At the 2019 DSAI Annual Conference, themed (En)gendering Development: Research to Policy and Practice, Naila Kabeer, from the International Development and Gender Studies, London School of Economics and Political Science, delivered a keynote talk: 'Gender equality, economic growth and women’s agency: a feminist reading of ‘randomista’ economics'.
Not long before the talk, Esther Duflo had become only the second woman to win the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences, with Abhijit Banerjee and Michael Kremer for their research on alleviating poverty. Naila's keynote talk at the DSAI conference invited a timely engagement, critique and dialogue around Duflo’s paper on gender equality and development, and more generally a critique of the kind of theorizing that the ‘Randomistas’ engage in.
The talk was a preview of a paper in development and which is now available Open Access here: Women’s Empowerment and Economic Development: A Feminist Critique of Storytelling Practices in “Randomista” Economics, published by the journal Feminist Economics.
About the Author:
Naila Kabeer is joint Professor of Gender and International Development in the Departments of International Development and Gender Studies at the London School of Economics and Political Science. She has extensive experience in research, teaching and training in relation to gender, poverty, labour markets, livelihoods, social protection and collective action. Books and reports on these topics include Mainstreaming Gender and Social Protection in the Informal Economy (Commonwealth Secretariat/Routledge), Gender, livelihood capabilities and women’s economic empowerment: reviewing evidence over the life course (Overseas Development Institute, 2019) and Organizing women in the informal economy: beyond the weapons of the weak (Zed Press, 2013).
Naila has also done advisory work for a number of bilateral and multilateral organizations including UNDP, World Bank, UN Women, DFID, SIDA, NORAD and Oxfam, UK
Twitter: @N_Kabeer