The article analyses women’s and men’s verbal contributions in one Steering Committee meeting of a rural project in North-Western Tanzania: Discourse analysis of a formal meeting in the context of development co-operation allows insights on processes of institutional change. Imbalances in participation in the communicative event reflect asymmetric power relations and exclusion from decision-making. Discrimination based on age, gender and social class is enacted and reproduced in speech. In processes of institutional change, speech strategies are a major instrument in the re-organization of hierarchies.
