Struggling with Development is a study of the complex relationships among international development, hunger, and gender in the context of political violence in the Philippines. This ethnography demonstrates that gender-specific international development, which has among its main goals the alleviation of hunger in women and children and the raising of women's social position, has instead perpetuated the problems of hunger and gender inequality in societies.

Lynn Kwiatkowski also demonstrates how health care has been used in a variety of ways by different groups to serve ends other than the reduction of hunger or illness, including religious healing and military and revolutionary healing generated during the internal political conflict in the Philippines. Struggling with Development will be useful for advanced courses in medical anthropology and sociology, gender studies, development studies, and Asian studies.