The promotion of women's cooperatives in Mexico: Is feminist technical assistance an Oxymoron?

Abstract

Abstract This article examines one of the fundamental dilemmas in grass roots planning practice—how to provide planning expertise to disenfranchised clients while not creating systems of dependence among those clients on that expertise. Specifically, the article investigates attempts to provide feminist technical assistance to women in rural production cooperatives in three communities in central Mexico. The three cases provide both positive and negative insights into how to provide empowering, and feminist, technical assistance. The cases raise questions about two issues in local development planning for women: why is it that a ‘cult of expertise’ tends to develop in technical assistance agencies, and how can we develop alternative approaches that respect women's ‘local knowledge'?; and how can cooperatives construct a feminist labour process’ that integrates domestic and market relations.