Female Agency and Autonomy: Contributions to Sociological Studies in Contexts of Urban Poverty

Abstract

Sociological knowledge has produced an extensive tradition based on the duality between the impossibility of agency and the voluntarism of action. Contemporary approaches, with contributionsfrom feminists, have formulated the problem of agency and autonomy in order to escape this dualityand offered more adequate constructs for investigations into the experiences of women. By combiningthe intersectional approach with the capabilities approach, this paper organizes an analyticalresource capable of understanding agency and autonomy in a pendulum between constraints andchoices. This undertaking is carried out considering the interweaving of gender, class, and race asa suggestion for studies in contexts of urban poverty, given its relevance to the debate on gender,poverty, and human development. This is a theoretical study on the proposed theme