Maxine Molyneux

Former Collaborating Researcher

Maxine Molyneux is the Senior External Adviser of the UNRISD project on Gender Justice, Development and Rights.
Maxine Molyneux is Professor of Sociology at the Institute of Latin American Studies, University of London where she directs a Masters Degree in Globalization and teaches courses on Society and Development, and Gender and Politics in Latin America. She was awarded her Phd in Sociology at the University of Essex in 1983 where she taught for many years before taking up posts at the University of London, first at Birkbeck College (Politics and Sociology Department) then at ILAS where she has been since 1994. She has written extensively in the fields of feminist theory, politics and development studies and her essays have been published in ten languages. A long-standing commitment to comparative research is reflected in her publications: an early interest in socialist states led to monographs on the Ethiopian Revolution and on South Yemen. Recent work has been on three principle areas, that of post-socialist transitions, Latin American democratisation, and a series of comparative studies of gender, citizenship and state formation. Her current work is on issues of gender, rights and justice in Latin America. She was a co-founder of Feminist Review, and is an editor of Economy and Society. She has acted as a consultant to several UN agencies in Europe and Latin America, as well as to Oxfam and other NGOs. She has recently completed two research projects, one for UNRISD with Shahra Razavi and one with Sian Lazar, for the British government's Department for International Development, on themes of women’s rights in cross cultural settings both of which are to be published as books.

Selected Publications

>> Books

Gender Justice, Development and Rights (with Shahra Razavi) forthcoming OUP 2002.
Doing the Rights Thing: Rights-based Development and Latin American NGOs (with Sian Lazar) in progress.
Women's Movements in International Perspective: Latin American and Beyond. Palgrave 2000 ( In the process of being translated by Catedra Press, Spain, forthcoming 2003).
The Hidden Histories of Gender and the State in Latin America ed. (with E. Dore), Duke University Press, 2000.
Gender and the Politics of Rights and Democracy in Latin America ed. (with N. Craske) Palgrave 2001

>> Selected Recent Articles

‘Gender and the Silences of Social Capital: Lessons from Latin America’ 2002 Development and Change 33:2.
‘Globalisation and Gender Inequality’ 2002 forthcoming French Cultural Academy Conference Proceedings
‘Ethnography and Global Processes’ Ethnography 2:2, 2001
‘The Politics of the Cuban Diaspora’ in Victor Bulmer-Thomas and James Dunkerley eds. Latin America and the United States 1999 (Harvard and Macmillan).
‘Twentieth Century State Formations in Latin America’ in Dore and Molyneux eds. Hidden Histories (op.cit).
‘Analysing Women’s Movements’ Development and Change pp.219-245 Vol.29.2. Reprinted in C. Jackson and R. Pearson eds. Feminist Visions of Development: Gender Analysis and Policy Routledge, 1998 pp.65-88.
‘Citizenship and Social Policy in Comparative Perspective’ in S. Reuben ed La Política Social en una Epoca de Transicíon Universidad de Costa Rica 2000.