Property Rights

The Gender Agenda: NGOs and Capitalist Relations in Highland Cambodia

Citation:

Frewer, Tim. 2017. “The Gender Agenda: NGOs and Capitalist Relations in Highland Cambodia.” Critical Asian Studies 49 (2): 163-86. 

Author: Tim Frewer

Abstract:

Cambodia’s mountainous northeastern province of Ratanakiri, which only twenty years ago was home to mainly indigenous minority groups largely focused on subsistence production, has undergone rapid ecological, social, and economic transformation. Deforestation and land alienation in the context of large-scale plantation agriculture, land speculation, and smallholder cash cropping have led to concerns that indigenous communities are being alienated from their land and not benefitting from economic changes. This has resulted in a significant number of NGO and government programs that attempt to protect and “empower” indigenous people, particularly women. This article examines a one-year research project which explored the relationship between indigenous women and land change in two indigenous villages. It discusses how indigenous women as well as Khmer and landless Cham immigrants have dealt with the commoditization of land and labor. It focuses on the differentiated way capitalist relations have pushed men, women, landless laborers, and increasingly wealthy landowners on increasingly divergent life trajectories. Compelled by donors to focus on gender and indigenous women as an object of governance, the NGO that directed this project struggled to keep up with the realities of capitalist relations on the ground.

Keywords: land use change, critical development, frontiers, NGOs, indigeneity

Topics: Gender, Women, Indigenous, NGOs, Rights, Indigenous Rights, Land Rights, Property Rights Regions: Asia, Southeast Asia Countries: Cambodia

Year: 2017

Does Land Ownership Make a Difference? Women's Roles in Agriculture in Kerala, India

Citation:

Arun, Shoba. 1999. "Does Land Ownership Make a Difference? Women's Roles in Agriculture in Kerala, India." Gender and Development 7 (3): 19-27. 

Author: Shoba Arun

Abstract:

Women who own land may still lack control over it. Despite claims that women enjoy high status in Kerala, economic, social, and cultural factors interact to reinforce gender differences in ownership, control over, and access to critical agricultural resources, including land.

Topics: Agriculture, Gender, Gender Roles, Women, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality, Rights, Land Rights, Property Rights Regions: Asia, South Asia Countries: India

Year: 1999

Does Women’s Land Ownership Promote Their Empowerment? Empirical Evidence from Nepal

Citation:

Mishra, Khushbu, and Abdoul G. Sam. 2016. “Does Women’s Land Ownership Promote Their Empowerment? Empirical Evidence from Nepal.” World Development 78: 360–71.

Authors: Khushbu Mishra , Abdoul G. Sam

Keywords: gender, land ownership, empowerment, household decision making, Nepal, South Asia

Annotation:

Summary:
Land rights equity is seen as an important tool for increasing empowerment and economic welfare for women in developing countries. Accordingly, the objective of this paper is to empirically examine the role of women’s land ownership, either alone or jointly, as a means of improving their intra-household bargaining power in the areas of own healthcare, major household purchases, and visiting family or relatives. Using the 2001 and 2011 Nepal Demographic and Health Surveys and relevant econometric techniques, we find that land ownership has a positive and significant impact on women’s empowerment. In particular, we find two important patterns of results. First, accounting for the endogeneity of land ownership with inverse probability weighting, coarsened exact matching and instrumental variable methods makes its impact on empowerment higher. Previous research in this area had largely ignored the potential endogeneity of land ownership. Second, the impact is generally stronger in 2011 than in 2001. As evidenced in a number of empirical studies, the increase in women’s bargaining power can in turn translate into a redirection of resources toward women’s preferences, including higher investment in human capital of the household such as education, health, and nutrition. Therefore, our study indicates that in places where agriculture is the main source of economy for women, policies enhancing land rights equity have the potential to increase women’s empowerment and associated beneficial welfare effects. (Summary from original source)
 

Topics: Agriculture, Gender, Women, Health, Households, Rights, Land Rights, Property Rights Regions: Asia, South Asia Countries: Nepal

Year: 2016

Patriarchy and Property Rights among Yoruba Women in Nigeria

Citation:

Aluko, Yetunde A. 2015. “Patriarchy and Property Rights among Yoruba Women in Nigeria.” Feminist Economics 21 (3): 56-81.

