Gender Relations In Rural Transformation

This study set out to illustrate and understand how the ongoing processes of rural transformation are influencing women’s and men’s labor, and broader gender relations among the Kenyah. It examines the changes that have occurred in two Uma’ Jalan Kenyah villages in East Kalimantan – based on previous longterm ethnographic research (beginning in 1979 and continuing periodically until 2004), ending with a Rapid Rural Appraisal visit in 2019. Various development efforts have altered these peoples’ environment, from dense tropical rainforest in the 1970s, through extensive forest loss due successively to logging, industrial timber plantations and transmigration. Most recently oil palm plantations have flourished over much of the province (including the two study communities), prompting radical changes to people’s agricultural practices. Here, we examine the implications of these changes for men’s and women’s lives, roles and interactions. The most surprising finding is the continuation of comparatively equitable gender dynamics among the Kenyah. This is in the face of narratives and policies – from education, government, business and religion – with seriously marginalizing gender implications, to which the people are increasingly exposed.

Provides an overview of the potential role of organic agriculture in a global perspective. This book discusses political ecology, ecological justice, ecological economics, and free trade. It includes role of organic agriculture for improving soil fertility, nutrient cycling and food security and reducing veterinary medicine use, and more.

Rural transformation is central to the broader structural transformation process taking place in developing countries — fueled by the globalization of value chains, changing food systems, new technologies, conflict and displacement, and climate change, among other factors. Rural transformation refers to the process whereby rural economies diversify into nonfarm activities, agriculture becomes more capital-intensive and commercially oriented, and linkages with neighboring towns and cities grow and deepen (Berdegué, Rosada, and Bebbington 2014). It can bring about fundamental changes in the way businesses and households organize, such as the commercialization and diversification of agricultural production; increased agricultural productivity; migration; and the emergence of a broader set of rural livelihood activities.

This book aims to unravel how rural gender regimes are constituted, enforced, made sense of and resisted, and how struggles of resistance lead to empowerment and change in various countries in the four corners of Europe as well as Australia and India. The book focuses on the intricate relationship between laws and institutions and everyday life. It analyzes on the one hand how laws and institutions are constituted and on the other hand how gender regimes are built at the local rural level, sometimes in compliance with these frames and sometimes contesting them. The articles, in diverse ways, give voice both to women's struggles for recognition and men's voices in gendered rural societies. Through applying the concepts of the welfare state and gender regimes within rural research, this book contributes to the further development of a comparative theoretical framework for rural gender studies. The importance of integrating rural gender studies into both the mainstreams of rural and feminist research has been emphasized in previous research, as has that of developing comparative analytical frameworks. The conceptual framework adopted in this volume sets out to meet this challenge by approaching rural gender relations as the meeting point of two core research areas: gender regimes and rural transformative processes. Research into gender regimes offers a promising analytical framework for comparing gender relations in diverse rural settings. At the same time, by addressing rural concerns deriving from the specificity of rural transition processes and gender regimes, the approach also contributes to an elucidation of the complexity of citizenship. Book jacket.

Originally published in 1994, this book brings together papers developing feminist analyses of the rural condition from a wide range of industrialised countries, informed by the national and local cultural constructions of gender and rurality which they interpret. The chapters address the gendered power relations of rural households and agricultural science; women’s mobilisation in farming and environmental politics; the intersection of domestic and rural values and practices as they shape gender identities.

This exciting new book brings together renowned international scholars to explore the gender effects of the current transformation of agriculture and rural life. It presents a comparative perspective on key research themes of rural gender relations, with each section beginning with a comprehensive overview. Five themes are addressed: developments in rural gender theory and research methodology; changes in farm households; patterns of rural migration; the impact of national and international policies; and the construction of gender identities as a result of rural changes. Contributors include scholars from Europe, North America, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand.

This book explores how rural gender relations are changing in a globalizing world and how they fundamentally impact the structure of agricultural life in rural areas and urban-rural relations. It analyzes the development of rural gender relations in specific places around the world and looks into the effects of the increasing connectivity and mobility of people across places. The themes covered are: gender and mobility, gender and agriculture, gender and rural politics, rurality and gender identity, and women and international development. Each theme has an overview of the state of the art in that specific thematic area and integrates relevant case studies.

China's countryside is being transformed by rapid, far-reaching development. This wide-reaching and multidisciplinary book questions whether gender politics are changing in response to this development, and explores how gender politics inform and are reproduced or reconfigured in the languages, knowledge, processes and practices of development in rural China. The contributors - prominent scholars in the fields of political science, sociology, gender, development and Chinese studies - argue that although gender has been elided in recent development policies, women have been singled out as a 'vulnerable group' requiring protection, instruction and 'empowerment' from paternalistic state and NGOs. Nevertheless, development has facilitated the dissemination of gender equality as an ideal and institutional norm, increased the channels through which women can advance claims for equal rights, and expanded the possibilities for agency available to them. Drawing on extensive field research in sites across China, from remote communities in Inner Mongolia and Guizhou to the fringes of expanding cities, the contributors illustrate how different women are bringing their own aspirations for development to bear in the momentous changes occurring in rural China. This compelling and thought-provoking book will be of interest to scholars, students and researchers in the fields of public and social policy, sociology, political economy, anthropology, gender and development.