Empowerment of Women through Self-Help Groups in the Domestic Spheres-An Ethnographic Study in the Villages of West Bengal

Abstract

Empowerment is a multi-dimensional process which should enable women or group of women to realise their full identity and power in all spheres of life. It consists of greater access to knowledge and resources, greater autonomy in decision-making to enable them to have greater ability to plan their lives or to have greater control over the circumstances that influence their lives and free from shocks imposed on them by custom, belief and practice. The status of the women is connected with their economic position or status which depends on their participation in economic activities such as ability to access credit, role in decision-making in financial matters and others. Social or domestic empowerment is a gradual process. Some variables had been selected to assess the impact of social empowerment among the informants in this paper, for example independent movement, expression of own view, undertaking decisions in familial matters, interaction with public bodies, participation in protest against social crimes and so on. The present qualitative has been conducted in the villages Amlani and Takipur of North 24 Parganas, West Bengal. The study is based on typical anthropological methodology under the domain of ethnographic approach. The contextual data have been collected through participant observations, intensive interviews and case studies. The data from books, journals, magazines and internet websites have also been utilised.