2016/10/01 by J. Devika · 1 citation
Social Sciences · #Social and Economic Development in India #Politics #Welfare #Sketch #Unintended consequences #Liberalization #Gender studies #Corporate governance #Period (music) #Sociology #Political science #Economics #Law #Management
paper · doi:10.1177/0971521516656077
openalex publication_date 2016/10/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/06/07
This paper reflects on women’s presence in politics in Kerala where neoliberalised welfare now targets a very large number of women and inducts them into local governance. Offering a brief sketch of the shifts in the region in women’s roles and responsibilities from the pre-liberalisation period to the 1990s and after, the paper draws upon two spells of field- work to probe the unintended consequences that neoliberalised welfare has generated, the possibilities thrown up by institutional change in women’s self-help groups. This paper also attempts to view the commonalities and departures between the figure of the ‘Kerala Model Woman’, shaped in the laudatory literature on the ‘Kerala Model’ of development, and the emerging, apparently more troublesome, figure of the ‘Kudumbashree woman’.