ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces postcolonial feminist social work as a conceptual tool for analysis and as a framework for engagement and action. It analyzes neoliberal discourse and initiatives that aim to achieve gender equality and women’s empowerment in the global South through financial inclusion and labor force participation. Postcolonial feminist social work integrates postcolonial feminist theory with the social work values of social justice and self-determination in order to provide a conceptual lens for analysis and a framework for engagement and action. Women work in the informal economy in public spaces alongside men in construction, street trade and waste picking, but are overrepresented in home-based work and domestic work. Women’s economic empowerment through labor force participation and financial inclusion is understood as good for women, good for families, good for business, good for sustainable development and good for the gross domestic product of the country the woman lives in.
