Beyond 'rescue' or 'responsibilisation' within girls' empowerment programmes: Notes on recovering agency from the Global South. (August 2022)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Maithreyi, R; Pujar, Ashwini; Ramanaik, Satyanarayana; H L, Mohan
• Other Names: Abebe Tatek guest-editor.; Dar Anandini guest-editor.; Lyså Ida Marie guest-editor.
• Is Part Of: Childhood. Volume 29:Number 3(2022)
• Page Start: 406
• Page End: 422
• Publication Date: 2022-08
• Subjects: Adolescent girls -- agency -- empowerment -- gender-based violence -- child marriage; Children -- Periodicals; Child development -- Periodicals; Children -- Research -- Periodicals; 305.23
• DOI: 10.1177/09075682221110767
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0907-5682

Abstract

Girls' empowerment programmes have been celebrated as the 'Smarter Economics' of pulling girls and families out of poverty; and critiqued as neoliberal strategies for 'delivering gendered equality through responsibilised selves. These oppositional accounts, conceptualised within institutions of the Global North, present girls as 'victims' in different ways, adopting narrow, liberal conceptions of agency and empowerment. Analysing a girls' empowerment programme from south India, we argue that agency is a relational quality embedded within social relationships. Based on this understanding, we present the ethical need and possibilities for going beyond frameworks that individualise empowerment and position it as 'rescue' and 'responsibilisation.'