Enhancing everyday citizenship practices: women’s livelihoods and global markets
Abstract
This chapter examines the dynamics of integrating thus far excluded sections of society within the global economic chain. The arguments are based on research into Project Shakti, an initiative promoted by the Indian state in collaboration with Hindustan Unilever Limited (HUL), the Indian division of Unilever, a multinational corporation. The research was undertaken in 2006 in two poor districts in Andhra Pradesh, Nalgonda and Medak, where Project Shakti was implemented, supporting poor rural women to deal in Unilever goods, sometimes building on existing networks of self-help groups (SHGs). The research looked at the ways in which changing patterns of power and governance (in the form of actors, spaces and diffusion of authority delinked from territory) affect the meaning, experiences and practices of citizenship in a globalizing world. The chapter highlights the ways in which this attempt to include the previously excluded in the global economy may have made spaces for the active representation and participation of the various project stakeholders, the mobilization processes of these different actors, and their associated legitimacy and accountability.
Owing to copyright restrictions, only the first 3 pages are attached, together with a link to the book at Zed Books.
Citation
Thekkudan, J. Enhancing everyday citizenship practices: women’s livelihoods and global markets. In: Globalizing Citizens: New Dynamics of Inclusion and Exclusion. J. Gaventa and R. Tandon (Editors). Zed Books, London, UK (2010) ISBN 9781848134713 (Hardback)