When Culture Trumps Ideology: Micro-Enterprise and the Empowerment of Women in Bangladesh

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper offers a perspective of micro-enterprise as an instrument for facilitating the empowerment of women, as seen through the experiences of women in Bangladesh. It is usual to treat empowerment as an individual pursuit and, therefore, as a particularized endeavour that is of a short-term and potentially temporary nature. This, by implication, diminishes the importance of structural approaches to changes in society that have long-term and quasi-permanent consequences. The article distinguishes between the woman as a person and the social nature of her existence. Empowerment is situated in the context of two important parameters: (1) culture is seen as the significant environmental variable—as opposed to the conventional posture of ideology (for example, capitalism) as dominant; (2) the group and the constituent members are treated as subjects in the discourse on development—as opposed to being treated as objects. The resulting focus is on the woman as a member of a household and a chosen community that generate social income and social capital. The article uses first-person narratives as evidence of women's ownership of their empowering experiences.