The Gender Question in Globalization: Changing Perspectives and Practices (Gender in a Global/Local World)

Orthodox views of globalization assume that it has the same features and impact everywhere, i.e. the feminization of poverty, labour and even peace. As these ideas circulate in official documents and scientific writings, they settle practically as truths. This challenging and unique book is amongst the first to deconstruct these orthodoxies, using a multi-layered gender analysis where globalization is not treated as a linear and top-down process with a known outcome and a pre-conceived definition of gender. Instead, the authors scrutinize the dynamics of each context on its own merits, including the agency of women and men, resulting in unexpected and groundbreaking insights into the variety of differences apparent, even in sometimes seemingly similar global processes. Through this gender lens, different and new meanings of gender appear, rooted in multiple modernities. The book will be a seminal contribution to debates in the fields of international labour, sexuality, identity, feminism, peace studies and migration.

Tine Davids is a Lecturer and Francien van Driel is an Associate Professor both in the Centre for International Development Issues Nijmegen (CIDIN), Radboud University Nijmegen in The Netherlands.