Abstract
This paper examines the question of what makes choice empowering and critiques prevalent approaches to empowerment focused narrowly on agency as the ability of individuals to make their own free choices and act independently. The implications of a narrow focus on agency are illustrated with the examples of technology choice in agriculture, specifically choices involved in the adoption of improved plant varieties. This example elucidates the limits of individual agency and permits an analysis of how choices may be structured to be either empowering or disempowering, with examples from specific plant breeding cases. In view of the importance given to equitable choice of technology for closing the gender gap in agricultural productivity and sustainability, the paper explores what practical steps can be taken towards a balanced approach to empowerment. An approach to designing a new plant variety by constructing choice differently is illustrated, using information on gender relations. The paper derives lessons from the plant breeding cases to inform other kinds of interventions, so that work on how choices are defined is given as much importance for empowerment as creating the option to choose. Agents who exercise power over rules and resources can either reproduce the status quo or innovate; thus, a balanced approach to empowerment requires careful analysis of the elements of choice.
Highlights
The concept of women’s empowerment has become pivotal to international development practice
This paper argues that one reason for the spotty record of women’s empowerment in development efforts relates to how the notion of choice is defined
The current focus in development is on empowerment achieved through an increase in women’s agency, defined as an ability to set goals, exercise meaningful choice and achieve desired outcomes, giving them more say in decision-making, enabling development of their capacities and producing, as a result, better access to key productive resources and opportunities [10,11,12,13]
Summary
The concept of women’s empowerment has become pivotal to international development practice. Sustainability 2021, 13, 3678 choice-making, such as norms and institutions, are given token recognition, the focus of development interventions are on agent empowerment—on individual women’s capacities, actions and achievements in decision-making over productive assets, income and household relations [16,17] Strengthening these dimensions of empowerment can have important benefits for the welfare of resource poor women and their families, for example, by improving productivity [18]. Research analyzing the choices and decisions of individual women from Kenyan, Tanzanian and Syrian rural communities shows that these choices and decisions depend on the empowerment of significant others and their “collusion” in women’s and men’s deviations from prevailing gender norms; it demonstrates how structural influences on choice that are beyond the individual’s control, play out through interpersonal relations [20] This dynamic suggests there are important preconditions for empowerment rooted in the ways that choices are defined by institutions and through interpersonal interactions, which require deeper attention. We discuss how the plant breeding cases can be utilized to argue that how choices are defined is as important for empowerment as creating the option to choose
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