CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2023
| Author | Sijarina, Liridona |
|---|---|
| Title | Constructing the Neoliberal Subject: The rhetoric of women's empowerment in the post-war Kosova |
| Summary | This dissertation examines the gendered neoliberalization in Kosovë through an analysis of the usage and meanings of the rhetoric of “women's economic empowerment" by the international actors and local NGOs. Locating the international intervention that followed the end of war in 1999, as a turning point to market economy, this thesis analyzes the discursive work that was undertaken to build the new human capital necessary for this new regime. In this line, I explores how gender was used as a governing code (Calkin, 2018) in moulding these new subjectivities in post-war Kosovë. Adopting Calkin’s (2018) feminist critique of human capital theory, this thesis argues that human capital theory has dictated the dominant discourses that surround the rhetoric of empowerment in post-war Kosovë. The thesis undertakes a Critical Discourse Analysis of key documents produced by international actors between 2000-2022 that concern women’s economic empowerment and development. In addition, it utilizes interviews with local NGOs to explore the local understandings of women’s empowerment and entrepreneurship. In combining these two research methods, the thesis examines what conflicting and shifting ideas about women have developed throughout years and for what purpose. I argue that the tension between the construction of women as victims and as locus of “entrepreneurial potential” has been instrumental in developing a gendered market citizen (Schild, 2002). In line with Calkin’s reading of Foucault’s analysis of the formation of human capital, the thesis analyzes what assumed innate and the voluntary qualities have been deployed to invoke the women’s desirability for entrepreneurship. In so doing, I propose that the discovery of women as untapped human capital has been used to facilitate the transition from the controlled economy to neoliberal capitalism through the seeding a new form of agency. This thesis adds empirical data to the gender and development scholarship and argues that gender has been of a central importance in development policies in post-war Kosovë. In a broader context, this thesis aims to enrich the literature in post-socialist and post-conflictual studies by providing a case study of the application of gender and development paradigm in such contexts. |
| Supervisor | Fodor Éva |
| Department | Gender Studies MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2023/sijarina_liridona.pdf |
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