author: Stock, R. (2021).
year: 2021
title: "Bright as night: Illuminating the antinomies of `gender positive’ solar development"
publisher: World Development
uri: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2020.105196
pubtype: article
discipline: development

country: India
period: 2018
maxlength: 1
targeting: implicit
group: women
data: baseline survey, interviews

design: observational
method: quantitative survey and in-depth interviews; discourse analysis
sample: 200
unit: household
representativeness: subnational, rural
causal: 0 # 0 correlation / 1 causal

theory: authoritative knowledge power framework (Laclau&Mouffe)
limitations: no causal research
observation:
  - intervention: infrastructure
    institutional: 0
    structural: 1
    agency: 0
    inequality: gender; income; spatial
    type: 1 # 0 vertical / 1 horizontal
    indicator: 0 # 0 absolute / 1 relative
    measures: employment
    findings: insignificant increased employment probability; advantaged women predominantly belong to dominant castes
    channels: project capture by village female elites; women of disadvantaged castes further excluded from training and work opportunities
    direction: 1 # 0 neg / 1 pos
    significance: 0 # 0 nsg / 1 msg / 2 sg

notes:
annotation: | 
  An observational study looking at the inclusionary or exclusionary effects of the infrastructure development of a solar park in India which specifically aims to work towards micro-scale equality through regional upliftment.
  The project included a training and temporary employment to local unskilled/semi-skilled labor.
  It finds that the development instead impacted equality negatively, creating socio-economic exclusion and disproportionately negatively affected women of lower castes.
  While acquiring basic additional skills, none of the women participating in training remained connected to the operators of the solar park and none were hired. 
  An insignificant amount of women from local villages were working at the solar park, of which most belonged to the the dominant caste, and the redistributive potential was stymied through capture by village female elites.
  The author suggests this is an example of institutional design neglecting individual agency and structural power relations, especially intersectional inequalities between gender and caste.
  The study is limited in explanatory power through its observational design, not being able to make causal inferences.
