The Uncertainty of Prosperity: Dependence and the Politics of Middle-Class Privilege in Maputo

In this essay, I examine the moral basis of a ‘middle class’ in Maputo, Mozambique, the narratives, forms of dependence and types of hegemony that the social hierarchy rests upon. I argue that the political and economic processes that have given rise to ‘new’ middle classes in the global south also create conditions of precariousness. In recent years, it has been argued that these ‘emerging middle classes’ are central for economic growth and the safeguarding of a stable, liberal order. The case of Mozambique complicates this assertion and demonstrates an occurrence now taking place across the globe. When the relationships of dependence and obligation and the narratives that justify them erode, the structures of power that may have once been mutually constitutive between an emerging middle class and the state can become damaging as the system they once upheld loses its legitimacy.     

Making Gender: The Politics and Erotics of Culture

Making Gender: The Politics and Erotics of Culture. Sherry B. Ortner. Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1996. 262 pp.     

Politics And Gastropolitics: Gender And The Power Of Food In Two African Pastoralist Societies

Male-centred aspects of political behaviour have generally remained the explanatory and interpretive focuses in analyses of the social organization of African pastoralists. While recent work on African pastoralists has shed increasing light on the lives of women, I argue that key assumptions underlying anthropological models of male dominance in these societies have been insufficiently challenged. Drawing on recent approaches in gender and social organization that highlight the mutual constitution of domestic and political domains, I examine comparative material from two well-known pastoralist societies: the Samburu of northern Kenya and the Nuer of southern Sudan. In doing so, I suggest strong linkages between male-dominated 'political spheres' and areas of domestic life in which the role of women is more significant – particularly processes of domestic food distribution. In re-examining central facets of Samburu politics – which are best known through Paul Spencer's seminal analysis of the gerontocratic aspects of Samburu political life – I suggest that the status and identities of Samburu men are in fundamental ways defined through their relationship to women as providers of food within Samburu households. Comparative material from the Nuer suggests, additionally, the strategic use of food by women in influencing male 'political spheres'. In comparing these cases, I suggest a more general model through which domestic processes of food allocation as realms of female-centred social action may be seen to play a central role in the forms and processes of pastoral 'political' life.     

Struggling with Development: The Politics of Hunger and Gender in the Philippines

Struggling with Development: The Politics of Hunger and Gender in the Philippines. Lynn M. Kwiatkowski. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. 1998. 350 pp.     

After Revolution: Mapping Gender and Cultural Politics in Neoliberal Nicaragua.; Reproducing Gender: Politics, Publics and Everyday Life after Socialism.

After Revolution: Mapping Gender and Cultural Politics in Neoliberal Nicaragua. Florence E. Babb. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2001. 304 pp.
Reproducing Gender: Politics, Publics and Everyday Life after Socialism. Susan Gal and Gail Kligman. eds. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000. 443 pp.     

Threads: Gender, Labor, and Power in the Global Apparel Industry

Threads: Gender, Labor, and Power in the Global Apparel Industry . Jane L. Collins. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003. 207 pp.     

Population, Gender and Politics: Demographic Change in Rural North India

Population, Gender and Politics: Demographic Change in Rural North India. Roger Jeffery and Patricia Jeffery. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997. 278 pp.     

The Politics of Gender after Socialism: A Comparative-Historical Essay

The Politics of Gender after Socialism:. Comparative-Historical Essay. Susan Gal and Gail Kligman. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000.169 pp.     

Infertility and Patriarchy: The Cultural Politics of Gender and Family Life in Egypt

Infertility and Patriarchy: The Cultural Politics of Gender and Family Life in Egypt. Marcia C. Inhorn. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1996(paper). xi. 296pp.     

Producing Workers: The Politics of Gender, Class and Culture in the Calcutta Jute Mills

Producing Workers: The Politics of Gender, Class and Culture in the Calcutta Jute Mills. Leela Fernandes. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1997. 199 pp.     

Village Life in Hong Kong: Politics, Gender, and Ritual in the New Territories

Village Life in Hong Kong: Politics, Gender, and Ritual in the New Territories . James L. Watson and Rubie S. Watson. Sha Tin, NT: Chinese University Press, 2004. 490 pp.     

In the Blood: Sickle Cell Anemia and the Politics of Race

In the Blood: Sickle Cell Anemia and the Politics of Race. Melbourne Tapper. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999.viii. 163pp.     

In the Shadow of Marriage: Gender and Justice in an African Community

In the Shadow of Marriage: Gender and Justice in an African Community. Anne M. O. Griffiths. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997.328 pp.     

The Politics of Ritual in an Aboriginal Settlement: Kinship, Gender, and the Currency of Knowledge

The Politics of Ritual in an Aboriginal Settlement: Kinship, Gender, and the Currency of Knowledge. Françoise Dussart. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2000. 269 pp.     

Unsettling Power: Domestic Violence,Gender Politics,and Struggles over Sovereignty in Ghana

This article provides a new lens for analyzing power formations in human rights practices by examining Ghanaian struggles over a Domestic Violence Bill. While the hegemonic character of human rights advocacy is well-established, we know less about exercises of power in discourses and practices that oppose rights. I analyze how the Ghanaian government constructed the discourse of cultural sovereignty and deployed it against women's rights. The government legitimated this discourse by appropriating the voice of ‘the people’ and superimposing notions of ‘foreignness’ onto both the Bill and Ghanaian women's rights activists. Drawing on the historiography of colonialism and ethnography of political performance, I argue that this case illustrates how the discourse of cultural sovereignty is mobilized in a struggle over shifting configurations of gender, political activism, and state sovereignty.