Agriculture and Human Values 18: 5–9, 2001. © 2001 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.
Gender and resource management: Households and groups, strategies and transitions Corinne Valdivia1 and Jere Gilles2
1 Department of Agricultural Economics, Social Sciences Unit; 2 Director of Graduate Studies of Rural Sociology, University of
Missouri-Columbia, Columbia, Missouri, USA
Accepted in revised form September 29, 2000
Abstract. Rural families must constantly negotiate their livelihoods by obtaining access to natural resources, labor, capital, knowledge, and markets. Successful negotiation leads to enhanced family well-being and sustainable use of natural resources. Unsuccessful negotiation threatens family survival, threatens sustainable use of natural resources, and reduces bio-diversity. These negotiation processes are mediated by gender relations. The ideas of negotiation and of survival strategies outlined here provide a framework within which the articles of this issue can be situated. The articles are the result of research on gender and natural resource management conducted in Latin America, Asia, Africa, and North America. Each experience illustrates the consequences for natural resources and family well being when they have voice and when they do not have voice in household decisions. Key words: Gender, Household strategies, Livelihood, Natural resource management, Sustainability Corinne Valdivia, a native of Peru and the US, is Research Assistant Professor in Agricultural Economics at the University of Missouri-Columbia. She was Principal Investigator in Social Sciences in the SR-CRSP from 1994 to 1997. Her research interests focus on food security in African households, climatic variability and rural household welfare in the Andes, and resource management in rural areas. She collaborates with a team of faculty from universities in the US and Mexico on Leadership of Women in Rural Development. She leads a multi-country study of climate vulnerability in the Andes of Peru and Bolivia. Her research interests focus on gender, resource management, technologies, policies, and institutions in the economies of rural areas of developing countries. Jere Gilles, a native of Montana, is an Associate Professor and Director of Graduate Studies of Rural Sociology at the University of Missouri-Columbia. His teaching and research interests are in social change in natural resourcebased communities and on the issues of over-grazing and deforestation. He is currently involved in a study of the changing rural church in Missouri and participates in a NOAA sponsored research program on climate variability in the Andes. Water, land, livestock, crops, and knowledge are essential for the livelihoods of most of the world’s rural families. Agriculture is a major component of rural incomes, especially in the nations of the South. Access to, control over, and management of these resources determine which activities are pursued, which goods may be produced, and whether the lives of rural families are enhanced or diminished. In many cases, gender has a profound influence on the use of these resources. In May of 1998, a group of researchers with an interest in gender shared experiences and insights about the management of natural resources and the pursuit of rural livelihoods met at the Seventh International Symposium of Society and Resource Management. The articles in this issue are a result of this experience. These papers argue that control over
resources may empower individuals in ways that contribute to sustainable lifescapes and landscapes (Flora). Gender is a central element in all of the studies presented here. These articles underscore the close relationship between control and voice, in order to manage natural and other resources in a livelihood improving way (Zwarteveen and Meinzen-Dick; Vázquez; Ximenes; Valdivia; Rimarachín Cabrera et al.). The ability of families to successfully negotiate their survival and possibilities for improved well-being are shaped or mediated by culture, society, policies, environment, and the global markets. This issue addresses gendered access and control of resources and capitals in diverse cultural, political, economic, and agroecological settings of Africa, Asia, Latin America, and North America. Table 1 describes the themes treated by the each of the authors
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C ORINNE VALDIVIA AND J ERE G ILLES Table 1. Gender dimensions of rural livelihood.
Author Zwarteveen and Meinzen-Dick Valdivia Flora Ximenez V´azquez de Haan Rimarach´ın Cabrera et al. Moore et al. Wells
Type of research
Resources
Comparative
X
Comparative Comparative Case study Case study Case study Case study Survey Survey and interviews
X
Sustainability
Access
Food security
Rights
Households
Human capital
Social capital
Knowledge
X X X X
X
X X X
X X X
X
X
X
X X X
in this issue. A common thread in all these articles is that they examine the interrelation between access and control of diverse assets (natural, productive, human, cultural, and social), that allow rural people to improve their well being. When access is limited or insecure, because individuals lack voice, the ability to sustain the natural resource base is endangered. As population and agriculture change, women tend to be marginalized, unless the change increases their control of resources. Marginalization has a significant impact because women’s expenditure patterns normally benefit the family.
Gendered household and livelihood strategies Recent policy changes such as structural adjustment processes in developing countries, and the Freedom to Farm Act in the US, have affected the economic power of men, have integrated women into the labor force, and have eliminated traditional safety nets (Moghadam, 1995). Economic change and gender intersect in several ways. Specific outcomes are affected by ethnicity, culture, policies, and economics. The greater the access to resources, and ownership of assets by women (Valdivia), the more empowered they are (Agarwal, 1994). This empowerment in turn increases welfare expenditures at the household level (Engle, 1995). Understanding the processes of empowerment and marginalization is essential to developing policies and alternatives that will facilitate transitions to an increased well-being. Access and control Access to resources means that individuals, households, or groups are able to use these as assets that can create a stream of benefits (Bebbington, 1999).