Author: Yetunde A. Aluko

Abstract:

In most patriarchal societies, women’s property rights are often achieved vicariously, usually through their husbands. By contrast, among the Yoruba of Nigeria, women have some levels of autonomy and independence such that they can accumulate property to which their husbands have no claim, yet they customarily do not have any inheritance right to their husbands’ property. This study examines how this gender-equitable property rights regime affects gender relations at the household and societal levels through in-depth interviews conducted in 2012 with fifty-six purposively selected women property owners who lived in urban Ibadan, Nigeria. Findings include that though economic power has improved the status of the women and contributes to development of their communities, it has not yet translated into equity in decision making. More than economic power is required to attain equality. The capability of defining goals and acting upon them is also critical.

Keywords: patriarchy, Property Rights, Yoruba women, development, Nigeria

Topics: Development, Gender, Women, Gendered Power Relations, Patriarchy, Households, Rights, Property Rights Regions: Africa, West Africa Countries: Nigeria

Year: 2015

Women’s Land Activism and Gendered Citizenship in the Urbanising Pearl River Delta

Citation:

Po, Lanchih. 2020. “Women’s Land Activism and Gendered Citizenship in the Urbanising Pearl River Delta.” Urban Studies 57 (3): 602–17.

Author: Lanchih Po

Abstract:

 

ENGLISH ABSTRACT:
In light of the unequal access to urban citizenship resulting from the household registration system (hukou), an increasing number of scholarly works have pointed out how a system of citizenship stratification has emerged in urbanising China. However, this stratification has seldom been analysed in terms of gender. Rural women, situated at the bottom of the hierarchy of differentiated citizenship, often suffer gender-based discrimination and tumble still further down the hierarchy. Specifically, women are vulnerable to economic and social dispossession in the process of the displacement of rural populations and renegotiation of land rights. Owing to the custom of patrilocal residence, women who have ‘married out’ (waijianü) have been excluded from rights, participation and entitlement to collective land property. By creating a class of rural female non-citizens, rural communities have deprived waijianü of opportunities to share land-related revenue realised in the process of urbanisation, further perpetuating male dominance just as local economies and society are in flux. Through a case study of these conflicts in Guangdong, this paper explores how women have challenged gendered citizenship in the process of urbanisation.
 
CHINESE ABSTRACT:
摘要
 
鉴于户籍制度（户口）导致的获得城市居民身份方面的机会不平等，越来越多的学术著作指出了居民身份分层制度是如何在中国城市化过程中出现的。然而，学者们很少从性别角度分析这种分层。农村妇女位于不同居民等级的最底层，往往遭受基于性别的歧视，并跌入等级的更低的位置。具体而言，在农村人口驱逐和土地权利重新谈判的过程中，妇女容易遭受经济和社会剥夺。由于从夫居的习俗，已经“出嫁”的妇女（外嫁女)）被排除在集体土地财产随附的权利、参与权和福利之外。通过创造一个农村女性非居民阶层，农村社区剥夺了外嫁女分享城市化进程中实现的土地相关收入的机会，在当地经济和社会不断变化之际进一步延续了男性的支配地位。本文通过对在广东省发生的这类冲突的案例研究，探讨了女性在城市化进程中是如何挑战性别居民身份的。

 

Keywords: agglomeration/urbanisation, citizenship, gender, inequality, poverty/exclusion

Topics: Citizenship, Displacement & Migration, Gender, Women, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality, Patriarchy, Rights, Land Rights, Property Rights, Women's Rights Regions: Asia, East Asia Countries: China

Year: 2020

Predicament of Landlessness: A Critical Study of Women’s Rights over Land in Assam

Citation:

Hazarika, Kanki, and V. Sita.  2020. “Predicament of Landlessness: A Critical Study of Women’s Rights over Land in Assam.” South Asian Survey 27 (1): 19–36.

Authors: Kanki Hazarika, V. Sita

Abstract:

Land rights to women is one of the significant markers of a gender-just society. It is a basic human right that provides welfare, economic and social security, strong bargaining power and various other benefits. Ownership right over land is also critical to the citizens in terms of exercising and availing rights guaranteed by the state. Based on a narrative from the fieldwork done among the Bodos in Assam, this paper explores the significance of land rights in accessing various rights and welfare programmes and how women are affected in this regard due to lack of land rights. It discusses how a woman’s lack of rights over land can lead to a status of homelessness and place her in a socially and economically precarious position. The landlessness or homelessness status restricts her from accessing various benefits provided by the state. In this context, the paper also looks into the social construction of gendered norms on land rights of the Bodo community. Construction of societal norms on individual’s rights over landed property, inheritance are generally determined by kinship and affinal ideologies of a community. Such norms are often gendered that deny rights to women over this material resource. The most affected are the single, widow and separated women who have no support from the families. Communities having patriarchal ideologies consider women as passive, dependent and secondary subject and accordingly, gendered norms are constructed. Even the state apparatuses, which is often male-dominated, locate woman within the realm of the family and design policies for women as ‘beneficiaries’ and ‘dependents.’ The gendered norms on land rights of a community have a broader impact that goes beyond the community level and enmeshed with the affairs of the state.

