Women as participants and observers in the international division of labor
This is a collection of articles written by women from different countries and published in the Forum for Social Economics in recent years. It aims to deal with a range of division of labor asymmetries, with special emphasis on issues that women must face in different countries.
Most of the economics literature comes from the richest Western countries. This is not simply because their universities and research agencies are better equipped. Rather, historic and institutional biases in the knowledge production and dissemination processes have created ‘intellectual marginalization’ of female scholars, particularly those from the Global South. Funding complements this bias since it is often constrained by the concerns of vested interests. This systemic problem inevitably leads to an emphasis on Western outlooks of the economy, and also of society and the environment.
It is the aim of the Forum for Social Economics to enhance and provide visibility to the contributions that counter these biases and construct alternatives. In addressing these twin aims, the articles suggest that the recent international division of labor does not appear as a mere extension of market relations and value chains to foreign markets but as the definition of (new) power relations. Global intersectionalities shape in non-linear ways the distribution of income and wealth among genders as well as the empowerment of women.
While each one of the articles listed here is insightful in its own right, the collection is more than the sum of its components. It suggests that there is more to economic literature than meets the conventional eye. Still, it gives no false sense of exhaustiveness or conclusiveness. Quite to the contrary, it is an invitation to advance towards a better understanding of economic dimensions that most literature tends to neglect or obscure.