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Gender and the Silences of Social Capital: Lessons from Latin America
Author(s) -
Molyneux Maxine
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
development and change
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.267
H-Index - 93
eISSN - 1467-7660
pISSN - 0012-155X
DOI - 10.1111/1467-7660.00246
Subject(s) - latin americans , social capital , poverty , economic growth , social reproduction , political science , capital (architecture) , sociology , social change , development economics , individual capital , gender studies , political economy , social science , financial capital , economics , human capital , law , geography , archaeology
Social capital has entered development policy thinking and practice in Latin America where it converges with the premises of a new development agenda that emerged in the 1990s. Women are often central to the forms of social capital that development agencies are keen to mobilize in poverty relief programmes, but the terms of women’s insertion into these programmes is rarely problematized. This article critically examines the gendered assumptions that govern efforts to build social capital, and explores some of the tensions that have arisen in post‐transition Latin America between women’s rights and social capital agendas.