X X
X
Resources that are accessed and generate value are also defined as capital. Strategies for use of various forms of capital to create livelihoods give meaning to a person’s world (Bebbington, 1999; Ellis, 1998). Access to resources gives people capability to build their livelihoods. “Assets are not only ‘things’ to allow survival, but they are also the basis of agents of power to act” (Bebbington, 1999: 2022). Access, though, differs from control, in that the latter implies a form of ownership or rights to the resource (Zwarteveen and Meinzen-Dick; Agarwal, 1994; Valdivia). Often women have access through men (Zwarteveen and Meinzen-Dick). Differences between men and women in control over resources and in property rights may lead to inefficient management, and threaten the welfare and food security of rural families (Agarwal, 1994; Quisumbing et al., 1995; Zwarteveen and Meinzen-Dick).
A framework: Negotiations, resources, activities, capitals, and well-being Rural livelihoods are shaped by the ability of individual households, groups, and communities to negotiate among themselves, others, and the markets. Outcomes are determined by a person’s resources and activities – especially the ability to access, acquire, and control the values created by labor and capital. Negotiation signifies maneuvering, dealing, coping, and bargaining with others. This takes place within and among households, the community, and markets. These relations may be established through ownership, through norms of access and control, or through community institutions, or through market relationships. Interactions with the markets and institutions can produce two types of outcomes, expropriation or accumulation (Ferguson, 1992).
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In some contexts, due to the imperfect behavior of the markets, social relations and non-market institutions become the main mechanism in negotiating access to resources, in turn shaping the activities that individuals, households, and families pursue to improve their livelihoods or cope with insecurities (Dunn et al., 1996). Negotiations in pursuing rural livelihoods involve access, control, and/or property of resources and assets or forms of capital (Bebbington, 1999; Flora; De Haan; Zwarteveen and Meinzen-Dick; Valdivia; Wells and Gradwell; Ximenes; Vázquez). The social structures in which these processes are embedded shape the activities pursued, which in turn may result in improved well being (Wells and Gradwell; Valdivia; Ximenes; Ellis, 1998; de Haan; Flora), and may augment one’s capital. However, it may also result in an inability to recover the benefits produced by their labor and investments. This latter situation not only leads to deterioration of human well-being but to losses of bio-diversity, soil, water, and plant life. (Flora; Vázquez; Zwarteveen and Meinzen-Dick; Moore et al.; Rimarachín Cabrera et al.; Ximenes). The idea of “livelihood strategies” concentrates on the process by which families construct portfolios of activities (Valdivia et al., 1996), and the social relations in order to improve their well-being (Kusterer, 1989), or cope with crises. Social relations shape access and control of resources, the stewardship of natural resources, the construction of human and social capital, and the institutions that govern relations. The framework for the analysis of gendered livelihood strategies in rural communities includes analysis of the access to resources and activities pursued through these relations of individuals, households, communities, markets, and society. A common goal in these papers is to understand the effect of gender in shaping livelihood or survival strategies (Ellis, 1998). The household as a unit of analysis encompasses the social relations of production and consumption with labor and relations are used to access resources and appropriate income (Valdivia; Vázquez). The analysis of the household (Vázquez) illuminates the ways in which labor recruitment contracts and residence shape activities and access to resources. The labor process and social organization of work are inseparable from diverse social relations of production. The organization of marriage also shapes dominant notions of gender. It is through claims made in marriage negotiations that cultural conceptions about gender are constructed (Vázquez), the household as a nonunitary entity in which gender is constantly recreated and reproduced, where “social contracts” determine the extent to which resources in land or in people are at the disposition of a household head, or at individuals
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recruited into the household; where power differentials don’t go unchallenged and members of the household develop particular strategies to increase access to resources. Resources, assets, and capital Capital is crucial to livelihood and survival strategies and is clearly gendered. Resources or assets include productive capital, financial capital (Flora), nature (land, water, grazing areas (Zwarteveen and MeinzenDick; Valdivia; Flora; Wells)), human capital (Moore et al; Rimarachín Cabrera et al.; deHaan; Flora), labor (Ximenes; Vázquez; Valdivia) and livestock (Valdivia), cultural (Ximenes), and social capital (de Haan; Flora; Ximenes; Zwarteveen and MeinzenDick; Vázquez). The use of these forms of capital generates values or benefit streams that may be appropriated by individuals, families, communities, or the markets. These forms of capital are also constructed to improve well-being, such as social capital (de Haan; Wells; Ximenes), human capital, and natural capital (Bebbington, 1999; Flora). Families have to produce (create) these forms of capital through investment of their time and resources. The outcomes of these time investments, non marketed goods produced for the family (which are defined as Z goods in the household economics framework), are forms of capital that can be used to improve wellbeing directly or through market negotiations. Reproductive activities (time invested in the production of goods destined for the household wellbeing) where women play a major role as these studies show, directly increase human (nutrition and education), social, and cultural capital. Investing time and resources in strengthening social relations increases social capital. Individual market and non market negotiations are strengthened (or weakened) by access to (or lack of) human, social, and cultural capital. As the creation of these forms of capital is related to the time households and individuals have for these investments, strategies to increase security and well being are closely related to their life cycle (Kusterer, 1989). Natural resources A gender perspective on access and control over resources links lifescapes and landscapes to the notion of sustainability (Flora). For example, women’s knowledge of seed selection is important for maintaining biodiversity (Rimarachín Cabrera et al.). Also the insecure mechanisms that women have to negotiate water access can have a negative impact on the quality and distribution of this resource. Increased women’s participation can strengthen the effective-
