Comparative Practices & Perspectives: Gender, Development and Empowerment in Uttarakhand, India and Northern Virginia

Abstract

COMPARATIVE PRACTICES & PERSPECTIVES: GENDER, DEVELOPMENT AND EMPOWERMENT IN UTTARAKHAND, INDIA AND NORTHERN VIRGINIA By Sara Duke A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Master’s of Urban and Regional Planning at Virginia Commonwealth University. Virginia Commonwealth University, 2008. Major Chair: Helen Ruth Aspaas, PhD, Associate Professor of Geography The following thesis is a qualitative comparative case study which investigated the values, practices, perspectives, and strategies of Indian and American community organizers (practitioners and volunteers of non-profits and non-governmental organizations) who use microfinance, including savings schemes, as an instrument within the social intermediation process of developing disadvantaged women's capacities for self-sufficiency/empowerment. The focused inquiry was conducted through similarly structured in-depth interviews of directors, staff members and volunteers/communitybased organizers of a women’s business center in Northern Virginia, a large U.S. metropolitan area, and a women’s federation in the rural Himalayas of Uttarakhand, India. Interview questions focused on savings, social intermediation, and financial sustainability/subsidization, which are three significant facets of microfinance. Katz’s framework for constructing analytical topographies, contour lines, and countertopographies was used to structure of the various levels of analysis. Contour lines were drawn from the similarities between the two organizations. Differences were explained by situating each organization in Mayoux’s theoretical paradigms of