Technology and Tricks: Intra-Household Technology Implementation and Gender Struggles

Abstract

This article argues for non-asset-based approaches to the assessment of technology implementation at the household level. It suggests that most studies of technology and gender focus primarily on the relationship between technology implementation and women’s access to material resources without giving adequate attention to non-asset-based strategic possibilities for social change. Using the case of a cookstove improvement program in rural north India, the article shows that existing approaches to studying gender and technology implementation have underspecified the role of strategic gain in household bargaining and that existing theories of ‘resistance’ do not adequately describe the subtle forms of political action that take place in the household. It offers a new way of conceptualizing ‘tricks’ in the realm of household negotiation over technology and policy implementation, places this form of strategic struggle in relation to theories of resistance, and suggests the importance of understanding such struggle for development policy.