In charting Bangladesh’s remarkable progress on a range of social indicators since the 1970s, Naila Kabeer explores the critical role played by women’s agency. How were women able to challenge existing gender norms in the context of the “lived” Islam of their culture? What are the lessons of this episode  – and what nuances are offered vis-à-vis the more “universal” path to progress and emancipation generally assumed by Western feminists?

First instalment from my recent visit to the Philippines: Something fascinating and strikingly promising is going on the Philippines island of Mindanao. It has very little to do with the grisly headlines of extra-judicial killings and President Duterte’s bloody ‘war on drugs’. It looks like a progressive Islamic revolution is in progress, combining elements of religiosity, women’s rights, armed struggle

A few weeks ago, Dani Rodrik pointed out that while East Asia has topped the charts in recent decades on growth and poverty reduction, many of the best performing countries on human development are majority moslem, scattered across the Middle East and North Africa. I’ve just been reading IFPRI’s Global Hunger Index 2010, and the same pattern emerges. Here’s the