This article questions some of the implicit assumptions that underlie a managerial approach to gender mainstreaming. It argues that for gender mainstreaming strategies to become effective, they need to be based on an understanding of the structure and cultural practices of institutions, together with analyses of the strategic actions of intermediaries of change within the restricting and constrained environments of bureaucracies. By analyzing gender mainstreaming experiences from Nepal and the northeastern Indian states of Sikkim and Meghalaya, this article argues for a view of institutional change as resulting from multiple “encounters” that ensue between the actions and strategies advanced by change intermediaries to transform the dominant narratives of bureaucracies.
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