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I found Sherry Ortner's essay, "Power and Projects: Reflections on Agency" particularly interesting in how it discusses the intersections of "projects". She cited an example from Nicole Constable's study of Filipina domestic workers in Hong Kong claiming that there are various projects at work between the employer and employee. She discusses the increase in agency, and in this case, power the domestic helpers have in their jobs as they build a sense of community and join organizations that protect their rights. I find Ortner's essay conciderably progressive in a sense because she understands that there are numerous forms of agency at play. In my anthropologicaly studies, I feel like there is this tendancy to view agency in one way: the western, more powerful nations have agency where as the "other", weaker (and feminized) nations do not. Ortner diffuses this kind of thinking by claiming that the "other" do have agency, but of a different form. I always find it really frustrating to hear about western feminists who describe women's conditions in developing countries in ways that completely deny them agency, often talking for them and about their lives without any significant input. I can't help but think of the current situation in Afghanistan where the U.S. (a powerful and therefore masculine nation) wants to go into Afghanistan to "save the oppressed women." I feel like statements like this deny Afghani women any agency by ignorning their cultural or social "projects" as Ortner discusses in relation to the Magar people. By swooping in and claiming that they know what is best and taking control of the situation, the U.S. ignores the important social histories of the country. I guess that's just something I've been thinking about, especially if we begin to think outside of issues directly pertaining to our community and more towards a transnational one.