Close Encounters of Another Kind
Women and Development Economics
Format:Hardback
Publisher:SAGE Publications India Pvt Ltd
Published:27th Aug '18
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Close Encounters of Another Kind: Women and Development Economics brings together Devaki Jain’s essays which engage with public policy, development economics and women. In the 1970s and 1980s, as a fallout of the First World Conference of Women, held in Mexico in 1975, then the Women’s Decade (1975–85), followed by the Second World Conference in 1985 in Nairobi, governments energized their bureaucracies to address women’s inclusion in development programmes. Thereby began the work of gendering development, and as a result of challenging the existing ideas, projects related to the design of development policies and programmes. However, most of these efforts were couched in the knowledge and experience of the global North since the efforts were largely led by the Northern intellectual community. In this volume therefore, Professor Jain highlights the ways in which the design of public policy has ignored the lived experience of what was being offered in India as development.
Devaki Jain has been a pioneer in bringing to light gender inequalities and injustices in India for the past several decades. She was one of the first to highlight through her Time Use Study (included in this volume), women’s significant contributions to not just reproductive and care work in India, but to production as well. She has also worked closely with the UN system to ensure women’s rights are taken on board in policy and practice.
The first volume The Journey of a Southern Feminist contains the speeches and writings of Devaki on various occasions. The present second volume contains papers of more recent origin. She broadly deals with the gender dimensions of poverty and political and social power. The papers have a Gandhian touch with as much attention to ethics and equity as to economics. The final essay in this book titled ‘The New World Re-order’ is an appropriate term to indicate the potential for creating order from disorder. In short, Devaki’s writings and speeches have dominated public and political thinking on gender issues during this century. I commend Volume II and recommend that everyone interested in gender dimensions of our life should read both Volumes I and II. -- Professor M.S. Swaminathan
Devaki Jain has been a steadfast voice in international debates, bringing to the conversations the perspectives of feminists and of the Global South, which are not only critical of mainstream but also show alternative approaches. This inspiring volume is a must-read for new generations of activists and scholars alike.
-- Sakiko Fukuda-Parr
I am impressed by [Devaki Jain’s] continued efforts over several decades to bring the feminism issue to the intellectual forefront. I am glad she brought out the volume because otherwise I, and several others, would not have known about these efforts.
-- Indira Rajaraman
"This collection of 15 essays by Devaki Jain represents her journey as a pioneering scholar, activist and advocate of development alternatives and gender equality on the national (Indian) and international stages for over five decades." -- Review of Development and Change, 25 (1), 2020
"These volumes, easily accessible to an international audience, complement Jain’s already extensive publications and should be read and appreciated in concert …. (She) is intuitively intersectional, emphasizing the dialectic between diversity and unity." -- Feminist Economics, 24 May 2020
"These two books are remarkable contributions by a veteran feminist economist with an experience that spans the early period of India’s independence, forays into socialism and globalization and marks the unfolding of the women’s movement through these periods. These books are a must-read for all women’s studies."
-- Indian Journal of Gender Studies, Vol. 27, Issue 2
ISBN: 9789352807710
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: 700g
432 pages