Abstract
The international development industry presents the education and empowerment of racialised adolescent girls as a panacea for community, national and global problems. Equipping girls with ‘life skills’ has recently gained traction as the newest solution. Drawing on an ethnography of one such girl-targeted intervention by an international non-governmental organisation, this paper positions life skills as a form of affective labour. As neo-liberal development logics of affective enterprise are translated to empower non-elite girls in New Delhi, the gendered lessons shape new kinds of entrepreneurial Indian femininities and structure young women’s aspirations along regulated lines of caste and class.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 705-722 |
| Number of pages | 18 |
| Journal | South Asia: Journal of South Asia Studies |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - 2020 |
All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes
- Cultural Studies
- History
- Development
- Sociology and Political Science
Keywords
- Affective labour
- aspiration
- empowerment
- entrepreneurial femininities
- girlhood
- skills