's growth. The result of this study may lead to increased understanding of perceptions of the operations of nonprofit organizations which may impact nonprofit organizations' abilities to meet the goals of their mission.

In the field of International Development, increased attention has been given to the concept of women’s empowerment as it has been recognized as a potential driver for change. Classified as a global struggle, commitments to this concept have been at the core of many development interventions, whether they be a small NGOs working in a single community or large-scale international aid agencies with presence all around the world. Despite its international recognition, women’s empowerment has been largely left unquestioned within development practices and especially with regards to the impact it may have on local beneficiary communities. This thesis will address how universal ideas such as this one become meaningful in the local setting through a case study of CARE-International’s Women’s Empowerment in Zanzibar project that was implemented from the years 2008-2011. In applying Sally Merry’s (2006) concept of vernacularization, as a theoretical framework, it will be shown that international aid organizations do not simply adapt women’s empowerment to the local arena. Instead, various local actors are involved in a dynamic process of translating, negotiating, and making the concept more meaningful to the beneficiaries and, thus, cause a new hybrid understanding of women’s empowerment to emerge. This new concept draws more extensively on local institutions, knowledge and practices that have been inter-weaved with Islamic practices which play an important role in the lives of Zanzibaris. This thesis will illustrate how NGO culture converges with and diverges from the local communities and expose the realities that exist within the greater development discourse.