XI World Congress of Rural Sociology

Trondheim, Norway
July 25-30, 2004

The Congress is over.
Information provided here is for reference.

Symposia

Symposium on Gender,
Globalisation and Land Tenure

This symposium focuses on current research supported by the Gender Unit of the International Development Research Centre, Ottawa, in Brazil, Cameroon, Ghana, Kenya and Vietnam. The research investigates the gender dynamics of land tenure, including analysis of the linkages between macro and micro levels, and linkages to and between issues of governance at local, national and international levels, HIV/AIDS, local knowledge and international property rights, livelihood and food security. Methodologically, the research takes a case study approach or engages in a comparative set of case studies. Conceptually, the research makes a contribution to a broadly defined field of political ecology, exploring the political, economic, social and cultural meanings of and relations between nature and society.

The papers presented will investigate the gender dynamics of land tenure, including analysis of linkages between macro and micro levels, and linkages to and between the following: governance at the local, national, or international level; HIV/AIDS; local knowledge and intellectual property rights; livelihood/food security.

Symposium Chair:

Dr. Fiona Mackenzie, Carleton University, Canada, and Arkleton Institute for Rural Development Research, Aberdeen, UK.

Symposium Speakers:

Gender issues and land tenure through a historical review of land reforms in Vietnam
Dr Khuat Thu Nguyen Thi Van Anh

In Vietnam, the Renovation Policy of the government in the mid 1980s had made the shift from the centrally planned economy to the market economy with socialist orientation. Along with other socio-economic reforms, land reforms have been underway resulted in new forms of land use that brought new opportunities for household-based economies. The Land Law introduced in 1993 has been the crucial step in the land reform process of gradually handing down land households and individuals and allowed them more rights to use their allocated land - rights to lease, transfer, exchange, mortgage and inheritance of land. This had put a remarkable impact on poverty alleviation in Vietnam. The change in land tenure pattern from collective to household ones had made changes in households' use of resources and working pattern exposed by each household members, both women, men and children resulted in the fact that farmers work harder and more efficiently use of their households' resources.
Many issues have been raised about gender inequality in land allocation under the context of economic liberation and land reform after the decollectivization period. The emergence of feminization of agriculture work due to male migration, low fertility and son preference, and increasing marital instability could be intricately influence on the gender relation to land tenure, particularly the practice of land inheritance in the context of social influence of patriarchal, and patrilineal kinship systems.
Based on the secondary sources of information, the paper attempts to review issues of gender relation in land tenure in the context of changes in land policies and land reforms in Vietnam over the past few decades of Vietnam with emphazise on the periods after the country's liberation and decollectivization. With focus on the impact of the household-based land tenure system on women's empowerment and women's well being, the paper takes into account gender relations in the extended family as well as nuclear family context, examining how these shape women's access to and/or control of land.
The analysis of the gender relations within and outside households will also draw on the perspective of the social construction of gender. It pays attention on the influences of intra-households relations regarding family inheritance and other types of constrains on women's rights to land.
Results of the review and the field survey of the Project on Gender, Land Tenure, and Globalization carried out in Vietnam will provide insights on the gender dimensions decollectivization and the resulting land tenure system in Vietnam and its implication for women's well-being, vulnerability and empowerment in the process of socio-economic development and globalization.

Changing rural livelihoods, land tenure and gender equity in Ghana: The Case of Small Scale Mining in North Eastern Ghana
Dr. Dzodzi Tsikata, ISSER
Dr. Mariama Awumbila, Geography Department, University of Ghana

