Includes bibliographical references and index.

Negotiating empowerment / Andrea Cornwall and Jenny Edwards -- Legal reform, women's empowerment, and social change: the case of Egypt / Mulki al-Sharmani -- Quotas: a pathway of political empowerment? / Ana Alice Alcantara Costa -- Advancing women's empowerment or rolling back the gains? Peace building in post-conflict Sierra Leone / Hussaina J. Abdulla -- Education: pathway to empowerment for Ghanaian women? / Akosua K. Darkwah -- Paid work as a pathway of empowerment: Pakistan's lady health worker programme / Ayesha Khan -- Steady money, state support and respect can equal women's empowerment in Egypt / Hania Sholkamy -- Changing representations of women in Ghanaian popular music / Akosua Adomako Ampofo and Awo Mana Asiedu -- Subversively accommodating: feminist bureaucrats and gender mainstreaming / Rosalind Eyben -- Reciprocity, distancing, and opportunistic overtures: women's organizations negotiating legitimacy and space in Bangladesh / Sohela Nazneen and Maheen Sultan -- Empowerment as resistance: conceptualizing Palestinian women's empowerment / Eileen Kuttab -- Crossroads of empowerment: the organization of women domestic workers in Brazil / Terezinha Gonçalves -- Women's dars and the limitations of desire: the Pakistan case / Neelam Hussain -- The power of relationships: money, love, and solidarity in a landless women's organization in rural Bangladesh / Naila Kabeer and Lopita Huq -- Women watching television: surfing between fantasy and reality / Aanmona Priyadarshini and Samia Afroz Rahim -- Family, households and women's empowerment through the generations in Bahia, Brazil: continuities or change? / Cecilia M.B. Sardenberg.