Empowering Women in Russia

Originally published in 2007 based on research conducted during 1996-1998 Julie Hemment's engrossing study traces the development encounter through interactions between international foundation and Russian women's groups during a decade of transformation. Prohibited from organizing independently under state socialism women's groups became a focus of attention in the post-Soviet period for foundations eager to promote participatory democracy but the vision of the civil society that emerged (the third sector) was far from what Russian activists envisioned or what donor agencies promised. Drawing on ethnographic methods and participatory action research (PAR) Hemment tells the story of her introduction to and growing collaboration with members of the group Zhenskii Svet in the provincial city of Tver'. Her account offers an ethnographic perspective on the decade of the 1990s and the terrain of women's independent organizing at that time - the openings the sense of possibility these activists experienced as well as the challenges they encountered.