Gender and Citizenship at the Grassroots: Assessing the Effect of NGO Initiatives in Social Mobilization and Political Empowerment in Kenya and Bangladesh
Abstract
This article assesses the impact that social mobilization/political empowerment initiatives led by NGOs have had on the gender dynamics of every‐day expression of citizenship at community level in Kenya and Bangladesh. Dominant discourses on gender and citizenship have tended to focus on structural constraints on women’s exercise of citizenship rights, as manifested in laws, policies and design of public institutions. Without denying the reality of these structural constraints, this article seeks to make visible the role of agency in the construction of citizenship: the micro‐level day‐to‐day expressions of citizenship, the influence of NGO‐led social mobilization/political empowerment initiatives in cultivating that agency, and the gender dynamics that are implicated in day‐to‐day expressions of citizenship.
Citation
DRC Citizenship Synthesis Paper, Draft, February 2011. 33 pp.
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