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C ORINNE VALDIVIA AND J ERE G ILLES
ness of local organizations and improve compliance with rules and maintenance contributions (Zwarteveen and Meinzen-Dick; Flora). Wells and Gradwell show how women are an important force in Community Supported Agriculture – a food system that manages resources in a more intense and sustainable manner than conventional agriculture. The gendered nature of this approach to farming and living in the US represents a new way of interacting with the markets where agriculture can be smaller scale, more people focused, more nature friendly and community based (Koc and Dahlberg, 1999). Tradeoffs between forms of capital often exist. Cassava production in Amazonia erodes the soils through slash and burn practices and has few economic advantages to its cultivation (Ximenes). But cassava production’s value is in terms of its history, cooperative labor, and food traditions. The social relations that revolve around cassava production strengthen collaboration. Mutual assistance is central to cassava processing, as it turns into demonstration of solidarity among participants, an important construction of social capital that is crucial to many livelihood strategies. Social capital Social capital is gendered (de Haan; Flora; Valdivia), and important in relation to sustainability, as it depends on strengthening communities of interest and communities of place (Flora). The consequences of lack of social capital are more visible in lower social strata. Use of networks, and exchange in kind are mechanisms used by female headed households to access resources. These networks appropriate and distribute resources and they are very attractive targets for development projects because they may improve distribution of benefits while providing social control and discipline. However, “Modernization separates people from their social networks, a common belief that leads to evaluating benefits at the individual level” (de Haan). Groups give women a legitimized and institutionalized context through which they can work (de Haan; Flora). Groups are important for sharing risks and pooling resources. But groups are important in development in terms not only of social capital but also as a potential form of social control (de Haan). Finding mechanisms to include women in participation of groups, and being able to hear their voices is crucial in moving the project goals of sustainable agriculture and natural resource management (Zwarteveen and Meinzen-Dick; Flora).
Assets and control: Empowerment Livestock assets, specifically small ruminants contribute to the income domain of women in many countries, translates into well-being. Findings show women in the Andean communities in a position of control over some activities, which may depend on access to grazing resources, and therefore threatened by interventions through technology that affect access to these areas. Women also negotiate to their advantage the introduction of new technologies, as seen in the adoption of alfalfa, indicating that some do benefit, depending on social differentiation and wealth.
Empowerment livelihoods and the environment Negotiations are a day to day activity with global economy, with the environment, with other members in a community, and in a household. Empowerment, through income and asset control, facilitates women’s negotiations to improved livelihoods (Engle, 1995; Agarwal, 1994; Blumberg, 1995). Empowerment in the management of natural resources in tightly linked to sustainable development. There is need, therefore, for policies that contribute to this empowerment, such that women’s increased control of their income and voice in decisions contribute to a reduction in rural livelihood vulnerability, and its impact on the environment. This voice should be pursued in the context of the day to day management of resources and livelihood decisions, a responsibility that they bear in many communities, through groups. A gender perspective allows us to understand the crucial need to empower women by understanding the consequences of opportunistic behavior (Rakowski, 1995) and the resources power to negotiate.
Conclusion Understanding the relationship that gender has to the manner in which rural families negotiate livelihoods is a theme running throughout this issue. Not only are women the major sources of family well-being but they are stewards of natural and productive resources. If their voices are not heard, their negotiations to provide for the well-being of their families may result in great losses to the environment and to society. The research presented here shows the links between women’s voices or their lack of voice, and the well-being of the environment.
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Acknowledgments We want to acknowledge the Ford Foundation for funds provided through the project “Women Leaders in Rural Development in Mexico” that facilitated participation of Mexican colleagues in the symposium. We also want to thank the people that assisted with the review of the articles, such as Dr. Erin Holleran and Mrs. Colleen Hughes. We are in debt to the anonymous reviewers of all the articles in this edition, and to Dr. Richard Haynes for his support, advice, and review of all the articles.
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[email protected]
