Challenging the NGOS

Tamsin Bradley completed her research at SOAS, University of London, where she has taught Religion and Gender. She is currently a Lecturer in Development Studies at London Metropolitan University.

• PrefaceIntroduction1 The Development Discourse2 Feminist Politics3 Understanding the Image of Sita4 Revisiting the Development Discourse5 Questioning Participation6 Violence in Rural RajasthanConclusion: The Meaning of Freedom

'This volume offers a ground-breaking interdisciplinary perspective on how development agendas are formulated and impact on local people. Specifically Bradley explores how the lives of rural women in Rajasthan are often distorted and homogenised into helpless images that then form the basis of projects. Bradley highlights how money is wasted funding interventions that fail to meet the needs of local women, not to mention patronise and disempower them.' - Jeffrey Haynes, Professor of Politics, London Metropolitan University; '[This book] cuts through unproductive binaries which treat feminism and religion as irremediably at odds with one another. Through a process in which Tamsin Bradley listens closely to women's actual voices we learn how women creatively reconfigure the cultural materials which constitute their heritage. Attention to this creative reconfiguration holds important practical lessons for NGOs, generally, but most especially for those who engage with women who experience domestic violence.' - Eileen O'Keefe, Professor of Public Health, London Metropolitan University