Gender, Gender (In)Equality, and Small-holder farming in Northern Ethiopia

Abstract

This research unravels the ways in which gender is understood, articulated, and enters into small holder farming in Ethiopia and how these conceptions, understandings, and articulations create and re-create a system of exclusionary practices that maintain a particular articulation of what the farmer is and who can be one. To do this, the study employs qualitative data from multiple methods including in-depth interviews and focus group discussions with farmers, observations and field notes, daily activity logs filled by young boys and girls in farming households, key informant and expert interviews with policy makers and implementers, as well as a discursive analysis of policy documents dealing with gender and agriculture in Ethiopia. Conceptually, the study adopts Butler's notion of gender performativity which frames gender as "the repeated stylization of the body, a set of repeated acts within a highly rigid regulatory frame that congeal over time". <br/> The findings show that gender identity in farming communities is conceived in terms of and expressed through the performance of gender appropriate agricultural tasks and knowledge. Agricultural skills and knowledge are segregated along gender lines with men and women learning gender appropriate knowledge and skills starting from an early age through a lengthy process of situated learning that resembles an extended apprenticeship. In symbolism and language, 'the farmer' is constructed as male. Access to key agricultural knowledge and skills is mediated through the plough. The exclusive association of the plough with men and the exclusion of women from its use pushes women in to the fringes of farming and casts them in supportive positions; one of helpers as opposed to farmers. In addition, the study shows that there is a need to problematize the concept of gender equality. Equality as a concept is heavily layered and its descriptive as well as normative contents are either loosely defined or highly contested. In this regard, the findings of this study reveal that there are multiple articulations of what it means for men and women to be equal and/or unequal; but these seemingly different, sometimes divergent, articulations have not led to a meaningful articulation or contestation of the concept itself or pose any meaningful challenges to the existing gender regime.