The contributors to this book articulate a new theoretical framework that they call "Women, Culture and Development". They apply it to a range of issues including sexuality and gender; environment, technology and science.

Globalization and the failure of development have led to the feminization of poverty, environmental degradation and an uncertain future for global peace and security. Development studies has reached an impasse, both in its theoretical paradigms and its practical prescriptions. Too economistic, too little focused on the daily lives of women and devoid of vision, the field needs a radical imaginative overhaul. The contributors to this book, who work at the intersection of cultural studies, feminist studies and critical development studies, articulate a new theoretical framework that they call "Women, Culture and Development". They apply it to a range of issues including sexuality and gender; environment, technology and science; and the cultural politics of representation, and, through a series of shorter think pieces, present their ideas for the future.

1. An Introduction to Women, Culture and Development - Kum-Kum Bhavnani, John Foran and Priya Kurian
VISIONS 1 Maria's Stories - Maria Ofelia Navarrete The Woof and the Warp - Luisa Valenzuela Consider the Problem of Privatization - Anna Tsing
PART 1: SEXUALITY AND THE GENDERED BODY
2. 'Tragedies' in Out-of-the-way Places: Oceanic Interpretations of Another Scale - Yvonne Underhill-Sem 3. Queering Development: Institutionalized Heterosexuality in Development Theory, Practice and Politics in Latin America - Amy Lind and Jessica Share 4. Claiming the State: Women's Reproductive Identity and Indian Development - Rachel Simon-Kumar 5. Bodies and Choices: African Matriarchs and Mammy Water - Ifi Amadiume
VISIONS 2 On Engendering a Better Life - Raka Ray Empowerment - Snakes and Ladders - Jan Nederveen Pieterse Gendered Sexualities and Lived Experience: The Case of Gay Sexuality in Women, Culture and Development - Dana Collins Thinking Condoms Politically, Reaching a Crossroad - Peter Chua
PART 2: ENVIRONMENT, TECHNOLOGY, SCIENCE
6. Managing Future(s): Culture, Development, Gender and the Dystopic Continuum - David McKie 7. Negotiating Human-Nature Boundaries, Cultural Hierarchies and Masculinist Paradigms of Development Studies - Priya Kurian and Debashish Munshi 8. Imagining India: Religious Nationalism in the Age of Science and Development - Banu Subramaniam
VISIONS 3 Conversations towards Feminist Futures - Arturo Escobar and Wendy Harcourt Knitting a Net of Knowledge: Engendering Cyber-Technology for Disempowered Communities - Debashish Munshi and Priya A. Kurian Seeing the Complexity: Observations and Optimism from a Costa Rican Tourist Town - Darcie Dreams and Process in Development Theory and Practice - Light Carruyo
PART 3: THE CULTURAL POLITICS OF REPRESENTATION
9. Of Rural Mothers, Urban Whores and Working Daughters: Women and the Critique of Neocolonial Development in Taiwan's Nativist Literature - Ming-yan Lai 10. The Representation of Mostaz'af/'the Disempowered' in Revolutionary and Postrevolutionary Iran - Minoo Moallem 11. Mariama Ba's So Long a Letter: 'Women, Culture and Development' from a Francophone/Postcolonial Perspective - Anjali Prabhu
VISIONS 4 The Subjective Side of Development: Sources of Well-being, Resources for Struggle - Linda Klouzal Culture and Resistance: A Feminist Analysis of Revolution and 'Development' - Julie Shayne Alternatives to Development: Of Love, Dreams and Revolution - John Foran