Showing papers by "Jane Humphries published in 2003"

Continuing the Conversation

Abstract: AS: My interest in inequality, which goes back to my school days, was initially quite fixed on class divisions. My involvement with gender inequality grew more slowly. There was much greater concentration on class in standard politics (including standard student politics), and when in the early 1950s I was studying at Presidency College in Calcutta, it was taken for granted that class divisions were incomparably more important than other social divisions. Indeed, when later on, in the late 1960s, I started working on gender inequality (I was then teaching at Delhi University), many of my close friends still saw this as quite an ‘‘unsound’’ broadening of interest, involving a ‘‘dilution’’ of one’s ‘‘focus on class.’’ But, in addition to that political issue of priority, it is also true that classbased inequalities are, in many ways, much more transparent, which no one – even a child – can miss, without closing one’s eyes altogether. Even my sense of agony and outrage at the Great Bengal famine of 1943, to which you refer (and which did strongly shake even my 9-year-old mind), was also linked to the class pattern of mortality. Aside from the anger and outrage at the fact that millions could actually die of hunger and hunger-related diseases, I was amazed by the extraordinary recognition that no one I knew personally, through family connections or social ones, had any serious economic problem during the famine, while unknown millions, men, women, and children, roamed the country in search of food and fell and perished. The class character of famines in particular and of economic deprivation in general was impossible to escape. There was, of course, evidence of inequality between men and women as well. But its severe and brutal manifestations (on which I researched much later – from the late 1960s to the 1990s) were well hidden from immediate observation. And the less extreme expressions were confounded by a prevailing attitudinal fog. For example, in comparison with Feminist Economics 9(2 – 3), 2003, 319 – 332

Exploring the challenges of amartya sen's work and ideas: an introduction

Abstract: Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen is renowned for his humanitarian approach to economics. His contribution has also been crucial to the development of several aspects of feminist economics and gender analysis. Many of his writings have addressed gender concerns directly, but even when not explicitly feminist, his work has often engaged with themes that are central to feminist economics and philosophy. Indeed, IAFFE has claimed him as ‘‘a feminist economist.’’ This special issue of Feminist Economics is meant as a tribute to a brilliant economist and a fine man. It is also intended as a contribution to scholarship and future research on gender. It both builds on Sen’s ideas and engages with them critically. It outlines the range and usefulness of his work for gender analysis but does not shy away from exploring some of its silences and implicit assumptions. This challenging project was initiated on a sunny summer’s day in London in June 2000. The three of us met to identify the major topics and concepts in Sen’s work which we would endeavor to cover, such as justice, freedom, social choice, agency, functionings and capabilities, missing women, famines, inequality and poverty measures, the human development approach, and culture and identity. Papers were invited through an open ‘‘Call’’ publicized through academic journals, e-mail lists, and publications with a wide readership in developing countries, such as the Economic and Political Weekly (Bombay, India). We also actively solicited papers from experts working on the relevant themes. For the final set of papers we held a workshop at All Souls College, Oxford, UK, in September 2002. The aim of the workshop was to facilitate wide-ranging and in-depth interactions between Sen and the authors, as well as among the paper writers themselves and others invited. The discussions were interactive, spirited, and challenging. We were privileged to have Amartya Sen join us for the full duration of the workshop, and comment on all the presentations. After the workshop, with a final round of revisions, the papers took the form in which they appear in this special issue. Although at the project’s initiation we had hoped to cover all the major aspects of Sen’s work, we were only partially successful. For a start, Feminist Economics 9(2 – 3), 2003, 3 – 12

Child labor : lessons from the historical experience of today's industrial economies

Abstract: Child labor was more prevalent in 19th-century industrializers than it is in developing countries today. It was particularly extensive in the earliest industrializers. This pattern may be a source of optimism signaling the spread of technologies that have little use for child labor and of values that endorse the preservation and protection of childhood. Today and historically, orphaned and fatherless children and those in large families are most vulnerable. Efficient interventions to curb child labor involve fiscal transfers to these children and active policies toward street children. Changes in capitalist labor markets (including technology), family strategies, state policies, and cultural norms are examined to shed light on the causes, chronology, and consequences of child labor.

Edith Penrose: A Feminist Economist?

Abstract: We re-read a foundational work, The Theory of the Growth of the Firm by Edith Penrose, not to identify the androcentric bias but instead to recover a challenge to such bias Our purpose is to show in Penrose an alternative view of human "nature" and revulsion from "Cartesian" dualisms At the same time, Penrose had a deep interest in the real world and used metaphor and story alongside empirical observation in the pursuit of theoretical advance The Theory of the Growth of the Firm provides an approach to industrial organization that is not only consistent with feminist economics but can be read as a methodological and expositional examplar

Female-headship in Eastern Sri Lanka: A comparative study of ethnic communities in the context of conflict

Abstract: Examines the impact of economic and financial crises from a gender perspective. Includes recommendations for integrating gender concerns into crisis response.

C ontinuing t he c onversation

Abstract: BA, JH, IR: What factors first led you to examine gender concerns intellectually? For instance, you have often said that your experience during the Great Bengal famine shaped your interest in and work on famine. Have any such social or personal experiences shaped your work on gender? AS: My interest in inequality, which goes back to my school days, was initially quite fixed on class divisions. My involvement with gender inequality grew more slowly. There was much greater concentration on class in standard politics (including standard student politics), and when in the early 1950s I was studying at Presidency College in Calcutta, it was taken for granted that class divisions were incomparably more important than other social divisions. Indeed, when later on, in the late 1960s, I started working on gender inequality (I was then teaching at Delhi University), many of my close friends still saw this as quite an ‘‘unsound’’ broadening of interest, involving a ‘‘dilution’’ of one’s ‘‘focus on class.’’ But, in addition to that political issue of priority, it is also true that classbased inequalities are, in many ways, much more transparent, which no one – even a child – can miss, without closing one’s eyes altogether. Even my sense of agony and outrage at the Great Bengal famine of 1943, to which you refer (and which did strongly shake even my 9-year-old mind), was also linked to the class pattern of mortality. Aside from the anger and outrage at the fact that millions could actually die of hunger and hunger-related diseases, I was amazed by the extraordinary recognition that no one I knew personally, through family connections or social ones, had any serious economic problem during the famine, while unknown millions, men, women, and children, roamed the country in search of food and fell and perished. The class character of famines in particular and of economic deprivation in general was impossible to escape. There was, of course, evidence of inequality between men and women as well. But its severe and brutal manifestations (on which I researched much later – from the late 1960s to the 1990s) were well hidden from immediate observation. And the less extreme expressions were confounded by a prevailing attitudinal fog. For example, in comparison with