PhD Students - Silke Staab

Details

email : s.staab@sheffield.ac.uk

Thesis Title: (En)gendering the Post-neoliberal State: Change and Continuity in Latin American Social Policy

Start Year: 2010

Supervisors

Georgina Waylen

Jean Grugel

Research Topic

The research project analyses patterns of continuity and change in Latin American social policy from a gender perspective. In a first step, it explores the scope and nature of policy change and seeks to assess in how far "new social policies" represent a break with the `high-tide´ neoliberal era. I am particularly interested in finding out: (1) whether current reform processes reflect a greater recognition and redistribution of the responsibilities for and costs of care and social reproduction among different societal institutions (state, market, household); and (2) whether these shifts provide a more favourable context for redressing social and gender inequalities in access to economic resources and social benefits.

The second part of the project seeks to shed light on the structural, agential and ideational factors that underpin patterns of change and continuity. Here, the emphasis is on tracing how different ideas, actors, institutional resources and constraints have played out and influenced specific policy choices. Because post-neoliberal policy approaches emerge from within neoliberalism, changes are likely to be gradual, cumulative and path-dependent rather than radically breaking with previously enacted policies and institutional frameworks. In addition, it is argued that the legacy of maternalism – deeply entrenched in regional policy frameworks and discourses – creates mounting tensions and contradictions with (post)-neoliberal approaches keen on seeing all adults, including mothers, in paid employment.

The project adopts a theoretically pluralist and interdisciplinary approach drawing on conceptual and methodological tools from historical institutionalism, feminist theory and political economy.

Research interests: institutional change; gender & development; social policy; care economy & care arrangements

Published Work

• Razavi, Shahra and Silke Staab, eds. (in progress) Worlds Apart? (Re)thinking Care in a Development Context. New York, Routledge.
• Razavi, Shahra and Silke Staab (2010) “Underpaid and overburdened: A cross-national perspective on care workers”. International Labour Review 149(4).
• Guzman, Virginia, Ute Seibert and Silke Staab (2010) “Democracy in the country but not in the home? Religion, politics and women’s rights in Chile”. Third World Quarterly 31(6).
• Staab, Silke (2010) “Social investment in Chile and Latin America: Towards Equal Opportunities for Women and Children?” Journal of Social Policy 39(4).
• Staab, Silke and Roberto Gerhard (2010). Early Childhood Education and Care Policies in Latin America: For women or children or both? Gender and Development Programme Paper No. 10, United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD), Geneva. Avaliable online: http://www.unrisd.org/unrisd/website/document.nsf/8b18431d756b708580256b6400399775/5f0320f46ecba3bfc1257744004bb4e8/$FILE/StaabGerhard.pdf
• Razavi, Shahra and Silke Staab (2010) “Gender, Poverty and Inequality: The Role of Markets, States and Households”. in Chant, Sylvia (ed.): International Handbook on Gender and Poverty, Edward Elgar Publishing: Northampton.
• Staab, Silke (2009) “Familien, Frauen und ‘Freiwillige’: Die Grenzen unbezahlter Pflege im entwicklungspolitischen Kontext [Families, women and volunteers – The limits of unpaid care in a development context]”. Peripherie – Zeitschrift für Politik und Ökonomie in der Dritten Welt 114/115.
• Staab, Silke and Kristen Maher (2006) “The Dual Discourse about Peruvian Domestic Workers in Santiago de Chile: Class, Race, and a Nationalist Project”. Latin American Journal of Politics and Society 48(1), pp. 87-116.
• Maher, Kristen and Silke Staab (2005) “Nanny Politics: The dilemma of working women’s empowerment in Santiago, Chile”. International Feminist Journal of Politics 7(1), pp. 71-88
• Staab, Silke (2004). In search of work: International Migration of Women in Latin America and the Caribbean. Women and Development Series 51, Proyecto CEPAL-GTZ « Políticas laborales con enfoque de género ». Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), Santiago de Chile.

Other Work

Over the past six years, I have been working on gender, care and social policy for different U.N. agencies and non-governmental organizations, including the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD) and CARE International.