Sylvia Chant

Sylvia_Chant Sylvia Chant is Professor of Development Geography at the London School of Economics and Political Science, UK, where she is Director of the MSc in Urbanisation and Development.

Elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in 2011 and conferred the status of Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in 2015 on grounds of her work on gender and development, Professor Chant’s main interest in Southeast Asia is the Philippines, on which she written (with Cathy McIlwaine) Women of a Lesser Cost: Female Labour, Foreign Exchange and Philippine Development (Pluto, 1995). She has also published a range of books and papers which draw on comparative research on the Philippines, Mexico, Costa Rica, and The Gambia. Sylvia’s primary specialisms are in gender and poverty, female employment and urban labour markets, rural-migration, housing, and female-headed households.

Selected Publications

Chant, Sylvia and McIlwaine, Cathy (2016) Cities, Slums and Gender in the Global South: Towards a Feminised Urban Future. London: Routledge.

Chant, Sylvia (2016) Women, Girls and World Poverty: Empowerment, Equality or Essentialism?. International Development Planning Review, 38(1).

Chant, Sylvia (2015) Female Household Headship as an Asset? Interrogating the Intersections of Urbanisation, Gender and Domestic Transformations. In: Moser, Caroline (ed.) Gender, Asset Accumulation and Just Cities: Pathways to Transformation. London: Routledge, pp. 21-39.

Chant, Sylvia (2015) Gender and Poverty in the Global South. In: Coles, Anne, Gray, Leslie and Momsen, Janet, (eds.) A Handbook of Gender and Development. London: Routledge, pp. 191-203.

Chant, Sylvia (2014) Exploring the ‘Feminisation of Poverty’ in Relation to Women’s Work and Home-based Enterprise in Slums of the Global South. International Journal of Gender and Entrepreneurship, 6(3), pp. 296-316.

Chant, Sylvia and McIlwaine, Cathy (2013) Gendered Urban Prosperity and Women’s Empowerment in 21st Century Cities. La Camera Blu, 7, pp. 87-115.

Chant, Sylvia (2013) Cities Through a ‘Gender Lens’: A Golden ‘Urban Age’ for Women in the Global South?. Environment and Urbanization, 25(1), pp. 9-29.

Chant, Sylvia and Brickell, Katherine (2013) Domesticating (and ‘De-Patriarchalising’) the Development Agenda: A Need for Greater Household (and Family) Engagement in Gender-related Policy Interventions?. In: Rai, Shirin and Waylen, Georgina, (eds.) New Frontiers in Feminist Political Economy. London: Routledge, pp. 85-113.

Public Engagements

Guest lecture, ‘Feminisation of Poverty: Global Construction, Grassroots Perspectives and Going Forward in the Post-2015 Era’, Institute for Women’s Leadership Consortium, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey, November 2015.

Guest lecture, ‘The Feminisation of Poverty as a Global Concept? Reflections from The Gambia, Philippines and Costa Rica’, as Adlerbertska Guest Professor of Sustainable Development, University of Gothenberg Sweden (Centre for Globalisation and Development), May 2013.

Guest lecture, ‘Going Global with the Feminisation of Poverty? Critical Comparative Perspectives from The Gambia, the Philippines and Costa Rica’, Masters Programme in Development Management (LUMID), Department of Human Geography, University of Lund, Sweden, April 2013.

Other

Chant, Sylvia (2015) The ‘Feminisation of Poverty’: A Reflection 20 Years After Beijing, UNRISD Think Piece ‘Let’s Talk About Women’s Rights 20 Years After the Beijing Platform for Action’. Geneva: UNRISD.