Keywords: Bodo, community, citizen, land rights, norms, state, women

Topics: Citizenship, Gender, Gender Roles, Women, Gendered Power Relations, Patriarchy, Rights, Human Rights, Land Rights, Property Rights, Women's Rights Regions: Asia, South Asia Countries: India

Year: 2020

Género, grupos domésticos y derechos de propiedad sobre la tierra

Citation:

Meza, Laura Elena Ruiz. 2006. "Género, grupos domésticos y derechos de propiedad sobre la tierra." El Cotodiano 21 (139): 7-19.

Author: Laura Elena Ruiz Meza

Abstract:

SPANISH ABSTRACT:
Las construcciones culturales de masculinidad y feminidad que orientan las pautas culturales en la familia y en la comunidad han jugado un papel significativo en restringir el derecho de las mujeres a la propiedad de la tierra, así como su participación en espacios públicos. Igualmente, la residencia patrilocal tiene implicacio- nes en la condición y posición de las mujeres al colocarlas en una situación de vulnerabilidad. El reducido poder de negociación que suelen tener en esta etapa de su vida, su posición subordinada en el sistema de parentesco y su limitado acceso a los bienes y recursos se expresan en inequidades de género que afectan notablemente su calidad de vida. 

Topics: Gender, Masculinity/ies, Femininity/ies, Households, Rights, Land Rights, Property Rights, Women's Rights

Year: 2006

Propietarias a la Espera: Migración Internacional, Herencia y Género en dos Comunidades Indígenas Oaxaqueñas

Citation:

Martínez Iglesias, María. 2016. “Propietarias a la Espera: Migración Internacional, Herencia y Género en dos Comunidades Indígenas Oaxaqueñas.” Tesis doctoral, Universitat Rovira I Virgili.

Author: María Martínez Iglesias

Abstract:

ENGLISH ABSTRACT:
This thesis analysis why the permanent migration of the sons - the preferred inheritors of family land under the Mesoamerican family model - has shifted inheritance patterns to include daughters in some areas of Oaxaca (México), while in others men still maintain their privileges over family land even when they are not present. Based in two case studies conducted in Oaxaca indigenous communities, we argue that daughters, excluded from previous arrangements, have become heirs because they can replace or complement their brothers in the four elements that made men legitimate heirs: residence, provision, care and the capacity of representing elderly parents in community institutions. Along with these new daughters ́ contributions to parents, new social definition of what means to be an adult women has change the assumption that daughters, after marriage, must be dependent only in their husband economic provision. Women, as daughters, still excluded from family property transfers because parents and migrated sons can rebuild cooperation despite the distance; or daughters cooperate only as care-givers but not providing or representing their parents. As long as our research areas are ruled by usos y costumbres and the land tenure is communal, some other debates around the tensions between private-communal land and law –custom needed to be answered.
 
SPANISH ABSTRACT:
Esta tesis se pregunta por qué en unas zonas de Oaxaca (México) la migración permanente de los hijos varones- los herederos preferentes de la tierra en el modelo mesoamericano- modifica los patrones de transmisión patrimonial para incluir a las hijas; mientras que en otras áreas los varones, a pesar de la ausencia, mantienen los privilegios hereditarios sobre el patrimonio familiar. A partir de dos estudios de caso en comunidades indígenas oaxaqueñas se muestra que las hijas se convierten en herederas porque pueden suplir o complementar a sus hermanos en los cuatro elementos que convertían a los hijos en herederos legítimos: la residencia, la provisión, la atención y la representación ante la comunidad de los padres ancianos. Esto implica una nueva definición social de adultez femenina basada en una mayor cooperación con los padres y autonomía frente al vínculo matrimonial. Por otro lado, las mujeres en el rol de hijas siguen ocupando un lugar residual en la transmisión patrimonial, a pesar de la ausencia de sus hermanos varones, porque aún en la distancia las familias transnacionales pueden recomponer el sistema tradicional de transmisión patrimonial, basado en la cooperación preferente con los hijos; también, porque las hijas se incorporan a elementos menos valorados de la cooperación inter-generacional, como el cuidado. Tratar de contestar la pregunta de investigación en contextos donde la tenencia de la tierra es comunitaria y está regida por sistemas normativos internos -usos y costumbres-conlleva adentrarse en debates vinculados a opciones distintas de intervención pública (tensiones entre propiedad privada y propiedad social así como entre la ley y la costumbre), que han sido tomados en cuenta y a los que se ha intentado dar una respuesta parcial. 

