Chapter 11- Women's Movements in the Globalizing World: The Case of Thailand

This chapter focused on the women's environmental movement in Thailand, where women became active in the environment by participating in civil society organizations, which Pongsapich argues are different from civil society movements of the past because of the ways in which they actively engage with the political sphere. According to Pongsapich these "movements challenge conventional representative democracy and traditional concepts of government (224)." In her description of these social movements Pongsapich argues that many of these new social movements have taken the form of antiglobalization movements, connected transnationally and having a high degree of flexibility in terms of sharing information and resources. With higher degree of transnational connectedness, these new social movements are able to negotiate with supranational structures while at the same time increasing their ability to negotiate with the state (224-226).

Amara Pongsapich documents four case studies that demonstrate ways in which women have "played key roles in grassroots organizations attempting to halt or shape government infrastructure projects (230)." These cases point to the divide between developmental professionals' notions of a local communities' needs and those very same needs as defined by members of that specific community (234). In many cases, these "needs" are not the same, and might even be in opposition to one another. This is a major critique of the growth-centered developmental paradigm because it conceives of individuals as objects of development rather than participants.

Pongsapich points to a correlation between the commitment of women to "environmental protection and to a more human-centered approach to development (219)." Although the exact causal relationship between the two is unclear (are new transnational social movements causing a shift in the dominant developmental paradigm within the international level or are these movements a result of a shift within the developmental orthodox) I disagree with Pongsapich's correlation between the mobilization of women and a human centered approach to development. These women were not responding to wider trends in developmental theory, rather they were responding to their everyday needs. Ecological crises, resulting from the mis-management of resources or industrialization, is often harmful to women because they often depend on the environment for food, fuel, ect. By placing these women within the larger context of developmental theory, the author is removing some of these women's agency because they are seen as responding to ideas that are outside their immediate environment, rather than recognizing the needs of their communities and surroundings, which probably offers a more realistic explain their mobilization.

In class, we have discussed the process by which human-centered approaches to development have been co-opted by developmental agencies, such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, in order to serve their agenda of growth-centered development. This chapter has failed to acknowledge this very process, which has been mentioned elsewhere in the book, especially in terns of gendered approaches. Rather than seeing development paradigms as a battleground, Pongsapich makes it appear as if the developmental orthodoxy can change simply because locals (the objects of development) mobilize and demand a different approach.