This presentation will focus on how small scale mining, which has become significant in parts of the Upper East Region of Ghana in the last 10 years is changing rural livelihoods, land relations and gender relations. It will explore the extent to which the issues of social relations, equity and development raised by these changes are being tackled by the Land Administration Project (LAP), Ghana's land reform programme, which is one of several on the African continent being promoted by the World Bank. These reforms generally promote the Bank's neo-liberal agenda to strengthen land markets to support foreign direct investment. The presentation is based on a larger study which explores how the introduction of new livelihood activities based on the exploitation of hitherto marginal resources has affected land relations, in particular the interests of women as a social group which experiences insecurities in access to land. The study focuses on mangrove resources in South Eastern Ghana and small-scale gold mining in North Eastern Ghana.
In many parts of rural Ghana, long-term environmental changes and the economic liberalisation policies of the last two decades have stressed livelihoods and exacerbated poverty levels. This has led to the depletion of old resources and increased the exploitation of hitherto marginal natural resources, creating or exacerbating competition and conflicts in the use of natural resources. Land tenure systems and social relations which structure access to and control of resources have also been affected by the changes in resource exploitation with implications for the ability of particular social groups to make livelihoods which are adequate for the present and sustainable in the long term. The Ghana Government has instituted land tenure reforms to address some of these issues of tenurial conflicts and insecurities and also to attract direct foreign investment which is considered critical by governments of developing countries and the international financial institutions as critical for economic growth and development.
This study is based on the premise that access to these resources is likely to be structured by intersecting social relations of gender, age, kinship and class. As well, the impacts of the changes in livelihoods will be differentiated by social relations and these are issues which should concern policy makers.
Thus far, a reconnaissance field trip to the Upper East Region has enabled the research team to begin to gain insights into the organisation and nature of surface gold mining and its relationship with other rural livelihood activities as well as its impact on land use and tenure arrangements and the implications for men and women and different social groups. The team interviewed informants in mining communities and neighbouring local communities, relevant policy institutions and conducted life history interviews. As well, focus group discussions, transect walks in the two selected areas and resource mapping exercises have been conducted.
Emerging issues from the reconnaissance include emerging gender and class relations around small scale mining, differences in the place of mining in peoples livelihood portfolios, the capital requirements of this stage of the mining where water logging has emerged as a serious complaints and its implications for the different players in the industry and the rudimentary nature of land and labour relations within the mining industry and its implications for land degradation and future land scarcities. These and other issues will be discussed in the panel presentation.

Globalisation, Risks and Resistance in Rural Economies and Societies: A Gender Perspective of Rural Communities Traversed by the Tchad-Cameroon Oil Pipeline Project in Cameroon
Joyce Bayande Endeley (Associate Professor), University of Buea, Cameroon
Fondo Sikod (Ph.D), University of Yaounde II Cameroon

In Cameroon like other African countries, the challenges of oil explorations, globalising projects, have assumed their own particular characteristics on rural livelihoods, economies and societies in general. In a haste to move out of poverty rural populace have embraced or are encouraged to welcome investments on oil explorations ventures, hoping that such ventures would result in large compensations-individual, community and regional. Other windfall could include disenclavement of rural communities and in turn encourage increases in farm productivity and rural consumption, increase in employment opportunities, provision of social services such as schools, portable drinking water, health centres and electrification of rural voices of the rural masses, particularly women and youth who figured negligibly communities.
At the same time, the literature is full of reports of disillusionments and contradictions between expectations and realities, resulting from globalising projects to its immediate hosts and context. Unaccustomed to handling large amounts of cash, Komé reported in the "Economist of 4th December 2003" that rural Tchadians squandered their windfall (compensations) by bathing in beers, staying in four-star hotels and taking several wives. Others abandon productive work and hustled for a share of the petrodollars; corruption increased among local chiefs and government officials with links to the project, traders quadrupled their prices for basic food items not leaving out increase consumption of health hazardous substances and services such as alcohol, drugs, prostitutions and brothels. On a positive note, some people have made wise use of their compensations to improve and secure their welfare and those of their families by investing in windmills and cattles.
Cameroon as a partner in the Tchad-Cameroon oil pipeline project, how has the project affected the livelihood and economies of the communities and people-women, men and youth in rural communities traversed by the project in Cameroon? What benefits, risks, challenges and human rights issues have emerged? What are the gender dimensions of the benefits and people's disenchantments? Who are to be blamed and what proportion of the blame is shared by the rural people/communities including their elites, the government, non-government organisations, contractors and the giant oil consortiums? What are the human costs of oil exploration and how are these costs factored into the projects? These are the problems, whish this article will attempt to address.
Analysis of the above mentioned situations provides for better understanding of the effects of globalising rural Africa and what the policy implication would entail if we desire to engender and ruralize globalisation. The article is based on an on-going IDRC funded research titled, "The Impact of the Chad-Cameroon Oil Pipeline, a Multinational Oil Exploitation and Operations Project, on Gender Access to Land and Resources in Selected Communities in Cameroon", for the period 2003/2004. It employs a gender perspective in capturing the voices and experiences of women, men and youth in 27 rural communities. Reason being that the voices of the rural masses, particularly women and youth figure negligibly or are often missing in reports assessing the impact of macro-scale globalisation projects of this nature. Data was collected from both secondary and primary sources, using designed and tested multiple instruments and techniques (questionnaires, structured interview guides and focus group discussion) from different categories of informants-service providers, beneficiaries of individual, community and /or regional compensations, local chiefs, associated NGOs, government officials and project staff.
Discussions and observations so far confirm the findings by Komé, 2003. But most important is the fact that very little or no change was observed in the livelihood of most people, a major disappointment and dismay to the people. The feelings of betrayal, exploitation of peoples minds, body, culture and vulnerability to imperialism mixed with ethnocentrism and infringement of rights are apt adjectives that can be used to describe the peoples voices. This is true of her-/his-stories, whether youth, adult or aged. The chiefs, including the enotables' and some elites feel they have failed their people, just as they believe the government, law enforcement and other technical institutions have failed to protect them from being exploited by actors of the oil pipeline project. Many communities wished they had not welcomed this initiative but reported that they would not be taken for a ride next time, either by the government or consortium. Are the people aware of the powerful forces and politics of globalising projects? Since the estimated life of the project is between 25 to 30 years, what precautions and strategies needs to be put in place so that the communities traversed by the oil pipeline get the most benefits they are due, with particular attention to the youth and women, who seem to have suffered more injustice in this 'development' venture.

