This anthropological study examines the complexity and importance of gender
relations for livelihood activities and it looks at the way in which femaleheaded
agricultural households in the Ethiopian highlands cope in an area
renowned for livelihood vulnerability, drought and famine. It is based on
ethnographic fieldwork which was carried out in South Wollo for a year. The
thesis explores the many ideas, notions and values that underlie people’s
subsistence behaviour and investigates how this is embedded in the context of
land policy, economic systems and, importantly, relationships and morality.
Relating to others means observing shared norms and values, and the gender
order makes particular, morally charged expectations of how women and men
of various ages and positions should behave. Gender has important implications
for experience, knowledge and cultural conceptions and it is an organizing
principle. This thesis shows however that the greatest difference in terms of
poverty and vulnerability is not simply that between female-headed households
and male-headed households.
The ethnography presented demonstrates that it is relevant in understanding
people’s livelihood strategies to consider how several factors work in a
complex synergy. It stresses the importance to understand how people acquire
resources and which ones they have access to but also to examine the way
labour and economic transactions are embedded in social relations. Finally,
there are also significant structural factors, such as the state, that nourish or
constrain local spheres of action. The thesis shows that it is important to take
note of gender differences in relations to key economic resources in local
society, particularly in relation to rural development planning.Swedish text with English summary
