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Mahmud, S & C.N., Musembi
Citizenship DRC Synthesis Paper - Draft
This article assesses the impact that social mobilization/political empowerment initiatives led by NGOs have had on ...
This article assesses the impact that social mobilization/political empowerment initiatives led by NGOs have had on the gender dynamics of every-day expression of citizenship at community level in Kenya and Bangladesh. Dominant discourses on gender and citizenship have tended to focus on structural constraints on women’s exercise of citizenship rights, as manifested in laws, policies and design of public institutions. Without denying the reality of these structural constraints, this article seeks to make visible the role of agency in the construction of citizenship: the micro-level day-to-day expressions of citizenship, the influence of NGO-led social mobilization/political empowerment initiatives in cultivating that agency, and the gender dynamics that are implicated in day-to-day expressions of citizenship. This article builds on earlier writings based on two micro-level studies in Kenya and Banglades
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Musembi, C.N.
In VSP Coelho & B von Lieres (eds) Mobilizing for Democracy: Citizen Action and the Politics of Public Participation. London: Zed
Due to copyright restrictions, we can only share the first three pages of this chapter online. The book can be ordere...
Due to copyright restrictions, we can only share the first three pages of this chapter online. The book can be ordered from Zed Books at www.zedbooks.co.uk/citizenship or purchased at the IDS bookstore.
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Musembi, C.N.
In P Newell & J Wheeler (eds) Rights, Resources and the Politics of Accountability. London: Zed
Due to copyright restrictions, we can only share the first three pages of this chapter online. The book can be ordere...
Due to copyright restrictions, we can only share the first three pages of this chapter online. The book can be ordered from Zed Books at www.zedbooks.co.uk/citizenship or purchased at the IDS bookstore.
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Musembi, C.N.
In N Kabeer (ed.) Inclusive Citizenship: Meanings and Expressions. London: Zed
Due to copyright restrictions, we can only share the first three pages of this chapter online. The book can be ordere...
Due to copyright restrictions, we can only share the first three pages of this chapter online. The book can be ordered from Zed Books at www.zedbooks.co.uk/citizenship or purchased at the IDS bookstore.
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Musembi, C.N. & A, Cornwall
IDS Bulletin, 36(1)
This article seeks to explore some of the trends that have led to the emergence of todays interest in human rights. T...
This article seeks to explore some of the trends that have led to the emergence of todays interest in human rights. The grounding of rights-based approaches in human rights legislation, some would argue, makes them distinctively different to others, lending the promise of re-politicising areas of development work, particularly, perhaps, efforts to enhance participation in development that have become domesticated as they have been mainstreamed. But the label rights-based approach, other would point out, is fast becoming the latest designer item to be seen wearing and is being used to dress up the same old development issues. We ask why rights has come to be of interest to international development actors, and why now, and explore some of the implications of the shift to thinking and talking about rights for the politics and practice of development.
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Musembi, C.N.
Developing Rights?, IDS Bulletin, 36(1)
While international efforts to tackle poverty and social exclusion increasingly focus on issues of rights and citizen...
While international efforts to tackle poverty and social exclusion increasingly focus on issues of rights and citizenship, the gap between poor people and the institutions charged with protecting their rights has widened. In addition, there is a gap between the way in which rights are framed in actual struggles informed by peopleís own understanding of what they are entitled to and in dominant discourses about rights. Looking for the meaning of rights from the perspective of those claiming them pushes the boundaries of conventional human rights debates and expands the range of claims that can be validated as rights. This article draws out these ìactor-orientedî perspectives through a discussion of three key debates that have preoccupied human rights scholars and practitioners, challenging many of the assumptions that underlie them.
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Musembi, C.N. & S , Musyoki
IDS Bulletin, 36(1)
This article documents and discusses the experiences of a movement of low-income council tenants in three housing est...
This article documents and discusses the experiences of a movement of low-income council tenants in three housing estates in Mombasa, Kenya’s largest coastal city. The focus of the struggle has been on attaining secure and dignified living conditions. The tenants’ struggle illustrates that there is not only clear articulation of rights at the grassroots level, but also the seeds for an expansion of the arena of legally recognised rights as well as an innovative combination of strategies for realising rights and forcing institutions to be accountable and responsive. This points to the potential of grassroots movements to be the driving force for a more sustainable practice of rights and rights-based development, a point that cannot be overstated in
the context of Kenya where professional rights advocacy groups are only beginning to support and
take account of the contribution that grassroots movements make to the practice of human rights.
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Musembi, C.N. & A, Cornwall
Third World Quarterly, 25(8): 1415-37
This paper seeks to unravel some of the tangled threads of contemporary rights talk. For some, the grounding of right...
This paper seeks to unravel some of the tangled threads of contemporary rights talk. For some, the grounding of rights-based approaches in human rights legislation makes them distinctively
different to others, lending the promise of re-politicising areas of development work - particularly, perhaps, efforts to enhance participation in development, that have become domesticated as they have been 'mainstreamed' by powerful institutions like the World
Bank. Others complain that like other fashions, the label 'rights-based approach' has become the latest designer item to be seen to be wearing, and has been used to dress up the same old development. We pose a series of questions about why rights have come to be of interest to international development actors, and explore the implications of different versions and emphases, looking at what their strengths and shortcomings may come to mean for the politics and practice of development
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Musembi, C.N.
IDS Working Paper 169
