ABSTRACT
Rural women in Kyrgyzstan confront a very difficult economic environment. This chapter focuses on relations and challenges pertaining to the "work" rural women do to foster "development" in their communities. It examines the potential to improve rural women's income-generating activities in the context of the broader capitalist market. The chapter suggests that women entrepreneurs constitute an element that is central to the struggle to improve the well-being of families and communities in rural regions of Kyrgyzstan. It also suggests particular complexities in development-related social relations and in issues pertaining especially to agricultural work. Because powerful international influences tend to be primarily concerned with economic development, political and institutional reforms have not kept up with economic reforms in the country. The chapter provides an enhanced understanding of how people living in different circumstances, with different perspectives or interests, are drawn into a common set of institutional relations and processes.
