Struggling With Development

Struggling with Development is a study of the complex relationships among international development, hunger, and gender in the context of political violence in the Philippines. This ethnography demonstrates that gender-specific international development, which has among its main goals the alleviation of hunger in women and children and the raising of womens social position, has instead perpetuated the problems of hunger and gender inequality in societies. This ethnographic study of upland Ifugao social and cultural life in the Philippines portrays how Ifugao womens unequal relationship to men has been perpetuated by international development programs largely because development personnel tend to ignore ongoing processes of social inequality operating within local communities and between nations. International development programs leave local forms of inequality unchanged and sometimes increase social inequality despite their efforts to improve womens and childrens social position and nutritional status. Examples and analyses of how local forms of inequality are ignored by international development programs are provided in the text.
This book questions the international women in development thrust of some feminist and development scholarships and organizations. Lynn Kwiatkowski also demonstrates how health care has been used in a variety of ways by different groups to serve ends other than the reduction of hunger or illness, including religious healing and military and revolutionary healing generated during the internal political conflict in the Philippines. Struggling with Development will be useful for advanced courses in medical anthropology and sociology, gender studies, development studies, and Asian studies.

Author Biography

Lynn M. Kwiatkowski is assistant professor of anthropology at the University of South Alabama.