Rights

Citation:

Samanta, Debabrata. 2016. "Tenure Security and Women Right Over Land: A Study in the Context of Bihar." Journal of Land and Rural Studies 4 (2): 242-53.

Author: Debabrata Samanta

Abstract:

Land tenure system is the relationship between land and people, as individuals or groups, legally or customarily. Tenural security of land has far reaching implication; in one hand it reduce disputes, conflicts and uncertainty and vulnerability of poor and promote sustainable development, on the other it makes easy for transfer of land for more efficient use. Even after creation of numbers of acts, the tenural right is a matter of concern in Bihar. The situation is worse for sharecropper and women. This article analyses the status of land tenure security and available legal framework to ensure women’s rights over land. It is found that there is hardly any record and recorded right to ensure right of sharecroppers. Although the law confers the equal right to women in their paternal property, but in practice this is not very common in India including Bihar. There hardly exists legal provision to ensure right of women over land and even if it is there, it is not implemented properly. Except some recent initiative, through which transfer of land to weaker section recorded in name of female member of family, there is no such legal provision to ensure women right over land.

Keywords: Bihar, land right recognition, tenure security, women right

Topics: Agriculture, Gender, Women, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality, Land Tenure, Rights, Land Rights, Women's Rights Regions: Asia, South Asia Countries: India

Year: 2016

Citation:

Kongela, Sophia Marcian. 2020. “Gender Equality in Ownership of Agricultural Land in Rural Tanzania: Does Matrilineal Tenure System Matter?” African Journal on Land Policy and Geospatial Sciences 3 (3): 13-27.

Author: Sophia Marcian Kongela

Abstract:

Gender gap in ownership of agricultural land is still wide in many developing countries, mainly in favour of men. In some of these countries, both patrilineal and matrilineal systems are practised and recognized by governments. Tanzania is one of the countries in which both systems are practised. This paper explores the extent of gender equality in ownership of agricultural land in Kisarawe and Mkuranga districts which are typical rural agricultural settings and mainly matrilineal societies in Tanzania. It also attempts to examine women’s benefits from agricultural activities. Respondents were randomly selected from village registers of the six villages studied. The findings contradict the conventional narratives of gender inequality that women are discriminated in land ownership. Despite insignificant percentage of societies which embrace matrilineal system in Tanzania, to a large extent the system seems to support women in owning land in those societies. However, a few elements of gender discrimination were noted especially for widows and divorced women. The findings make a case for more intervention in ensuring statutory and customary land tenure practices are complimentary in enhancing gender equality in accessing land especially in rural areas. 

Keywords: gender equality, access to land, land ownership, land tenure, Tanzania

Topics: Agriculture, Gender, Gender Analysis, Gender Roles, Men, Women, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality, Land Tenure, Rights, Land Rights, Property Rights, Women's Rights, Security, Food Security Regions: Africa, East Africa Countries: Tanzania

Year: 2020

Citation:

Kelly, Liam D., B. James Deaton, and J. Atsu Amegashie. 2019. “The Nature of Property Rights in Haiti: Mode of Land Acquisition, Gender, and Investment.” Journal of Economic Issues 53 (3): 726–47.

Authors: Liam D. Kelly, B. James Deaton, J. Atsu Amegashie

Abstract:

In Haiti, two primary pathways to land ownership are through the purchase of land and through inheritance. In terms of inheritance, intestate law treats daughters and sons equally with respect to real property. Despite the formal law, we find that women are relatively less tenure secure on their inherited land than men. In contrast, men and women share similar perceptions of tenure security on purchased land. These differences become manifest in conservation investment activities: tree planting, fallowing, and terracing. We find evidence that these activities are less likely to occur by female respondents on their inherited land.

