This second edition is not merely an updated version of the first, rather it is an opportunity to bring our original study to a wider audience - in response to significant demand since 1991 - and to enlarge the publication in two respects.
First, one of us has had the opportunity to replicate the study in a seventh location: the Seychelles, this means that the Indian Ocean is represented alongside the Caribbean and the South Pacific and some additional perspectives are observed. However, since half a decade had elapsed between the original study and the undertaking of the Seychelles fieldwork, it would not be proper to interpret this 1996 information within the cross-cutting thematic discussion that precedes the case studies. We have therefore placed the Seychelles section as an appendix. We recognise of course that the passage of time may have rendered certain comments or observations in respect of particular issues in particular places redundant. In general though we do not feel that a great deal has changed. The problem of female disadvantage is deeply rooted and still near universal.
Secondly, this edition is being published at the same time as a second volume, a selective and partially annotated bibliography of near global proportions. Although extending far beyond the original six countries, this bibliography owes its existence to the present study and is another response to the demand apparently created by it for more bibliographical information.
We are greatly encouraged by the interest our work has generated and hope that this new resource will assist a new generation of researchers in examining an issue that lies at the very heart of development: as one prominent scholar in this field has it: "without women - no development."
CB, NKC March 1997.
