Self-Help, Natality and ‘Civic Growth’
基于印度西孟加拉邦一个村庄的民族志研究，考察自助小组如何促进妇女横向团结、挑战现状，并推动公民成长与选举政治变革。
This paper examines the role that SHGs (self-help groups) have played in the creation of ‘civic growth’ and changing electoral politics in India. Based on ethnographic engagement in a village in West Bengal before and after the formation of these groups, the impact of the transformative effect of these groups on women is placed in a wider political context. The activity of the SHG enabled horizontal solidarities to emerge despite the vertical divisions in village society and successfully challenge the status quo. It builds on a growing literature on women’s empowerment and capacity for collective action through SHGs to show that the notion of ‘empowerment’ can be extended to include the capability for active citizenship and skills in how to do politics, what Arendt calls ‘natality’.