The Alice Paul Center and the Gender, Sexuality, & Women’s Studies Program invite you to a Global Gender Seminar:

"The Humble Power of Women: Gendering Civil Society in Madagascar"

Dominique Somda, Visiting Professor of Anthropology, Penn

Faculty Respondents:
John Jackson, Anthropology and Annenberg, Penn
Lydie Moudileno, Romance Languages, Penn

In this paper I address issues of development, power and gender. I explore gender inequality and the type of power held by women in the context of the implementation of democratization policies in an African country. Development has an impact on the distribution of power among men and women. Since the late eighties, developers have been intensively committed to the creation of robust civil societies to help stronger democracies to emerge. The empowerment of women has been a main focus and their involvement in community life a designed vehicle for modernization agendas. In this paper I point to continuities and intersections between contemporary development theories and practices and missionary interventions from the 19th century onwards, as well as the reshaping of women’s agencies. The paper explores colonial and post-colonial governmentalities through the ethnography and history of a village in the south east of Madagascar and sheds light on some ordinary and extraordinary individual trajectories.

To receive a copy of the paper and reserve a lunch, please RSVP here: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/gsws/content/global-gender-seminar-featuring-dominque-somda-humble-power-women-gendering-civil-society-ma