Paper short abstract:

Using mixed-methods research with women with young children in rural Busoga, Uganda, we examine whether the Women's Empowerment in Agriculture Index reflects women's own descriptions of empowerment, and explore whose emotions, values, and motivations this tool includes or excludes.

Paper long abstract:

The Women's Empowerment in Agriculture Index (Alkire et al. 2013) is quickly becoming the standard tool for evaluating whether an agricultural development project has empowered the women it targets. Drawing on both quantitative and qualitative research with women (n=207) with young children in rural Busoga, Uganda, we examine whether this Index effectively measures empowerment according it its own definition, and whether it reflects Basoga women's own descriptions of empowerment. In in-depth interviews with a subset of these women (n=30), they expressed strong emotions toward their agricultural livelihoods, their reproductive rights and care work, and intrahousehold power dynamics. These interviews also illustrated the wide spectrum of emotions associated with women's ideas and experiences of empowerment in this context. We consider how this Index includes or excludes these emotions, and how the tool's design reflects the motivations, values, and emotions of researchers and development practitioners. We further explore the distinctions and connections between the intrapersonal emotions associated with individual empowerment (Lentz et al. 2018), and the interpersonal emotions associated with collective empowerment (Gram et al. 2018). This research builds upon a rich literature of feminist science and objectivity (Harding 1992), feminist critiques of technocratic models of international development (Cornwall & Rivas 2013; O'Hara & Clement 2018), and psychological studies of women's care work (Bondi 2008). At the same time, we seek to expand discourses to envision future forms of development that more fully grapples with the emotions underlying women's experiences with empowerment, agriculture, and care work.