Keywords: gender, Haiti, inherited land, land tenure

Topics: Agriculture, Gender, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality, Land Tenure, Rights, Property Rights Regions: Americas, Caribbean countries Countries: Haiti

Year: 2019

Citation:

Author: Stein T. Holden

Abstract:

This chapter investigates how land tenure reforms in Ethiopia have influenced the position of women in terms of land tenure security, access to land, decision-power over land within households, as well as the gendered impacts of these tenure reforms on land investments, land productivity, land renting, and household consumption welfare. It is based on a careful screening of the relevant literature based on its quality and critically examining the reliability of the causal effects in each study. As most studies are based on survey data, studies that have been able to provide reasonably robust quantitative assessments are utilized. The review concludes that there exists strong evidence that the low-cost land registration and certification reform in Ethiopia has contributed to strengthening women’s land rights and decision-power over land and this has had positive welfare effects in female-headed as well as male-headed households. More research is needed to study the productivity and welfare effects of the ongoing 2nd Stage Land Registration and Certification reform but early findings indicate that it has contributed to formally document parcel-level land rights of women that are close to that of men even in the Tigray region where 1st Stage Land Registration and Certification was in the name of the head of household that in most cases was a man.

Keywords: gender, land rights, land registration and certification, joint land certification, impacts, Ethiopia

Topics: Gender, Gender Analysis, Households, Land Tenure, Rights, Land Rights, Women's Rights Regions: Africa, East Africa Countries: Ethiopia

Year: 2020

Citation:

Doss, Cheryl, and Ruth Meinzen-Dick. 2020. “Land Tenure Security for Women: A Conceptual Framework.” Land Use Policy 99 (December). 

Authors: Cheryl Doss, Ruth Meinzen-Dick

Abstract:

While strengthening women’s land rights is increasingly on national and international agendas, there is little consensus on how to understand women’s tenure security. Analyses of women’s land rights often use very different definitions of land rights, from formal ownership to women’s management of plots allocated to them by their husbands. This paper identifies aspects of women’s tenure that should be included in indicators. It then provides a conceptual framework to identify the various dimensions of women’s land tenure security and the myriad factors that may influence it. To be able to compare women’s tenure security in different places, we need information on the context, the threats and opportunities facing tenure security, and the action arena that includes both the people who play a role in promoting or limiting women’s tenure security and the resources used in doing so.

Keywords: women's land rights, legal pluralism, gender

Topics: Gender, Women, Land Tenure, Rights, Land Rights, Women's Rights

Year: 2020

Citation:

Deininger, Klaus, Fang Xia, and Stein Holden. 2019. “Gendered Incidence and Impacts of  Tenure Insecurity on Agricultural Performance in Malawi’s Customary Tenure System.” The Journal of Development Studies 55 (4): 597–619.

Authors: Klaus Deininger, Fang Xia, Stein Holden

Abstract:

Malawi’s recent passage of Land Acts provides an opportunity to clarify different aspects of the country’s land tenure in an integrated way. To assess whether doing so might be economically justified, we explore incidence and impact of tenure insecurity among smallholders. Insecurity is not only widespread, with 22 per cent of land users being concerned about losing their land, but is also associated with a productivity loss of 9 per cent for female operators, equivalent to US$ 11 million per year at the national level, enough to pay for a nation-wide tenure regularisation programme in two to three years. 

Topics: Agriculture, Gender, Women, Land Tenure, Rights, Land Rights Regions: Africa, Southern Africa Countries: Malawi

Year: 2019

Citation:

Authors: Akua O. Britwum , Dzodzi Tsikata, Angela D. Akorsu , Matilda Aberese Ako

Annotation:

“This technical paper is part of the ISSER ActionAid-Ghana Gender and Land Rights Project that seeks to address, through research and advocacy, critical issues of women’s land rights. The Gender and Land Rights Project is premised on the notion that agriculture continues to engage the vast majority of working people in Ghana despite evidence pointing to the intensification of livelihood diversification and a reduction in the proportion of the population living in rural areas” (Britwum et al. 2014, 1).

Topics: Agriculture, Gender, Women, Land Tenure, Livelihoods, Rights, Land Rights, Women's Rights Regions: Africa, West Africa Countries: Ghana

Year: 2014

Citation:

Seager, Joni. 2003. “Rachel Carson Died of Breast Cancer: The Coming of Age of Feminist Environmentalism.” Signs 28 (3): 945–72.

