SOLIDARITY & RESISTANCE : WOMEN’S PERSPECTIVES ON EMPOWERMENT THROUGH SELF HELP GROUPS

Development interventions mostly aim to ‘empower’ rural women by increasing their income and livelihood but rarely consider the voices of their beneficiaries. I study the meanings and experiences of empowerment or nari shakti as understood and described by rural women who lead self-help groups (SHGs) engaged in savings, micro-credit and income generation. I conducted the research in the central Himalayan region of rural India in Uttarakhand State using in-depth interviews with 11 SHG leaders. The findings indicate that the participants experience empowerment as solidarity and collective power that manifest in the form of self-reliance, courage, and independence. The participants associate their self-reliance with courage and inner strength which they have built as a means to survive the pain and struggle. Their stories of nari shakti are also stories of pain and struggle.This research implies the need to examine perspectives of feminists on empowerment related interventions. Further research is needed on how micro-credit SHGs help build collective action that can challenge patriarchal power structures and bring about social change. Such research can help provide solutions on how non-profits can utilize feminist strategies of consciousness raising while still meeting donor expectations for the SHG programs.