Renegotiating patriarchy, Naila Kabeer’s brilliant magnum opus

Duncan Green reviews a significant new book from one of LSE’s most eminent scholars. He argues that an under-studied aspect of social and political change are the shifts in the tectonic plates of social norms – the ways society and individuals understand what is right and normal. Despite the omnipresent threat of backlash, the normative shifts on gender in recent decades have been remarkable, and Naila Kabeer’s new book brillliantly captures that process in Bangladesh. This is a repost of a From Poverty to Power piece he posted last November.