Jointly coordinated by Isis International and Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era (DAWN), this 1988 collection examines the impacts of 1980s macroeconomic crises on Latin American women. Employing a Third World feminist political economy framework, the text argues that state responses to economic shocks often relied on women’s uncompensated labour to meet basic household needs. At the same time, the contributors examine how these crises contributed to new forms of collective action.

The publication links macro-level issues, such as external debt, to the everyday realities of women’s lives, utilising a cross-class and regional approach to analyse diverse experiences. A central concern is the impact of development strategies centred on economic growth, which the authors argue frequently intensified existing social inequalities. The collection discusses alternative approaches to economic policy that prioritise basic human needs and documents the emergence of grassroots organisations, labour unions, and regional feminist movements in response to the crisis. Through these analyses, the volume examines the relationship between economic restructuring, women’s labour, and collective organising in Latin America.