Spring 2002
HDF 662 Families in Comparative Perspective
Instructor: Dr. Mary Y. Morgan—130 Stone (256-0096) mymorgan@uncg.edu
Course Description:
Family patterns in different cultures; viewing family systems within their cultural context.
Course Objectives:
1. To gain a greater understanding of the everyday lives of women in developing countries and
their contribution to families and their cultures.
2. To investigate the structural factors that affect women and families in developing countries
and the ways in which women are active agents in influencing their environments.
3. To explore the interdependence among people across cultures and the ways we influence how
others live.
4. To interpret how understanding families of diverse cultural backgrounds from an
ecological/feminist perspective informs our understanding of families in our own culture.
Course Requirements:
1. Attendance and Participation
To promote active involvement in this seminar, participants are expected to come to class
prepared to discuss assigned readings and homework assignments.
2. Weekly Commentaries
Each week turn in 1-2 pages of questions and insights regarding the readings, e.g., What you
didn’t understand; What you still don’t know; What was confusing; as well as What you
learned; What you figured out; What conclusion you can draw.
3. Family Application Paper
Write an 8-10 page paper describing your understanding of families from a comparative
perspective, specifically including,
 your perspective (worldview) and how it changed;
 a flow-chart of relationships among structural factors (objectives 2 & 3);
 recommendations for change, policy implications; and
 how your research area and/or professional career has been informed.
4. Comparative Family Project
Critique a book of your choice related to families in comparative perspective. OR Develop a
bibliography on a topic related to your research interest incorporating families from diverse
cultures. OR Other ideas??
Required Articles: Available for copying from Jackson Library, ereserves.
Course Outline
Jan 23
Theory and Methodologies
Family theory and multicultural family studies (Smith)
Toward postcolonial methodologies (Phillips)
The study of gender and generational hierarchies in the context of development (Labrecque)
Gender and environment: A feminist political ecology perspective (Rocheleau, et al)
Taking empirical data seriously (Warren)
2
Jan 30
Introduction—Why Women
Why women? (Dankelman & Davidson)
Income under female versus male control (Blumberg)
Beyond the poverty line: Measuring poverty and impoverishing measures (Kabeer)
Women in poverty: A new global underclass (Buvinic)
Introduction and overview (Kinnear)
Feb 6
(Third World) Women of Formerly Colonized Countries
Women and households in the Third World (Smith)
Women under layers of oppression: The (un)changing political economy of gender (Arat)
Feb 13
Context— Colonialism and Development
Colonialism (Waylen)
Development and women (Gordon)
Development models and women’s movements: Theories and approaches (Snyder &
Tadesse)
A word of the times, but what does it mean? Empowerment in … development (Rowlands)
The politics of identification in the context of globalization (Peterson)
The family as a development issue (Jaquette)
Women’s work: Why development isn’t always good for the second sex (Jacobson)
W = women + men (Wilde)
Obstacles to advancement of women during development (Boserup)
Women’s knowledge as expert knowledge: Indian women and ecodevelopment (Curtain)
Sub-Saharan East Africa
Feb 20
Women in the changing Africa family (Potash)
African women and health issues (Turshen)
Women in religious and secular ideology (Strobel)
Women’s responses to capitalist development and patriarchy (Gordon)
AIDS, gender and sexuality during Africa’s economic crisis (Schoepf)

Kenya
Rural Kenyan women’s lived experiences (Morgan & Opiyo)—not on-line
Women’s groups in urban Kenya (Odero & Morgan)—not on-line
The political economy of women’s work in Kenya (Suda)
Kikuyu market women traders and the struggle for economic empowerment (House-Midamba)
Gendered visions for survival: Semi-arid regions in Kenya (Wangari, et al)
Malnutrition and gender relations in Western Kenya (Whyte & Kariuki)
Gender and life-course strategies among the Gusii (Hakansson & LeVine)
The discourse of neglect: Family support for the elderly in Samia (Cattell)

Ethiopia
Ethiopian rural women and the state (Berhane-Selassie)

Uganda
Commercialization of food crops in Busoga, Uganda and the renegotiation of gender (Sorensen)

Zaire (The Congo)
Women and garden produce of Kinshasa (Mianda)
AIDS, gender and sexuality during Africa’s economic crisis (Schoepf)

Tanzania
Women and development in Sub-Saharan Africa with special reference to Tanzania (Mlay, et al)

Zambia
Breaking new ground: Reaching out to women farmers in Western Zambia (Jiggins)
Feb 27
Mar 6
3

