Nitya Rao School of International Development University of East Anglia
Policy frameworks for gender equality emphasise women’s access to/control over productive assets. Post 1980’s focus is on: Land rights: Increased from 1% to 10% Credit: 2 ‐ 4% of mainstream credit + microfinance Employment: Decline in decent work opportunities both in quality and earnings, resulting from globalisation and an individualised, monetised, market framework.
Not an implementation / resourcing problem, but an inadequate analytical framework?
Assets Recognition Agency of identity/ Wellbeing Policy & Governance
CONVENTIONAL ALTERNATIVE Assets as economic values Assets as physical & social, – a and material outcomes; source of security, status, Framework is Individualised recognition and meaning; and transactional, Respect, self ‐ worth, ability to compartmentalises the take risks, belongingness are economic and social as coveted assets; distinct categories; Framework of valuation is Men and women seen as dynamic, socially embedded & homogenous, static and recognises mutuality & isolated categories cooperation alongside individual gains.
CONVENTIONAL ALTERNATIVE Victim vs Agent binary Continuums/multidimensional Agency reduced to certain Agency ‐ the ‘ability to define one’s characteristics such as goals and act upon them mobility, decision ‐ making Variations in women’s & men’s capacity. aspirations and practice Attributes of an Positive construction of women’s empowered woman knowledge, skills & identity constructed ‐ the starting Acknowledge women’s everyday point is one of ‘deficits’ struggles for survival, negotiation, and attempts to build shared and reciprocal lives
CONVENTIONAL ALTERNATIVE Top down approach to Lived experiences and ground gender equality through realities of women inform rules, laws and policies; standards of legitimacy; Statutory understanding of Standards of respect, legitimacy as defined by a recognition, ethics and patriarchal state may not legitimacy across institutions. reflect women’s aspirations Mechanisms for accountability, Lack of consistency & transparency, and giving policy contradictions at women voice & representation different levels – economic, within governance structures. social and political.
60 % of world’s population and 57% of poor 30% of total arable land Majority are smallholder cultivators Even with legal (statutory & customary) & policy equality, 10% women have land in their names. Legitimacy to concepts of ‘male head of household’ and ‘Asian values of the family’ acr0ss institutions No linear relationship between land ownership and gender equality: son preference strong in India and China despite women’s economic participation.
Livelihoods Assets Recognition Social Relations & Agency & Wellbeing Kinship Structures Policy & Governance Legitimacy (Legal & Social)
Legal equality assured
Livelihoods State control of over land allocation & production services Rapid urbanisation & migration Urban registration not easily provided Married women concentrated in rural areas Social relations Discrimination against daughters in land allocation Women receive shares from husbands Separated women denied land share Legitimacy Conflict between village rules & law Male names on titles Exclusion from local decision-making Women denied compensation in land appropriation by State Recognition of women as farmers for production support from cooperatives Legal restrictions on redistribution exclude single women
Livelihoods State control of over land allocation & production services Rapid urbanisation & migration Urban registration not easily provided Married women concentrated in rural areas Social relations Discrimination against daughters in land allocation Women receive shares from husbands Separated women denied land share Legitimacy Conflict between village rules & law Male names on titles Exclusion from local decision-making Women denied compensation in land appropriation by State Recognition of women as farmers for production support from cooperatives Legal restrictions on redistribution exclude single women
Legal equality, though with some variations by religion
Livelihoods Private land allocation and control Large-scale male out-migration Feminisation of the rural and agriculture Not recognised, poor services & support Dependence on low paid work Social relations Growing inequality & impoverishment Patrilineal systems deny women rights Quotas in local government, excluded from other institutions Interventions target men Legitimacy Shifts in voice with lifecycle Widow’s rights socially acknowledged Single women seen as deviants Daughters belong to husband’s family Women lack access to cash to buy land Failure to recognise equal entitlements despite joint titles
Livelihoods Private land allocation and control Large-scale male out-migration Feminisation of the rural and agriculture Not recognised, poor services & support Dependence on low paid work Social relations Growing inequality & impoverishment Patrilineal systems deny women rights Quotas in local government, excluded from other institutions Interventions target men Legitimacy Shifts in voice with lifecycle Widow’s rights socially acknowledged Single women seen as deviants Daughters belong to husband’s family Women lack access to cash to buy land Failure to recognise equal entitlements despite joint titles
Ensure legal equality
Livelihoods Land controlled by private small-holders Migration for work by men and women Labour contributions of both spouses Social relations Kinship patterns ensure equal inheritance Female labour contributions central to secure entitlements Legitimacy Commercial land grabs and market Male head of household given regimes reinforce inequality precedence in resource allocation Separated women face difficulties due to state emphasis on the ‘family’
Livelihoods Land controlled by private small-holders Migration for work by men and women Labour contributions of both spouses Social relations Kinship patterns ensure equal inheritance Female labour contributions central to secure entitlements Legitimacy Commercial land grabs and market Male head of household given regimes reinforce inequality precedence in resource allocation Separated women face difficulties due to state emphasis on the ‘family’
Commercialisation and contract farming promoted: embedded in unequal power relations
Abolishes customary rights to both private and common lands; and access to key forest produce Land registered in male names & women excluded from compensation payments Women employed as casual, low paid workers or engaged with unpaid work – labour marginalised Do benefit from male cash earnings, but comes with malpractices
CONVENTIONAL ALTERNATIVE Recognise women’s identity Legal equality established; as legitimate citizens Patriarchy and kinship/ Women’s rights to marital social norms seen as property, not just immutable barriers inheritance Diversity of household (Economic) Partnership in structures not recognised conjugal relations, distinct Single women (separated but complementary interests and divorced) constructed Social valuation of work as ‘deviants’, denied rights (productive & reproductive) central to personal worth & household economy.
Agency as struggles to assert identity, which entails control over bodies (reproductive + labouring) and assertion of intellect: This implies rethinking ‘individual’ decisions: Productive, reproductive, personal (marriage, fertility) and knowledge domains and their relative valuation; Complexity of decision ‐ making and modes/processes of influence (not agency vs absence); Women’s subject ‐ position linked to gender interests; Respond to changes in context (male migration) over time, modes of production and reproduction.
Within a given context, women have an inherent tendency to collectivise around certain activities; Women not a single category, so collective processes can both include and exclude; Who sets the agenda (elite capture?), who participates & the mechanisms through which different voices heard (Fraser, 2009). Negotiation between top ‐ down/modernist visions and submerged/indigenous categories. Multiple levels, spaces and forms of power involved in women’s engagement with social institutions (state, community, media, researchers.), formal & informal.
Start with women’s lives, experiences , their definition, meanings and claims (material and symbolic) around assets and wellbeing; Locate in specific time and space contexts, build linkages with wider environment & levels of analysis: micro to macro.
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