Entry points for enabling gender equality in agricultural and environmental innovation

Men and women on average report growing power and freedom to shape their lives as well as declining poverty in their villages across the 137 GENNOVATE village-level case studies. Wider forces in the macro environments as well as improvements in rural livelihoods due to agricultural innovation contribute importantly to these promising trends. Yet, beneath these broad patterns, the GENNOVATE data show strong differences in how men and women – and their communities – experience and benefit from innovation processes. The research communities experiencing more inclusive innovation processes and rapid poverty reduction offer valuable lessons on which agricultural research and development (R&D) can build

Local normative climate shaping agency and agricultural livelihoods in sub-Saharan Africa

We introduce the concept of local normative climate to improve understanding of community- level social processes that shape women’s and men’s sense of agency and capacities for taking important decisions, including in their agricultural livelihoods. The idea of normative climate is informed by feminist literature that addresses concerns for the contextual, fluid, and relational properties of gender norms. We apply normative climate to a qualitative examination of men’s and women’s assessments of decade-long changes in their decision-making capacity in two village case studies as well as comparatively with 24 village cases from seven sub-Saharan African countries. The case studies reveal how a normative climate is shaped by contextual influences that give rise to social processes where, for instance, changes in decision-making and agricultural opportunities may be perceived as empowering by only men in one village, and only by women in the other village. Comparative findings highlight how perceptions of agency are rooted in fluid normative expectations that evolve differently for women and men as they move through their life cycle and as local institutions and opportunities change

Local normative climate shaping agency and agricultural livelihoods in sub-Saharan Africa

We introduce the concept of local normative climate to improve understanding of community- level social processes that shape women’s and men’s sense of agency and capacities for taking important decisions, including in their agricultural livelihoods. The idea of normative climate is informed by feminist literature that addresses concerns for the contextual, fluid, and relational properties of gender norms. We apply normative climate to a qualitative examination of men’s and women’s assessments of decade-long changes in their decision-making capacity in two village case studies as well as comparatively with 24 village cases from seven sub-Saharan African countries. The case studies reveal how a normative climate is shaped by contextual influences that give rise to social processes where, for instance, changes in decision-making and agricultural opportunities may be perceived as empowering by only men in one village, and only by women in the other village. Comparative findings highlight how perceptions of agency are rooted in fluid normative expectations that evolve differently for women and men as they move through their life cycle and as local institutions and opportunities change

Gendered aspirations and occupations among rural youth, in agriculture and beyond: A cross-regional perspective

Based on 25 case studies from the global comparative study ‘GENNOVATE: Enabling gender equality in agricultural and environmental innovation’, this paper explores rural young women’s and men’s occupational aspirations and trajectories in India, Mali, Malawi, Morocco, Mexico, Nigeria, and the Philippines. We draw upon qualitative data from 50 sex-segregated focus groups with the youth to show that across the study’s regional contexts, young rural women and men predominantly aspire for formal blue and white-collar jobs. Yet, they experience an aspiration achievement gap, as the promise of their education for securing the formal employment they seek is unfulfilled, and they continue to farm in their family’s production. Whereas some young men aspired to engage in knowledge-intensive or ‘modern’ agriculture, young women did not express any such interest. Framing our analysis within a relational approach, we contend that various gender norms that discriminate against women in agriculture dissuade young women from aspiring for agriculture-related occupation. We discuss the gendered opportunity spaces of the study sites, the meanings these hold for allowing young women and men to achieve their aspirations and catalyze agricultural innovation, and implications for agricultural policies and research for development. Our findings show that youth and gender issues are inextricably intertwined and cannot be understood in isolation one from the other

Forests, farmers and the state : environmentalism and resistance in northeastern Thailand

The Isan farmers in Ubonratchatani province of Northeast Thailand employ Buddhist as well as modernist environmental arguments to resist the spread of commercial eucalyptus plantations carried out by the state. Villagers affected by the consequences of commercial forestry have made a metaphorical link between eucalyptus, destructive exploitation and coercive power. The central argument of the present study is that local environmentalism is a reaction against a government policy which in itself is formulated in conservationist terms. The focus is on the conflict between Thai foresters and Nong Wai Ngam farmers, and how the forest authorities justify their promotion of eucalyptus in conservationist terms, arguing that the species is useful for rehabilitating degraded tropical monsoon forest, while the local villagers protest by inverting the foresters' terms, combining them both with their own farming wisdom and with 'scientific' arguments. The study describes how the forestry debate has been revitalised by inserting political, cultural and religious issues into the eucalyptus question, turning it into an idiom of general resistance. The thesis discusses the forms of village resistance, at the levels of linguistic practice as well as of concrete action ranging from small-scale sabotage to violence. Fieldwork was carried out in 1989-91 and 1993, mainly by participant observation. Intensive interviews, situational analysis and life-history approaches were combined to reconstruct the large-scale processes whereby ideas are transmitted to the Nong Wai Ngam people as well as to give a picture of the environment within which these farmers are acting. The author argues that the practice of resistance engenders changes in the ways parties to the conflict behave and think. Trying to defend what they perceive as central to their culture people make ideational and practical innovations. In the process of the struggle these adaptations develop beyond the original concerns and transform the culture itself

Gendered mobilities and immobilities: Women’s and men’s capacities for agricultural innovation in Kenya and Nigeria

This paper discusses how gendered mobilities and immobilities influence women’s and men’s capacities to innovate in agriculture. The authors analyze four case studies from Western Kenya and Southwestern Nigeria that draw on 28 focus group discussions and 32 individual interviews with a total of 225 rural and peri-urban women, men and youth. Findings show that women in both sites are less mobile than men due to norms that delimit the spaces where they can go, the purpose, length of time and time of day of their travels