Based on a decade of fieldwork, this work tracks the negotiations between chiefs and subchiefs and women and men over ritual power, economic power, and administrative power. Though Nso' men obviously dominate their society at both the local level and nationally, women have had power of their own by virtue of their status as women. Men may own the land, for example, but women control the crops through their labor. Goheen explains clearly the place of gender in very complex historical processes, such as land tenure systems, title societies, chieftancy, marriage systems, changing ideas of symbolic capital, and internal and external politics.

Contributors assert that women's contribution to global agricultural production for food and for profit continues to be largely unacknowledged and undervalued and that their ability to farm is constrained by lack of control over land, agricultural inputs, credit and other essential resources.

Women’s writing in Cameroon has so far been dominated by Francophone writers. The short stories in this collection represent the yearnings and vision of an Anglophone woman, who writes both as a Cameroonian and as a woman whose life has been shaped by the minority status her people occupy within the nation-state. The stories in Your Madness, Not Mine are about postcolonial Cameroon, but especially about Cameroonian women, who probe their day-to-day experiences of survival and empowerment as they deal with gender oppression: from patriarchal expectations to the malaise of maldevelopment, unemployment, and the attraction of the West for young Cameroonians. Makuchi has given us powerful portraits of the people of postcolonial Africa in the so-called global village who too often go unseen and unheard.

An analysis of gender and property throughout South Asia which argues that the most important economic factor affecting women is the gender gap in command over property.

Thousands of Cameroonian women played an essential role in the radically anti-colonial nationalist movement led by the Union of the Populations of Cameroon (UPC): they were the women of the Democratic Union of Cameroonian Women (UDEFEC). Drawing on women nationalists petitions to the United Nations, one of the largest collections of political documents written by African women during the decolonization era, as well as archival research and oral interviews, this work shows how UDEFEC transcended ethnic, class, education and social divides, and popularized nationalism in both urban and rural areas through the Trust Territories of the Cameroons under French and British administration. Foregrounding issues such as economic autonomy and biological and agricultural fertility, UDEFEC politics wove anti-imperial democracy and notions of universal human rights into locally rooted political cultures and histories. UDEFECs history sheds light on the essential components of womens successful political mobilization in Africa, and contributes to the discussion of womens involvement in nationalist movements in formerly colonized territories.

'Boserup's contribution to our thinking on women's role in development cannot be underestimated. Her keen observations, her use of empirical data and her commitment to greater gender equality are still an inspiration to students, researchers and activists who are interested in a better and more equal world.' From the new Introduction by Nazneen Kanji, Su Fei Tan and Camilla Toulmin 'Women's Role in Economic Development has become a key reference book for anyone - student, scholar, or practitioner - interested in gender and development analyses. This book is important not only because it provided the intellectual underpinning of the Women in Development (WID) analysis, but also because of the lasting influence it had on the development of theoretical, conceptual, and policy thinking in the fields of women, gender, and development. The re-editing of Women's Role in Economic Development, with its new introduction, ensures students, academics, and practitioners continued access to an essential reference for those interested in the women and development literature.' - Gender and Development This classic text by Ester Boserup was the first investigation ever undertaken into what happens to women in the process of economic and social growth throughout the developing world, thereby serving as an international benchmark. In the context of the ongoing struggle for women's rights, massive urbanization and international efforts to reduce poverty, this book continues to be a vital text for economists, sociologists, development workers, activists and all those who take an active interest in women's social and economic circumstances and problems throughout the world. A substantial new Introduction by Nazneen Kanji, Su Fei Tan and Camilla Toulmin reflects on Boserup's legacy as a scholar and activist, and the continuing relevance of her work. This highlights the key issue of how the role of women in economic development has or has not changed over the past four decades in developing countries, and covers crucial current topics including: women and inequality, international and national migration, conflict, HIV and AIDS, markets and employment, urbanization, leadership, property rights, global processes, including the Millennium Development Goals, and barriers to change.

How effective is western aid-agency intervention in Africa? What can African women do to manage the AIDS crisis? Can western feminist theory be applied to the rural African context?These vital issues, and many others, are considered in this topical book by eminent scholars and development consultants. The book aims to increase awareness of the importance of women agricultural producers to African material development and to expose the western biases that have traditionally pervaded the study of rural African women. The authors' critical analyses of conventional research methodology and key 'women and development' debates over the last three decades will stimulate new research perspectives. Students and scholars of development, development workers and policymakers will all find this book fascinating reading.