Construction of Third World women's knowledge in the development discourse

Abstract

The article argues that the present focus on women's knowledge presents an instrumental and oversimplified context of production, circulation, and transmission of knowledge. Knowledge whether of men or women is not a neatly packaged information box but is shaped in contexts of social inequalities, local histories of conflict, development projects, and in the case of India, critically influenced by colonial and scientific interventions in resource management. The relations carve spaces for the cultural production of knowledge and provide the context in which certain aspects of knowledge are privileged systematically over others. Not only did women, in the context of patriarchal hegemony, undermine their ways of knowing and their knowledge, given the cultural context of respect, humility, and reticence they also did not openly discuss their understanding of environmental loss in meetings and public gatherings. But there always was a great deal of discussion in not so public spaces, like courtyards and kitchen hearths. However, the lively discussion between women and men in Bankhali is a characteristic of Himalayan villages where the rules of female seclusion are not so strict. Among women and men, there are some who are considered more knowledgeable than others.