STRATEGIZING FOR CHANGE IN TIMES OF CRISIS: WHY NOT START FROM WOMEN’S AGENCY?

Abstract

The current economic crisis which, at the same time, is social, political and cultural, reveals the impossibility of emerging from the worldwide destabilization produced by globalization without taking into account the centrality of human life as the result of interdependent relationships both in the public sphere and in the private sphere. Such a vision exactly corresponds to what women’s transnational movements have tried to take forward in the context of development cooperation over the last three decades. In this article Pomeranzi, drawing on the “Mediterranean approach to the empowerment of women” as well as her own experience, considers the political responsibility of professionals working in development agencies, and suggests that the concepts of women’s agency and empowerment could be a useful tool for resolving the intersecting elements of the present development crisis.