Feminist Economics Research

These three volumes are a monumental achievement. They contain 28 of Bina Agarwal’s selected papers published from 1981 to 2011 on gender perspectives in rural and agricultural development, land and property rights, and access to the commons. These do not constitute her total output: she has also published nine books and 82 papers. The achievement lies, however, not in the number of publications nor the diversity of topics covered, but the intellectual breadth, penetrating insightfulness, methodological firmness, and theoretical contributions of Agarwal’s work. In the course of the review she provides significant critiques of other luminaries in the field, Elinor Ostrom and Amartya Sen among them. For this review, I shall consider each volume separately.

Agriculture and Technology