Fundamentalisms

Volume 25, Issue 1, March 2017

This issue of Gender & Development focuses on the impact of religious fundamentalisms on women’s rights and gender justice. Religious fundamentalisms invoke religion in order to gain political, social and economic power. Fundamentalist strands exist in all religions and share the same characteristics, including a particular focus on the control of women’s bodies and lives.

Running counter to the values enshrined in international human rights standards, and fostering intolerance, coercion and violence, religious fundamentalisms are a serious threat to equitable and gender- just development, globally. In this issue, feminists from the fields of research, advocacy and campaigning, and service delivery share learning and experience in order to provide better-informed responses to the challenge posed by religious fundamentalisms. Particularly at risk are women’s rights in fragile contexts where faith-based organisations are relied on to deliver basic needs and access to justice.

Contents

Gender & Development is published by Routledge. If you are interested in subscribing to the journal, please visit the Routledge website. (Please note the reduced subscription rates available for low and middle-income countries.)

For free access to all the articles in the Fundamentalisms issue, please visit  the Oxfam Policy & Practice website, and search the site using the article title or author name.

There is free access to the Introduction, three articles and the Resources and Book Reviews Sections of the issue, below.

Editorial

Introduction: gender, development and fundamentalisms
Caroline Sweetman

Articles

The devil is in the details: a feminist perspective on development, women’s rights, and fundamentalisms
Ayesha Imam, Shareen Gokal and Isabel Marler

Can faith and freedom co-exist? When faith-based health providers and women’s needs clash
Jon O’Brien

Women on the frontline: can a network provide a platform for activists in the volatile MENA region?
Dido Michielsen
Policymaking in a ‘Christian nation’: women’s and LGBT rights in The Bahamas’ 2016 referendum
Alicia Wallace

Desecularisation and the ‘faith agenda’ in an era of austerity: their impact on women’s and girl’s rights in the UK
Sukhwant Dhaliwal and Pragna Patel

Engaging women in countering violent extremism: avoiding instrumentalisation and furthering agency
Sophie Giscard d’Estaing

Resources

Compiled by Liz Cooke
Resources List – Fundamentalisms

Book Reviews

Edited by Liz Cooke

Men, Masculinities and Disaster 
Elaine Enarson and Bob Pease (eds.)
Reviewed by Cheney Shreve

Gender and Peacebuilding
Clare Duncanson
Reviewed by Jane L. Parpart

The Politics of Feminist Knowledge Transfer: Gender Training and Gender Expertise
María Bustelo, Lucy Ferguson and Maxime Forest (eds.)
Reviewed by Deborah Eade

Women and the Politics of Gender in Post-conflict Timore-Leste: Between Heaven and Earth
Sara Niner (ed.)
Reviewed by Ines Smyth

Beyond Colonialism, Development and Globalization: Social Movements and Critical Perspectives
Dominique Caouette and Dip Kapoor (eds.)
Reviewed by Tina Wallace