Women cross-border traders: Rethinking global trade

Manisha Desai looks at how poor women have used global economic openings to become cross-border traders. She argues that in the process they have developed regional socioeconomic networks that have enabled them to raise their standard of living. Cross-border trade has also enabled women to become independent, to articulate a new collective identity, and to develop local and regional economies based on creative responses to the uncertainties created by the structural adjustment programmes in the region.