Rethinking Gender in Development Practice: Lessons from the Field

Rethinking Gender in Development Practice is about the ways in which issues of gender―including violence against women and girls, entrenched gender roles and expectations, the exclusion of non-binary genders, and the participation of disempowered genders―affect and are affected by development practice.

This volume, which pulls together papers from Development in Practice, provides accounts from researchers and practitioners working with women in countries from Africa to the Pacific. The book offers a global perspective, but with the inclusion of local voices, on the way gender can impact daily living in the Global South. This book includes groundbreaking articles by some of development studies’ most well-known scholars, which are interspersed with more recent publications that address urgent issues of gender in development practice.

Targeted at development practitioners and academics from across the world, this book reveals the plight of those from the Global South who do not identify as men, and offers examples of how NGOs, targeted programs, enhanced participation in decision-making processes, and the interrogation of established discourse on gender can assist in transforming lives.

Emily Finlay is Managing Editor of the journal Development in Practice; an Affiliate of Monash University’s School of Philosophical, Historical, and International Studies, Australia; and Chair of the Institute of Professional Editors’ Standing Committee on Academic Editing.

Patrick Kilby is Editor in Chief of the journal Development in Practice and has honorary Associate Professor positions at both the Australian National University and the University of New South Wales, Australia. He has over forty years’ experience working in development both as a practitioner and an academic.

Rochelle Spencer is Deputy Editor of the journal Development in Practice and co-Director of the Research for Development Impact Network, Australia. Her research interests include the rural livelihoods in Africa, gender and development, feminist and participatory processes, Indigenous social enterprise, and development tourism.

Joyce Wu (PhD) is Senior Lecturer in Global Development at the School of Social Sciences, University of New South Wales, Australia. She is a Deputy Editor of Development in Practice.