The rural woman's burden: Volunteer mothering and the contradictions of empowerment

Over the last two decades, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have played an increasingly important role in community development processes and programs throughout the global South. While some practitioners and scholars have heralded these spaces as positive opportunities for women’s participation and empowerment, others have critiqued this now-common approach to promoting gender equality for its inattention to important contextual differences among women in developing countries (Mohanty 2003; Eisenstein 2009). What does empowerment mean, for example, in a subsistence context where the gendered division of labor serves as a family survival strategy? In this article, I analyze this question by examining the case of a rural village in Nicaragua (Loma Verde) where women have been recruited both by NGOs and the government to be “volunteer mothers” –a role that encompasses numerous tasks as health promoters, educators, and social workers. Through a careful examination of these women’s narratives, their daily lives and routines, and the local context in which they are embedded, I explore the complex implications of becoming a volunteer mother at the individual, familial, and community levels.  Based on participant observation and in-depth interviews, I argue that while these opportunities for women’s community participation are couched in a discourse of empowerment based on training, in practice, the increasing reliance of NGOs and the state on women’s unpaid labor have generated significant new burdens in the everyday lives of poor women and their families. The lessons to be drawn from the case of Loma Verde, I suggest, are not unique, but can inform our understanding of the meanings and repercussions of women’s community participation in other contexts of high social and economic vulnerability.