Participation in women’s groups: a mean to overcome oppression? : A Field Study made in urban Bolivia

Sammanfattning: This Bachelor’s thesis is the result of a field study conducted in urban Bolivia. The aim of the study was to get a deeper understanding of the factors that can endorse or limit the potential for the women in a women’s group to influence social and economic agendas. It is a qualitative study that concerns the international social work with a women’s group, whose purpose seek to serve professional management in the production and selling of handicrafts. Participant observations in the women’s group, as well as interviews with two of the international social workers involved with the group were conducted. The results were analysed using a feminist theory perspective, with intersectionality theory as the main tool for analysis. The findings show that the access to income-generating activities can widen the elements of social identification for the women through active learning-processes, and further move towards an image where they become social actors. Concerns regarded if decision-making power were equally distributed among all women in the group.