IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/femeco/v22y2016i1p80-105.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Unpacking Widow Headship and Agency in Post-Conflict Nepal

Author

Listed:
  • Smita Ramnarain

Abstract

Feminist scholars have highlighted a rise in "non-traditional" household structures, as exemplified by female- and widow-headed households, as a consequence of war. This study points to the necessity of disaggregating female headship to trace the contours of household vulnerability of widow-headed households, a subset of female-headed households. The inadequacy of surveys in explaining the interplay between economic vulnerability and social norms is ameliorated through the use of ethnographic data and the narratives of widow heads collected through fieldwork in 2008-9 and 2011. The study traces key coping strategies of widow-headed households in Nepal to provide insight into the processes by which widow heads mediate social institutions and patriarchal norms in their everyday struggles for survival, and the spaces of agency that emerge herein. The study concludes with implications for prevailing understandings of household headship and agency that development practitioners must be attentive to in devising policies to support widow heads.

Suggested Citation

  • Smita Ramnarain, 2016. "Unpacking Widow Headship and Agency in Post-Conflict Nepal," Feminist Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 22(1), pages 80-105, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:femeco:v:22:y:2016:i:1:p:80-105
    DOI: 10.1080/13545701.2015.1075657
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/13545701.2015.1075657
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/13545701.2015.1075657?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lynne Brydon & Sylvia Chant, 1989. "Women in the Third World," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 64.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Rubiano Matulevich,Eliana Carolina, 2021. "Do Gender Norms Become Less Traditional with Displacement ? The Case of Colombia," Policy Research Working Paper Series 9822, The World Bank.
    2. Arun Jentrick, 2023. "Women-Headed Households: Diversity and Dynamics in Post-Conflict Settings in South Asia," International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science, International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS), vol. 7(5), pages 1264-1277, May.
    3. Karimli, Leyla & Lecoutere, Els & Wells, Christine R. & Ismayilova, Leyla, 2021. "More assets, more decision-making power? Mediation model in a cluster-randomized controlled trial evaluating the effect of the graduation program on women's empowerment in Burkina Faso," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 137(C).
    4. Maneka Jayasinghe & Christine Smith, 2021. "Poverty Implications of Household Headship and Food Consumption Economies of Scales: A Case Study from Sri Lanka," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 155(1), pages 157-185, May.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Anindita Datta, 2003. "Articulation of an Integrated Women's Health Policy Using the Life Cycle Approach," Indian Journal of Gender Studies, Centre for Women's Development Studies, vol. 10(1), pages 25-43, March.
    2. Fofack, Hippolyte, 2013. "A model of gendered production in colonial Africa and implications for development in the post-colonial period," Policy Research Working Paper Series 6438, The World Bank.
    3. Samuel Nii Ardey Codjoe, 2010. "Population and food crop production in male‐ and female‐headed households in Ghana," International Journal of Development Issues, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 9(1), pages 68-85, April.
    4. Crystal L. Owen & Robert F. Scherer & Michael Z. Sincoff & Mark Cordano, 2003. "Perceptions of Women as Managers in Chile and the United States," American Journal of Business, Emerald Group Publishing, vol. 18(2), pages 43-50.
    5. Ruel, Marie T. & Haddad, Lawrence James & Garrett, James L., 1999. "Some urban facts of life," FCND discussion papers 64, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    6. Sylvia Chant, 1997. "Gender Aspects of Urban Economic Growth and Development," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-1997-137, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    7. Udvardy, M. L., 1998. "Theorizing past and present women's organizations in Kenya," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 26(9), pages 1749-1761, September.
    8. Ruel, Marie T. & Haddad, Lawrence & Garrett, James L., 1999. "Some Urban Facts of Life: Implications for Research and Policy," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 27(11), pages 1917-1938, November.
    9. Pareena G. Lawrence & Marakah Mancini, 2008. "La toma de decisiones de los hogares en Venezuela," Revista de Economía Institucional, Universidad Externado de Colombia - Facultad de Economía, vol. 10(18), pages 213-239, January-J.
    10. Alan Gilbert, 1994. "Third World Cities: Poverty, Employment, Gender Roles and the Environment during a Time of Restructuring," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 31(4-5), pages 605-633, May.
    11. Simo Sarkki & Cristina Dalla Torre & Jasmiini Fransala & Ivana Živojinović & Alice Ludvig & Elena Górriz-Mifsud & Mariana Melnykovych & Patricia R. Sfeir & Labidi Arbia & Mohammed Bengoumi & Houda Cho, 2021. "Reconstructive Social Innovation Cycles in Women-Led Initiatives in Rural Areas," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(3), pages 1-22, January.
    12. Anindita Datta & Sachidanand Sinha, 1997. "Gender Disparities in Social Well-being: An Overview," Indian Journal of Gender Studies, Centre for Women's Development Studies, vol. 4(1), pages 51-65, March.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:femeco:v:22:y:2016:i:1:p:80-105. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/RFEC20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.