Facing Global Markets: New Strategies by Women in Extractive Activities in the Amazon Forests of Bolivia, Brazil and Peru
Noemi Porro

Communities throughout Amazonian forests in Peru, Bolivia and Brazil have engaged in diverse strategies of social mobilization to face the impacts of globalization on their livelihoods. A tri-national team of community leaders, local interdisciplinary researchers and practitioners linked to grassroots organizations and NGOs have examined changes in gender relations related to these struggles. In this two-year long study, we aim to understand the effects of these changes on their gender-differentiated perceptions of land and benefits from use and marketing of forest resources. Quantitative data regarding demographic, economic, agrarian and public support aspects have been collected through structured surveys. Qualitative data about people's perceptions of these aspects have been gathered through informal interviews and life histories. Participant observation and engagement in collective actions have fine-tuned early data analysis and realigned our research design. At the end of the first third of our research project, we have a list of preliminary findings, which will be reassessed and integrated through ethnographic methods during the present year. a) In our sites, strategies related to the political ambiance emanated from those collective movements of the 1970's and 1980's in Latin America have weakened. b) In this scenario, on one hand, very selected groups of grassroots organizations linked to forest-based economies have managed to mobilize themselves at community and even inter-regional basis. Unique strategies to find and maintain their niche in the selective "green, alternative, ecological" market have shaped the political standing of these organizations. On the other hand, as a generalized social situation, communities, especially women, continue to invest the results of their work with forest products in family-based strategies related to education and health. c) Globalization has been associated with improvement of educational and health services, with expected enhancement of gender equity. In this sense, its direction would coincide with local people's aspirations and efforts. d) However, these expectations have not been effectively met in our sites. Rather, early, undesired pregnancies in adolescents sent out to study, sterilization (as a mass and uninformed consent), uneducated consumption of medicines, and unaided child-care undertaken by grandmothers were examples reinforcing a pattern of gender inequity. This pattern has lessened women's possibilities to a fair access to land and benefits from their forest products. This year, we will research which strategies would be efficient to mobilize efforts in reverting this pattern.

How HIV/AUDS shapes land inheritance patterns and food production for women in Kenya
Nungari Salim
Regional Co-ordinator, Women and Law in East Africa & Lecturer, Department of Sociology, University of Nairobi

The study was conceived in response to the HIV/AIDS pandemic which is currently a major development issue in sub-saharan Africa.There is an urgent need to address and resolve the many problems created by the HIV/AIDS epidemic especially among women in Africa.We have noted that a fair amount of data exists on the impact of HIV/AIDS on food security,nutrition and demographic variables but theres little or no research on the impact of HIV/AIDS on women in relation to land tenure issues and food production.
Thus the main purpose of the study is to make a significant input to the small body of research on HIV/AIDS,women,land tenure and food production issues in Kenya in particular and more broadly in Africa. The main themes to be studied include

1. How HIV/AIDS shapes land inheritance patterns for widows for food production.
2. Relevant Kenyan customary and civil law to determine how these laws affect inheritance patterns for women.
3. The impact of HIV/AIDS on womens labor and time with regard to subsistence food production.
4. Coping strategies which rural women have developed to ensure the continued survival of their families.
5. Areas for policy intervention for securing the land rights of women affected by HIV/AIDS.