Change Through Empowerment Processes: Women's stories from South Asia and Latin America

Using two case studies, one of a woman in South Asia, the other, a Latin American woman now living in the USA, the paper identifies both obstacles and facilitators that have shaped their lives and their paths to empowerment. The authors present a model for understanding the processes of empowerment and change, especially change facilitating gender equity. This model recognises a dialectic process involving people's subjective perspectives and the ideologies, policies, structures and institutions in their public environments. It extends and problematises discussion of empowerment and change that can create more gender equity. Data for the two case studies were gathered through qualitative strategies, informed by critical feminist theory, as part of two broader research projects.