Development agencies have increasingly regarded ‘empowerment’ as an essential objective to improve the well-being of marginalised women in India. The perceived success of self-help group (SHG) programmes in this project has encouraged their widespread application across India,...

Post-development critiques and subsequent debates have sparked revision in the development sector, influencing recent approaches to knowledge in development. This article examines the extent to which the ‘knowledge strategies’ applied to development agencies are compatible with the...

The theoretical lens of governmentality has informed literature that examines how practices of development constitute development subjects: self-regulating bodies that achieve government objectives. Although it is useful, this lens has overlooked other consequences of people’s experiences of...

Weaknesses of sustainable-livelihoods analysis include the neglect of power relations; a focus on the material bases of livelihoods, ignoring social and cultural aspects; and failing to incorporate dynamism. This paper seeks to reinvigorate sustainable-livelihoods frameworks through a broader...

Self-help is often perceived as a valuable, if not essential, element to development programmes. At the same time, as a concept it has generally escaped scrutiny. Two types of claims are made about the benefits of selfhelp programmes. First, it is suggested that self-help empowers its...

This article presents an approach to anticipating future livelihood portfolios through Sherry Ortner's model of ‘serious games’. The value of the model is to draw attention to the (always shifting) purposes and intentions that direct people's lives, within a social, cultural and material...