The Myth of Community: Gender Issues in Participatory Development

This chapter discusses the use of Participatory Rural Appraisal to obtain gendered perceptions or differences of well-being and poverty, gendered impacts of poverty, and opportunities for social or economic change in Darko, Ghana. Findings show that men and women define well-being and poverty differently based on material wealth, marital status, religion, land mass, crops, and money. Also, social change is occurring in Darko because household composition is changing. This is due in some ways to poverty, disproving the assumption that household income and livelihood is pooled and shared in equal fashion. The author concludes that using participatory methodologies allows for the differences between women and men to be recognized and thus could be useful in creating more effective and targeted strategies of development programs.