Missionaries and Mandarins

This book examines the various strategies of engagement employed by women working to transform the bureaucratic structures of state organizations, multilateral institutions and NGOs to make them more gender-equitable. These strategies involve combining the task of pursuing transformative agendas from within bureaucracies - of being 'missionaries' - while adapting to the techniques and practices of the bureaucracy as a 'mandarin' would have to do. The contributors examine struggles not only at the discursive level, where women's needs are constructed and contested, but also at the institutional level of the rules and procedures of bureaucratic actors, and at the level of resource allocation. Studies from many different countries, including Vietnam, Australia, the United States and Morocco, illustrate both the variety of institutional strategies adopted by feminists in different political and cultural settings, and the highly diverse forms of political action by women which can be seen to constitute feminist politics. From their different perspectives the contributors acknowledge the gendered nature of bureaucracies but argue against the view that these institutions are monolithic and impermeable. This book has much to say to all those feminists working within bureaucracies - whether state or civil society institutions - with the aim of promoting women's concerns; it will also interest those who have chosen a strategy of 'disengagement'. In addition, the book makes a significant contribution to recent developments in the anthropological study of organizations.

ISBN 1853394343   Pages 240 ISBN13 9781853394348 (What's this?)   Volumes 1 Publisher ITDG Publishing   Weight (grammes) 386 Imprint ITDG Publishing   Published in London Format Paperback   Height (mm) 229 Publication date 01 Jan 1998   Width (mm) 150 Library of Congress 98080237   Spine width (mm) 15 DEWEY 302.35082   Academic level Professional / Scholarly DEWEY edition DC21

		Notes on Contributors
		Preface
		Acknowledgements
		Acronyms
1		Introduction by Carol Miller and Shahra Razavi		1
2		Becoming multilingual: the challenges of feminist policy advocacy by Shahra Razavi		20
3		Mainstreaming gender equity to national development planning by Anne Marie Goetz		42
4		Engaging the state: the women's movement and political discourse in Morocco by Rabea Naciri		87
5		Femocrats and ecorats: women's policy machinery in Australia, Canada and New Zealand by Marian Sawer		112
6		Gender advocates and multilateral development organizations: promoting change from within by Carol Miller		138
7		Gender accountability and NGOs: avoiding the black hole by Linda Mayoux		172
		Notes		194
		Bibliography		205
		Index		222

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