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Abstract

The article traces the impact of feminist activists and development experts from around the world who, from the 1960s to the 1990s, pushed for greater attention to women’s life situations in the emerging and increasingly contentious international debates about economic growth. Increasingly well-positioned within UN commissions, bureaus, and development agencies, these women used the statistical facts about policy impacts to redefine economic development agendas along feminist lines. This information ‘from below’ produced a ‘knowledge revolution’ that circulated widely within the UN system with far-reaching consequences for feminist advocacy. The new knowledge deepened understandings of rights claims even as its meanings, over time, led to competing responses among feminists to the continuing challenges of global inequality. The article is based on extensive published primary sources and relevant secondary interdisciplinary literature.

Keywords

Commission on the Status of Women DAWN economic development gender and development transnational feminism women-in-development

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A knowledge revolution: Transnational feminist contributions to international development agendas and policies,1965–1995

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