The poverty of neoliberalized feminism: gender equality in a ‘best practice’ large-scale land investment in Ghana

Lanz, Kristina Verena; Prügl, Elisabeth; Gerber, Jean-David (2019). The poverty of neoliberalized feminism: gender equality in a ‘best practice’ large-scale land investment in Ghana. The journal of peasant studies, 47(3), pp. 525-543. Routledge 10.1080/03066150.2019.1602525

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Feminist ideas have entered the neoliberal agricultural development agenda, including increasingly ubiquitous public-private partnerships and businesses. Rhetorically committed to gender equality, these new development actors have reduced equality to a matter of numbers, seeking to include women in their projects while disregarding intersectionally gendered power relations that suffuse any development context. This article seeks to illustrate how such power relations inhabit business-led development projects. Based on ethnographic research of a ‘best practice’ large-scale land investment in Ghana’s Volta Region, we argue that a narrow focus on including women and superficial Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) promises fail to address intersectional inequalities because they pay inadequate attention to local institutions for resource management and the power relations they embed. Focusing on gender equality without regard to local institutions at best serves to empower a few well-connected women and at worst acts as a cover-up of highly exploitative practices.

Item Type:

Journal Article (Original Article)

Division/Institute:

08 Faculty of Science > Institute of Geography > Human Geography > Unit Political urbanism and sutainable spatial development
06 Faculty of Humanities > Department of Art and Cultural Studies > Institute of Social Anthropology
08 Faculty of Science > Institute of Geography > Human Geography
08 Faculty of Science > Institute of Geography
11 Centers of Competence > Center for Regional Economic Development (CRED)

UniBE Contributor:

Lanz, Kristina Verena, Gerber, Jean-David

Subjects:

300 Social sciences, sociology & anthropology
300 Social sciences, sociology & anthropology > 330 Economics
700 Arts > 710 Landscaping & area planning
900 History > 910 Geography & travel

ISSN:

1743-9361

Publisher:

Routledge

Language:

English

Submitter:

Aron Affolter

Date Deposited:

23 Jul 2019 17:01

Last Modified:

05 Dec 2022 15:29

Publisher DOI:

10.1080/03066150.2019.1602525

Additional Information:

published online

Uncontrolled Keywords:

Gender; intersectionality; large-scale land investment; institutions; power relations

BORIS DOI:

10.7892/boris.131334

URI:

https://boris.unibe.ch/id/eprint/131334

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