Women & Gender

Articles, communiques and actions focusing on the particular needs, concerns or struggles of women related to agrarian reform and rural development.

The Global Campaign for Agrarian Reform and the Struggle for Gender Equality
Sofía Monsalve Suárez, FIAN International / LRAN
September 05, 2005 - One of the dangers in presenting analyses around gender and land is that it can too easily be compartmentalized, with the analysis plucked away from the patriarchal mainstream of land politics. Once they have been de-contextualized, free-floating ideas about ‘gender and land’ lend themselves to policy interventions that attempt to ‘mainstream’ them once again. Yet gender politics in debates around land are not supplementary analyses to be ‘mainstreamed’, nor ahistorical complaints about power, but actively constructed through existing institutional politics. In order to address this concern, this chapter begins with a short introduction to the institutional context and location of the gender politics that I address, specifically looking at Via Campesina and the Global Campaign for Agrarian Reform, before moving to consider the gendered land politics that have been addressed through these forums.

Democracy and its Simulacra
Raj Patel, Centre for Civil Society
December 20, 2004 - Drawing on the experiences of peasant struggles and landless movements from three continents, Mr.Patel provides a sophisticated analysis of the democratization of an "agrarian revolution" emerging around the world. The author makes the case that democracy from below is the central vehicle in the struggle against World Bank rural development policy. In the words and actions of landless movement representatives and peasant organizations, who participated in the World Forum on Agrarian Reform this past December, he finds evidence that "democracy is powerful stuff".

Agrarian Change , Gender and Land Reform: A South African Case Study
Cherryl Walker, UNRISD
November 05, 2003 - A paper exploring the history of land reform in South Africa since its democratic transition in 1993/94 up until 2000. The report explores how parallel movements towards land reform and women's rights failed to create opportunities for realizing gender equity in the rural sector.

Land Rights for Women Still Far From Becoming a Reality
Zarina Geloo, ipsnews.net
October 16, 2003 - The governement in Zambia has directed local authorities to allocate land to more women in an effort to empower them through land ownership. Critics and some local women have raised concerns as to how this political commitment to women will actually be realized.