Uneven Empowerment: Negotiating Gender, Institutions, and Sustainability through Self-Help Groups in Kenya

Abstract This study examines how women in Kisauni, coastal Kenya, experience empowerment through Self-Help Groups (SHGs) amid intersecting cultural, institutional, and economic constraints. Drawing on qualitative data from focus groups and key informant interviews, and guided by Kabeer’s resources – agency – achievements framework and Zimmerman’s model of psychological empowerment , the analysis conceptualizes empowerment as a dynamic, non-linear, and context-specific process. SHG participation enhanced women’s financial capability, confidence, and collective solidarity, yet progress remained uneven across education, class, and age. Patriarchal family relations, care burdens, and institutional fragility constrained the translation of resources into agency and sustained achievements. By linking micro-level experiences to macro-level policy frameworks, the study demonstrates that SHGs can advance Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs 1, 5, 8, and 10) only when supported by gender-responsive institutions and care-sensitive governance. Theoretically, it contributes to the decolonization of empowerment studies by foregrounding African women’s agency and reframing empowerment as a relational, negotiated, and sustainable practice that connects gender justice, institutional accountability, and collective care in the Global South. Theoretically, it contributes to the decolonization of empowerment studies by foregrounding African women’s agency and reframing empowerment as a relational, negotiated, and sustainable practice – situated within context-specific moral economies and care relations that advance feminist sustainability scholarship in the Global South.