Relationality and Economic Empowerment: The Role of Men in Supporting and Undermining Women’s Pathways

Abstract

Within development projects, empowerment is often construed in narrow terms, and increasingly in relation to economic empowerment. Feminist scholars have recently argued the need to bring back a more encompassing view of empowerment, which pays greater attention to relationality and changes in consciousness. In this article, we focus on one aspect of relationality – women’s relationships with men. Drawing on three case studies of women’s business success in Papua New Guinea, we argue men are pivotal in supporting and undermining women’s economic opportunities. Offering support to recent work on women’s empowerment which emphasizes both women’s relationships with men, and the specificity of contexts into account, our article contributes to current debates in gender and development.

Acknowledgments

The research for this article was undertaken as part of several different projects. We acknowledge funding provided by the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research, Curtin University, RMIT University (Vice Chancellor’s Research Fellowship Scheme), The Australian National University, and the Australian Government (Australian Postgraduate Award). The PNG Coffee Industry Corporation provided field support. Thank you to Linda Browning.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Wok Meri savings groups were made up of the wives of men from the same lineage. Men’s support was important to women’s participation and the running of the group.

2. Tok Pisin is the lingua franca in PNG.

3. Access to land, in a context where women tend to leave their natal village upon marriage, can pit women in certain relationships against each other (Zimmer-Tamakoshi, 1997b).

4. Pseudonyms are used throughout the article.

5. All currency values appear in 2018 equivalent terms. They have been adjusted for inflation in the PNG Kina and converted in 2018 terms to US Dollars (USD) using inflation and exchange rates from the Bank of Papua New Guinea.

6. See Benediktsson (2002, esp. pp. 197–200) for a discussion of women’s involvement in long-distance fresh food marketing in PNG.

7. Access to land in PNG is highly complex, and an analysis of this in relation to our case studies is beyond the scope of this paper, but, suffice to say, understanding how women’s enterprises are dependent on land, and the way women gain access to land, is telling of the most pertinent relationships.

Additional information

Funding

The research for this article was undertaken as part of several different projects. We acknowledge funding provided by the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research, Curtin University, RMIT University (Vice Chancellor’s Research Fellowship Scheme), The Australian National University, and the Australian Government (Australian Postgraduate Award). The PNG Coffee Industry Corporation provided field support. Thank you to Linda Browning.