Land Rights

Citation:

Samndong, Raymond Achu, and Darley Jose Kjosavik. 2017. “Gendered Forests: Exploring Gender Dimensions in Forest Governance and REDD+ in Équateur Province, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).” Ecology and Society 22 (4). https://www.jstor.org/stable/26799010.

Authors: Darley Jose Kjosavik, Raymond Achu Samndong

Abstract:

In this study we analyze gender relations legitimatized by socio-political institutions of forest governance in REDD+ pilots in Équateur Province of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Using data from interviews, focus group discussions, and field observations, we show that men and women have different knowledge and use of forests, but these differences are not given due consideration in forest governance. Women’s voices are often muted in decision-making arenas and they occupy only a nominal position in both forestry and development initiatives as compared with men. This status quo is extended to the REDD+ pilot projects as well. Women have limited information about REDD+ compared with men. The mechanisms used to establish new village organization for REDD+ exclude women from decision making in the ongoing REDD+ pilot project. We show that women’s bargaining power for equal inclusion in decision-making processes and for sharing benefits are constrained by existing social norms regarding local access to land and material resources, existing gender division of labor, local perceptions regarding women’s roles and contributions/responsibilities, as well as men’s dominant position in rural settings. For a gender transformative REDD+, we suggest that REDD+ actors should attempt to bring about institutional changes that transform gender relations and thereby increase women’s bargaining power.

Keywords: decision making, development initiative, Équater Province, DRC, forest governance, gender role, REDD+

Topics: Environment, Gender, Women, Gendered Power Relations, Rights, Land Rights Regions: Africa, Central Africa Countries: Democratic Republic of the Congo

Year: 2017

Citation:

Author: Gideon Kofi Agbley

Abstract:

Keywords: land grabs, equity, efficiency, participation, sustainability

Topics: Development, Gender, Women, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equity, Land Grabbing, Livelihoods, Rights, Land Rights Regions: Africa, West Africa Countries: Ghana

Year: 2019

Citation:

Author: Sônia Fátima Schwendler

Abstract:

PORTUGUESE ABSTRACT:

O presente artigo analisa o processo pedagógico da luta de gênero que ocorre dentro da luta pela terra a partir do protagonismo das mulheres trabalhadoras do campo. Com base na literatura da temática da educação, gênero e movimentos sociais e, a partir de extensa pesquisa de campo desenvolvida no Sul do Brasil com mulheres e homens do Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra (MST) e com o Movimento de Mulheres Camponesas (MMC), este estudo evidencia os principais elementos que contribuíram para o empoderamento das mulheres camponesas e a mutação das relações de gênero na luta pela terra. Ao examinar o impacto da intencionalidade socioeducativa na transformação das relações de gênero, argumenta-se que o saber social produzido na luta político-organizativa, a partir de uma leitura de classe e da influência da teoria feminista, promove a organização das mulheres camponesas em torno das demandas estratégicas de gênero com vistas ao enfrentamento das desigualdades e da subalternização da mulher. Evidencia-se, no entanto, que apesar de sua importância, este processo pedagógico que emerge na dinâmica da luta social não é o suficiente para a transformação das relações de gênero. Há a necessidade de leis e políticas afirmativas que garantam à mulher condições efetivas de participação política, econômica e social.

ENGLISH ABSTRACT:

This paper analyzes the pedagogical process of gender struggle that takes place within the struggle for land from the agency of rural workers’ women. Based on the literature on education, gender and social movements and, from extensive field work carried out in southern Brazil with women and men of the Landless Workers Movement (Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra – MST) and the Peasant Women’s Movement (Movimento de Mulheres Camponesas – MMC), this study highlights the key elements that contributed to the empowerment of rural women and the shifting of gender relations within land struggle. When examining the impact of socio-educational intention in changing gender relations, it is argued that the social knowledge produced within the political-organizational struggle, from a class consciousness and the influence of feminist theory, promotes the organization of peasant women around strategic gender demands aiming to confront inequality and women’s subordination. It is evident, however, that despite its importance, this pedagogical process which emerges in the dynamics of social struggle is not enough for the transformation of gender relations. There is a need for laws and affirmative action policies that guarantee effective conditions for women’s political, economic and social participation. 

Keywords: education, gender, women, land reform, social movements, educação, género, mulheres, reforma agraria, movimentos sócias

Topics: Class, Education, Feminisms, Gender, Gender Roles, Men, Women, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality, Land Tenure, Political Participation, Rights, Land Rights Regions: Americas, South America Countries: Brazil

Year: 2015

Citation:

Franco Garcia, María, e Antonio Thomaz Júnior. 2002. “Trabalhadoras rurais e luta pela terra no Brasil: interlocução entre gênero, trabalho e território.” Terra Livre 18 (19): 257-72.

Authors: María Franco Garcia, Antonio Thomaz Júnior

Abstract:

PORTUGUESE ABSTRACT:

A construção de relações de gênero nos territórios de luta pela terra (assentamentos e acampamentos), dos trabalhadores e trabalhadoras rurais no Brasil, só pode ser compreendida a partir da processualidade social que os define. As funções sociais das trabalhadoras acampadas mudam uma vez que se transformam em assentadas, o que repercute diretamente na redução do seu espaço político e social. A preocupação que permeia esta interlocução radica na necessidade de desvendar processos estruturais e locais da divisão social e sexual do trabalho, que criam e reproduzem a ideologia hegemônica que por sua vez, direcionam as relações de gênero, com o objetivo de manter o status quo do controle social.

ENGLISH ABSTRACT:

The construction process of relations of gender inside Land Struggle’s territories (establishments and camps), of Brazilian Rural Workers Without Land, it can only be understood starting from the social process which defines them. The camped workers’ social functions change once they become to have seated, what directly rebounds in the reduction of their political and social space. The principal worry of our dialogue starts in the need of unmasking structural and local processes of social and sexual division of work, that create and recreate hegemonic ideology, which address the relations of gender with maintaining the status quo of the social control objective. 

Keywords: rural worker, territory, land struggle, relations of gender

Topics: Environment, Gender, Gender Roles, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Hierarchies, Political Participation, Rights, Land Rights Regions: Americas, South America Countries: Brazil

Year: 2002

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:

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