The Role of Spirituality in Building Capacity for Women’s Leadership in Crisis Conditions: A Community Level Analysis of Burma

Abstract

This research focuses on women’s leadership roles in crisis conditions with particular attention on the foundations of leadership roles at the community level based on spirituality and religion. There is a substantial gap in understanding women’s roles in development and how the spiritual and religious traditions of communities influence sustainable development efforts in crisis conditions. Even though various international documents have acknowledged the importance of gender in sustainable development, few have gone further to examine the role of women and fewer still have considered the value of women’s traditional leadership roles, emerging from the spiritual and religious context, to community well-being in crisis conditions. This research addresses the following question: How do religious and spiritual traditions contribute to the leadership roles of women that can be effective in building sustainable development in crisis conditions? The chapter uses content analysis of a key body of women’s writings from Burma to explain the ways in which spirituality and religion have played significant roles in promoting leadership of women at the community level for sustainable development under crisis conditions. Although Burma is the case study, this research contributes to the theory and practice of community well-being more broadly in other settings.