Women's group-based work and rural gender relations in the southern Peruvian Andes

This article explores how gendered roles and identities are being negotiated in the context of rural development interventions, using the case study of women's group-based craft production in the Puno region of the Southern Peruvian Andes. It argues that membership of producer groups has had positive effects on women's self-esteem and, at least in some cases, on their relationships with their male partners. However, the transformative potential of rural development interventions targeting women may be limited by cultural norms that continue to define gender roles in relation to male domination and female subordination.