Liberation, feminism, and development communication

This essay notes the relative neglect of considerations of both liberation and gender in the scholarship and practice of development communication. Li beration perspectives on development, grounded in religion and spirituality , argue for individual and collective empowerment, and therefore appear to offer consistency with feminist thought. In practice, it is unclear to what extent women are included or empowered in applications of liberation theol ogy to development communication. This paper argues that the theory and pra ctice of development communication would be strengthened by drawing on insi ghts from both feminism and liberation theology.