Mozambique
Supporting women farmers in the green zones of Mozambique (Ayisi)

Zimbabwe
Trade, economy, an family in urban Zimbabwe (Osirim)
South Asia

India
Families in India: Beliefs and realities (Mullatti)
Women in South Asia with particular reference to India (Roy & Tisdell)
Social technology and gender inequality in rural India (Dalal)
Breaking rural bonds through migration: The failure of development for women in India (Srinivasan)
Please tell them for us (Mencher)
Dowry, bride-burning, and female power in India (Stone & James)
Violence in intimate relationships: A research project in India (Sen)
The burden of womanhood (Anderson & Moore)

Pakistan
Gender inequality in the Pakistan labor market: Myth and reality (Mohiuddin)

Bangladesh
The Grameen Bank experiment: Empowerment of women through credit (Osmani)
Female empowerment leads to fewer births (Barr)
Mar 20
Mar 27
Apr 3
Latin America

Latin America and the Caribbean
The magic of the market and the price women pay (Safa & Crummett)

Nicaragua
Nicaraguan women, resistance, and the politics of aid (Puar)
From co-ops to kitchens (Baab)
Economic crisis and women in Nicaragua (Pérez-Alemán)

Argentina and Peru
Women-oriented NGOs in Latin America (Kusterer)

Mexico
Family, networks, and survival on the threshold of the 21st century in urban Mexico (Lomnitz)
The Mexican debt crisis: Restructuring the economy and the household (Benería)
The status of women in Mexico (Smith)
Protagonists of change: Indigenous street vendors in Mexico (Sullivan)
Women traders as promoters of subsistence perspective: The case of Juchitan (Oaxaca),
Mexico (Bennholdt-Thomsen)
Maternal employment and family patterns: Mexican women in the maquiladora industry (Valdez)
Gender relations in urban middle-class and working-class households in Mexico (García &
Apr 10
Apr 17
Apr 24
Oliveira)
Empowerment
Widening economic opportunities for women (McDonnell, Himunyanga-Phiri, & Tembo)
The role of women in resistance to political authoritarianism in Latin America and S Asia
(Hensman)
May 1
Challenges
Beyond economics: Sheltering the whole woman (Tinker)
Women facing the challenge of AIDS (Weiss and Gupta)
Implementing the right to choose: Women, motherhood and population policy (Kabeer)
4
Women and the biological reproduction of “the nation” (Yuval-Davis)
Child care: Meeting the needs of working mothers and their children (Leonard & Landers)
5
References
S02
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6
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Jiggins, J. with P. Maimbo & M. Masona. (1995). Breaking new ground: Reaching out to women
farmers in western Zambia. In A. Leonard (Ed.), Seeds 2: Supporting women’s work around the
world (pp. 17-23). New York: The Feminist Press.
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work around the world (pp. 169-205). New York: The Feminist Press.
7
Lomnitz, L. (1997). Family, networks, and survival on the threshold of the 21st century in urban
Mexico. In S. Dremen (Ed.), The family on the threshold of the 21st century: Trends and
implications (pp. 113-128). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
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8
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Women and empowerment: Illustrations from the third world (pp. 134-154). New York: St.
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dimensions of gender inequality: A global perspective (pp. 119-136). Westport, CT: Praeger.
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9
Suda, C. (1996). The political economy of women’s work in Kenya: Chronic constraints and broken
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ecology: Global issues and local experiences (pp.127-154). New York: Routledge.
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K.J. Warren (Ed.), Ecofeminism: Women, culture, nature (pp. 3-20). Bloomington, IN: Indiana
University Press.
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concerns. In G. Young, V. Samarasinghe, & K. Kusterer (Eds.), Women at the center:
Development issues and practices for the 1990s (pp. 168-181). West Hartford, CT: Kumarian
Press.
Whyte, S. R. & Kariuki, P. W. (1997). Malnutrition and gender relations in western Kenya. In T.
Weisner, C. Bradley, & P. Kilbride (Eds.), African families and the crisis of social change (pp.
135-153). Westport, CT: Bergin & Garvey.
Wilde, V.L. (1998). W = women + men. In R. Griffiths (Ed.), Developing world 98/99 (pp. 215-217).
Guilford, CT: Dushkin/McGraw-Hill.
Yuval-Davis, N. (1996). Women and the biological reproduction of “the nation”. Women’s Studies
International Forum, 19(1/2):17-24.