Staying Grounded (eBook)

Women, Land, and Uncertainty in Burkina Faso

Martina Cavicchioli (Autor)

eBook Download: PDF

2023
316 Seiten
Regiospectra Verlag Berlin
978-3-947729-47-0 (ISBN)

Infos

Since the late 1990s, securing women’s access to land has become prominent in development agendas. However, the lack of a conceptual framing of women’s individual farming has often led to misconceptions around how women understand agriculture and the role of land in their livelihoods.
Building on the ethnographic case of fields called beolse that are allocated for individual use in Moore-speaking areas of Burkina Faso, this book presents the perspectives of ten women with different socioeconomic backgrounds and investigates how they conceive of land within their livelihood strategies and horizons of expectations. A double-edged sword, land is a pillar in women’s activity portfolios and an asset severely put to the test by both environmental shifts and the indefinite duration of its use rights, making its value contingent on women’s life circumstances. While considering beolse as ‘cornerstones’ in times of uncertainty, women tend to regard individual farming as equal to other income-earning options during moments of social and economic stability. Those shifting evaluations overlap with the social expectation that every married woman should farm an individual field, making beolse tokens of moral integrity. Challenging the widespread depiction of women in Africa as unconditionally committed to farming, this book provides a new perspective on women’s diverse motivations for agriculture and suggests pursuing interventions that address land access and use as components of women’s livelihoods.

Inhalt

Acknowledgementsv
List of Figuresxi
List of Photographsxii
List of Tablesxiii

Chapter 1
Introduction1
1.1 Situating Women and Individual Farming Under Changing Agrarian Landscapes 5
1.2 Women and Individual Farming in Burkina Faso9
1.2.1 Burkina Faso’s Policies Addressing Access to Land for Women 9
1.2.2 The Field Site12
1.2.3 Women and Individual Farming in Mossi Studies20
1.3 Research Questions and Planning24
1.3.1 Research Questions 24
1.3.2 Fieldwork Organization25
1.4 Outline of the Book27

Chapter 2
Understanding Women’s Individual Fields: Epistemological Bewilderments and New Approaches31
2.1 Women’s Contribution to Household Economies and Agriculture: An Overview of the Main Theories and Approaches34
2.1.1 From Unitary to “Non-pooling” Households34
2.1.2 Division of Labor 41
2.1.3 A (Com)Promised Land? 49
2.2 Understanding Women’s Individual Fields Through the Uncertainty Lens54
2.2.1 Uncertainty and Intentional Action 55
2.2.2 An Approach to Understanding Women’s Individual Fields 58

Chapter 3
“Our ‘Pen’ is the Hoe We Use to Farm”: Negotiating Access to the Field 61
3.1 Doing Fieldwork in Tɩstenga: Setting the Scene63
3.1.1 The Host Family66
3.1.2 The Research Assistants68
3.1.3 The Female Informants 69
3.2 Research Methods72
3.2.1 Participant Observation 73
3.2.2 Semi-structured Interviews 75
3.2.3 Survey Questionnaires77
3.2.4 Compound Sketches and Field Measurements78
3.2.5 Reflections on the Use of Pseudonyms and the “Promise” of Confidentiality80

Chapter 4
Allocating and Managing Land in Tɩstenga: Households’ Livelihood Priorities and Land Use Practices83
4.1 Land Distribution and Allocation Practices in Mossi Households 85
4.1.1 Household Head’s Fields (zaksoaba-pυto)88
4.1.2 Individual Fields (beolse)91
4.1.3 Land Allocation within Households98
4.2 “The entire village is full of hay!” Managing Land under Environmental Challenges100
4.2.1 Rainfall102
4.2.2 Soil Types and their Classification104
4.2.3 Farming Inputs108
4.2.4 Farmed Crops and their Uses 110
4.2.5 Fields for Food, Fields for Sale124
4.3 Where Do Gender and Field Categories Meet?136

Chapter 5
Beolse Stories: Land in Women’s Biographical Narratives143
5.1 Land, Biographies, and the Politics of Storytelling 144
5.1.1 A Thorough Investment: The Story of Nafissata148
5.1.2 The Unexpected Loss: The Story of Zenaabo 156
5.1.3 The Naked Soil: The Story of Asseta164
5.1.4 “Discovering” beolga: The Story of Thérèse172
5.2 Dimensions of (In)Security179
5.2.1 Social Circumstances181
5.2.2 Material Circumstances184
5.3 Beolga and its Evaluative Shifts186

Chapter 6
Setεεga: Architectures of Provisioning191
6.1 Exploring Women’s Economic Arrangements192
6.1.1 Beolga, An (Un)certain Ground 193
6.1.2 Other Income-Generating Activities210
6.1.3 Arranging Activity Portfolios218
6.2 Staying Grounded While “Keeping the Flow Moving”228
6.2.1 “Postures”: Unpacking Anticipation228
6.2.2 Cornerstones230

Chapter 7
Tιlε: Of Land and Its Moral Ambivalences237
7.1 Behind the Norm 239
7.2 “By not giving a beolga you will let her fall”: Beolga as a Husband’s Duty241
7.2.1 “They will tell you that you have a household head”241
7.2.2 “If he doesn’t ask, he doesn’t love his wife”244
7.2.3 Narratives of “Love” in Land Negotiations 246
7.3 “Your gain is your gain; your loss is your loss”: Beolga as
a Wife’s Duty?247
7.3.1 “The lazy woman will wander without a cloth to wear”: Narratives of Laziness249
7.3.2 “You can’t force someone to eat if she’s not hungry”: Diverting Preferences?253
7.4Beyond the Norm? 256

Chapter 8
Conclusion261
8.1 Summary261
8.2 New Perspectives on Women’s Involvement in Individual Farming269
8.3 Recommendations for Policy Makers and Practitioners274

References279
ANNEX A: Women’s management of beolse based on data relative to rainy season 2017293
ANNEX B: Quantity and use of beolse harvests in terms of the yields gathered after the 2016 rainy season295
ANNEX C: Management, average gains, and evaluations of income-generating activities which informants were undertaking in the period between November 2016 and October 2017297

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 18.9.2023
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Sozialwissenschaften ► Ethnologie
• Schlagworte: Agriculture • Anthropology • beolga • Burkina Faso • farming • Kouritenga • Setεεga • sorghum • Storytelling • Tɩstenga • Tιlε • Western Africa • Women
• ISBN-10: 3-947729-47-2 / 3947729472
• ISBN-13: 978-3-947729-47-0 / 9783947729470