Abstract:
Informal settlements are often a challenge to planning. However, such settlements provide shelter and employment to many low- and middle-income households. Some argue that informality should be regulated, organized, and prepared for integration into formal urbanization. Others believe that informality precedes formal urbanization and is an accepted form of urbanization that should be treated respectfully. Notwithstanding these arguments, informal residents suffer from many social and economic inequalities, ranging from a lack of social protection to not having stable employment. Female informal residents face additional inequalities compared to males. Women often do not have a stable place of business, whether in a public or private non-residential space, and are prohibited from street vending in many countries. Another problem for women in informal settlements is financial exclusion from the economy as a result of not having material collateral. In such environments, the home is for many women both an economic and social unit. One way of reducing multidimensional inequalities against women in informal settlements is to adopt an economic-based approach to empowerment, so as to provide more equity and gender equality. This approach has been practised for many years in the Global South countries and promises to empower informal residents and women of informality by helping them gain material and financial independence. This research is a fundamental investigation into the origins and philosophical foundation of the empowerment approach in informality planning. The research deployed a combination of poststructuralism and post-Marxism theories to deconstruct the empowerment discourse and its effects on working women in informal settlements. The theoretical synthesis of the research revealed that empowerment planning is deeply rooted in neoliberalism and is a hegemonic governmentality for managing informal urbanization. As a poverty-reduction strategy, empowerment policy has invested in the internal economic potentials of informal residents and especially working women of informality. In this respect, an ‘entrepreneurial disciplinary power’ has been deployed to mobilize women of informality within the market economy. This research deployed a case study approach and had 46 interviews to understand the empowerment approach. The case study of the research was an informal settlement, Sahl-Abad, in Shiraz City, Iran. The thesis utilized a discourse analysis method to deconstruct the empowerment approach in case study. The empirical investigation of the research reaffirms the theoretical framework of the thesis and shows that working women in informal settlements have adopted some parts of the empowerment discourse and developed a flexible subjectivity to balance their ever-increasing responsibilities. Based on the theoretical and empirical findings, this thesis asserts that the neoliberal origins of the empowerment approach cannot help planning to fairly treat the working women of informality. The role of planning in this discourse has been instrumental and is a part of hegemonic governmentality. The recommendation of this thesis is a hegemonic re-articulation in terms of women of informality position in which the planning discipline engages with the political aspect of society. This hegemonic approach furnishes a basis of social identification for working women based on their real social roles.