Author: Joni Seager

Abstract:

To discuss the state of feminist environmentalism, discussion opens with an examination of ecofeminism. Arguing that debates surrounding ecofeminism have exhausted their intellectual & political returns, recent feminist environmental scholarship on animal rights, public health, & global political economy is reviewed. Some remarks are then offered on the "population question," particularly with respect to how environmental policy is underpinned by the blaming of poor, minority, & non-Euro-American women for global environmental ills; the critical feminist environmentalist literature on populationism is briefly touched on. 

Topics: Economies, Environment, Feminisms, Ecofeminism, Health, Rights Regions: Americas Countries: United States of America

Year: 2003

Citation:

Harris, Melanie L. 2017. “Reshaping the Ear: Honorable Listening and Study of Ecowomanist and Ecofeminist Scholarship for Feminist Discourse.” Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 33 (2): 158–62.

Author: Melanie L. Harris

Abstract:

Harris utlilizes an ecowomanist approach to tackle the issue of climate change and its impact on women. Ecowomanism is an approach that centers the voices, theoretical, religious, and ecospiritual activism of women of African descent and other women of color. It uses race-class-gender intersectional analysis to highlight the impact environmental health disparities have on communities of color in the age of climate change. Rather than ignore the plight of thousands upon thousands of African American and Latino/a families living in food deserts and the historical connections this social injustice has to white supremacy and access to land rights and clean water, ecowomanist approaches raise awareness about environmental racism. It links a social justice agenda with earth justice recognizing the similar logic of domination at work in parallel oppressions suffered by women of color and the earth. 

Keywords: Alice Walker, Delores S. Williams, ecowomanism, sin of defilement, social justice, women of color

Topics: Class, Environment, Climate Change, Feminisms, Ecofeminism, Gender, Health, Infrastructure, Water & Sanitation, Race, Religion, Rights, Land Rights Regions: Africa, Americas

Year: 2017

Citation:

Gaard, Greta, ed. 1993. Ecofeminism. Philadelphia: Temple University Press

Author: Greta Gaard

Annotation:

Summary:
Drawing on the insights of ecology, feminism, and socialism, ecofeminism's basic premise is that the ideology that authorizes oppression based on race, class, gender, sexuality, physical abilities, and species is the same ideology that sanctions the oppression of nature. In this collection of essays, feminist scholars and activists discuss the relationships among human begins, the natural environment, and nonhuman animals. They reject the nature/culture dualism of patriarchal thought and locate animals and humans within nature. The goal of these twelve articles is to contribute to the evolving dialogue among feminists, ecofeminists, animal liberationists, deep ecologists, and social ecologists in an effort to create a sustainable lifestyle for all inhabitants of the earth. Among the issues addressed are the conflicts between Green politics and ecofeminism, various applications of ecofeminist theory, the relationship of animal liberation to ecofeminism, harmful implications of the romanticized woman-nature association in Western culture, and cultural limitations of ecofeminism. (Summary from Temple University Press)

Table of Contents:

1. Living Interconnections with Animals and Nature
   Greta Gaard
2. Ecofeminism: Linking Theory and Practice
   Janis Birkeland
3. Dismantling Oppression: An Analysis of the Connection Between Women and Animals
   Lori Gruen
4. Roots: Rejoining Natural and Social History
   Stephanie Lahar
5. Ecofeminism and the Politics of Reality
   Linda Vance
6. Questioning Sour Grapes: Ecofeminism and the United Farm Workers Grape Boycott
   Ellen O'Loughlin
7. Animal Rights and Feminist Theory
   Josephine Donovan
8. The Feminist Traffic in Animals
   Carol J. Adams
9. For the Lover of Nature: Ecology and the Culture of the Romantic
   Chaia Heller
10. From Heroic to Holistic Ethics: The Ecofeminist Challenge
    Marti Kheel
11. A Cross-Cultural Critique of Ecofeminism
    Huey-li Li
12. Ecofeminism and Native American Cultures – Pushing the Limits of Cultural Imperialism?
    Greta Gaard

Topics: Class, Environment, Feminisms, Ecofeminism, Gender, Gendered Power Relations, Patriarchy, Indigenous, Race, Rights Regions: Americas Countries: United States of America

Year: 1993