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Paradoxes of (dis)empowerment in the postcolony: women, culture and social capital in Ghana

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  • Sylvia Bawa

Abstract

Women’s empowerment discourses in Africa involve contradictory desires from women on one hand and society at large on the other. This article argues that the traditional validation mechanisms for women’s identities are crucial avenues for analysing both the conceptions and experiences of empowerment. Drawing on primary ethnographic data, I analyse paradoxes in women’s empowerment discourses in postcolonial Ghanaian societies, where neoliberal discourses thrive side-by-side with collectivist–socialist cultural ideals. Using an example of social capital, gained largely through mothering, I suggest that, because women’s relationships with capital are structured by local socio-cultural and global economic structures and relations, the theorisation and application of the concept of empowerment need to recognise the complicated relationships (with capital) that women negotiate on a daily basis.

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  • Sylvia Bawa, 2016. "Paradoxes of (dis)empowerment in the postcolony: women, culture and social capital in Ghana," Third World Quarterly, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(1), pages 119-135, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:ctwqxx:v:37:y:2016:i:1:p:119-135
    DOI: 10.1080/01436597.2015.1086636
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    Cited by:

    1. Mwiti, Fredah & Goulding, Christina, 2018. "Strategies for community improvement to tackle poverty and gender issues: An ethnography of community based organizations (‘Chamas’) and women's interventions in the Nairobi slums," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 268(3), pages 875-886.
    2. Akurugu, Constance Awinpoka & Jatoe, Mathias Mwinlabagna & Domapielle, Maximillian Kolbe, 2021. "Empowering rural women for sustainable development through the provision of water infrastructure in north-western Ghana," World Development Perspectives, Elsevier, vol. 21(C).

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