Reproducing agrarian spaces: gender and the social labor of communal governance

Keywords: gender, communal lands, governance, agrarian spaces
Session Type: Virtual Paper Abstract
Day: Friday
Session Start / End Time: 2/25/2022 11:20 AM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 2/25/2022 12:40 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 67

Abstract

This paper explores issues of gender and social reproductive labor in the governance of agrarian spaces. Based on research conducted with Indigenous (Mixe, Zapotec, and Chinantec) coffee producers in the state of Oaxaca, Mexico, it analyzes how gendered differences in farming practice are not attributable to market-economic logics, but rather to a chain of social reproductive labor. It argues that women´s coffee fields are embedded within broader systems of gendered social reproduction that operate at multiple scales: from the household to the village assembly. Accordingly, it explores what these means in terms of experiences in gender equity within agrarian usufruct.