Gender Mainstreaming: Intersecting Governmentalities and the Conceptualization of Change

This Paper reflects on how gender and change are conceptualized, framed, and transferred in both the process of gender mainstreaming and in feminist critiques of it, within development institutions. In doing so a governmentalities perspective is applied, not only to understand technologies of governance, but also to explore how to envision change itself. Gender mainstreaming, is hereby considered as a governmentality that intersects with other (neoliberal) governmentalities. Special attention is drawn to how gender and change are not pre-given and stable terms in this process, but are the very site of the political and power struggle over meaning giving. Two observations are discussed, the first is that at this intersection, two related techniques of governance appear: individualization and externalization. The second is that in these techniques of individualization and externalization, gender expertise and training, rather than voice and social movement, have gained a prominent place. The aim of this Paper is to discuss how to recast change and agency, while these governmentalities are at stake.