Topics: Displacement & Migration, Gender, Women, Indigenous, Land Tenure, Rights, Property Rights Regions: Americas, North America Countries: Mexico

Year: 2016

Colonización campesina, división sexual del trabajo y acceso de las mujeres a la tierra: Aproximaciones al caso de las mujeres rurales de Tillavá

Citation:

Garcés Amaya, Diana Paola, 2017. “Colonización campesina, división sexual del trabajo y acceso de las mujeres a la tierra: Aproximaciones al caso de las mujeres rurales de Tillavá.” Mediaciones 19: 10-31.

Author: Diana Paola Garcés Amaya

Abstract:

SPANISH ABSTRACT: 

Este artículo reflexiona sobre la historia del acceso de las mujeres a la tierra y la divisón sexual del trabajo del mundo rural en el marco del proceso de colonización campesina llevado a cabo en la inspección del Tillavá, departamento del Meta. A partir de la epistemología feminista y mediante el estudio de relatos de vida se pudo comprender que las condiciones materiales precarias en contextos de colonización se entrelazan con una división sexual del trabajo inequitativa particular del mundo rural, lo que termina generando obstáculos para el reconocimiento de los derechos a la propiedad y complejizando sus condicions laborales. 

 

ENGLISH ABSTRACT: 

This article is a reflection on the history of women’s access to land and the sexual division of labor in the rural world, in the framework of peasant colonization in the inspección—small township—of Tillavá, in the department of Meta. From feminist epistemology and through the study of life-histories we could understand that precarious economic circumstances in colonization contexts interweave with an inequitable sexual division of labor, typical in the rural world. This, eventually, posits an obstacle to the recognition of women’s rights to property, and makes their working conditions even harder.

Keywords: acceso a la tierra, división sexual del trabajo, historias de vida, unidad familiar de producción

Topics: Coloniality/Post-Coloniality, Feminisms, Gender, Women, Livelihoods, Rights, Land Rights, Property Rights Regions: Americas, South America Countries: Colombia

Year: 2017

Género y arrebato de tierras: El caso del nuevo aeropuerto internacional de Ciudad de México

Citation:

García, Verónica Vázquez. 2018. “Género y arrebato de tierras: El caso del nuevo aeropuerto internacional de Ciudad de México.” Región y Sociedad 73.

Author: Verónica Vázquez García

Abstract:

SPANISH ABSTRACT:
En este artículo se explora la dinámica de género del arrebato de tierras en el municipio de Atenco, Estado de México, para la construcción del nuevo aeropuerto internacional de la Ciudad de México. A partir de datos obtenidos mediante la sistematización de expedientes ejidales, la observación participante y las entrevistas a profundidad, se analiza la discriminación de género en la venta de tierras y las estrategias de las mujeres para enfrentarla. El artículo contribuye a estudiar la infraestructura de comunicaciones, un sector poco teorizado; a utilizar información documental, principalmente testimonial, y a visibilizar los efectos de género y el papel de las mujeres en la resistencia. Se muestra que los agentes del arrebato de tierras son el Estado, el capital y las estructuras comunitarias que reproducen la inequidad de género, para concentrar la riqueza y los privilegios políticos en manos predominantemente masculinas.
 
ENGLISH ABSTRACT:
This paper explores the gender dynamics of land grabbing in the municipality of Atenco, State of Mexico, for the construction of the New Mexico City International Airport. Drawing on data obtained through three research tools (ejidal file systematization; participant observation; in-depth interviews), the paper examines gender discrimination in land sales and women’s strategies to fight it. The article makes three contributions: analyzing a poorly theorized sector (communication infrastructure); relying on both documental and grass-root testimonies in order to do so; highlighting gender impacts and women’s roles in resistance movements. The paper shows that land grabbing involves not only State and capital, but also community structures that reproduce gender inequality and contribute to the concentration of wealth and political privilege in few, masculine hands.

Keywords: gênero, desigualdad, acaparamiento de tierras, derecho de propiedad, mercados de tierra, desamortización, gender, inequality, land grabbing, property right, land markets, disentailment

Topics: Gender, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality, Masculinism, Infrastructure, Information & Communication Technologies, Land Grabbing, Rights, Property Rights Regions: Americas, North America Countries: Mexico

Year: 2018

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