Agency, injury, and transgressive politics in neoliberal times

Through an analysis of agency and risk, this article argues that an outcome-driven agenda of neoliberal developmentalism treats women’s agency as an instrument of social change without giving sufficient attention to existing power relations in which agential capacities are formulated and exercised, and in which risk is negotiated and managed. Analyzing the Women’s Development Programme in Rajasthan, India, we argue that an individualized development logic continues to disregard the injuries to those it mobilizes; we suggest that this trend needs to be challenged in order to support sustainable participation