Mainstreaming Gender or "Streaming" Gender Away: Feminists Marooned in the Development Business.

This article analyses the fate of gender mainstreaming, the strategy adopted at the UN Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing to forward the gender equality agenda within development institutions. Using case studies from Mukhopadhyay's own research and advisory work, she shows how the political project of gender equality is being normalised in the development business as an ahistorical, apolitical, decontextualised and technical project that leaves the prevailing and unequal power relations intact. She suggests that in repositioning gender in development policy and practice we need to consider how to get back to the political project while not abandoning the present mode of engagement with development institutions. Citing the experiences of a recently concluded action research programme undertaken by the Royal Tropical Institute, Amsterdam, in collaboration with organisations in South Asia and Southern Africa, the author suggests that getting back to the political project involves working on rights and citizenship issues within development institutions and on the outside to create a "voice" of the most marginalised and their organisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]