Rights

African Feminism, Land Tenure and Soil Rights in Africa: A Case of Uganda

Citation:

Busingye, Godard. 2020. “African Feminism, Land Tenure and Soil Rights in Africa: A Case of Uganda.” In Legal Instruments for Sustainable Soil Management in Africa, edited by Hadijah Yahyah, Harald Ginzky, Emmanuel Kasimbazi, Robert Kibugi, and Oliver C. Ruppel, 133–55. International Yearbook of Soil Law and Policy. Cham: Springer International Publishing.

Author: Busingye, Godard

Abstract:

This chapter discusses the relationship between African feminism, land tenure and soil rights in Africa. It uses the lenses of African feminism, particularly the motherism brand, to provide a medium through which Africans can assert their rights to land and soil. It bases on a case of Uganda to critique the ideology of patriarchy which denies Africans automatic rights to land and soil or jus soli, through policy and the law. Automatic rights to land and soil would ensure that everyone in Africa is bonded to the land and soil as a mother is bonded to her child. Land and soil rights, which mean the same thing to an African, are contemporaneously acquired and are linked to citizenship rights, largely based on the principle of jus sanguinius. A general conclusion drawn is that in order to rectify the situation discussed African governments should use the lenses of African feminism to reconstruct policies and re-enact laws related to land ownership, soil and sustainable development. It recommends that African governments should review their land policies and laws, including constitutions, in order to grant land and soil rights to all Africans based on the principle of jus soli, while that of jus sanguinius should only be adopted in circumstances where it does not disadvantage any person. Future researchers should build on the analysis made herein and step up their advocacy drives to persuade African governments to undertake the necessary reforms in their land regulatory policies and laws. (Abstract from Springer Link)

Topics: Citizenship, Development, Feminisms, Gender, Women, Gendered Power Relations, Patriarchy, Governance, Land Tenure, Rights, Land Rights Regions: Africa, East Africa, Southern Africa Countries: Uganda

Year: 2020

Impact Assessment and Responsible Business Guidance Tools in the Extractive Sector: Implications for Human Rights, Gender and Stakeholder Engagement

Citation:

Simons, Penelope, Naiomi Metallic, Meinhard Doelle, Bayo Majekolagbe, and Sara Seck. 2020. “Impact Assessment and Responsible Business Guidance Tools in the Extractive Sector: Implications for Human Rights, Gender and Stakeholder Engagement.” Draft Final Report for the SSHRC Knowledge Synthesis Grant: Informing Best Practices in Environmental and Impact Assessments, Responsible Business Conduct and Impact Assessment Law, Marine and Environmental Institute, Schulrich School of Law, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Canada.

Authors: Penelope Simons, Naiomi Metallic, Meinhard Doelle, Bayo Majekolagbe, Sara Seck

Abstract:

This report aims to identify RBC tools referenced in the literature as relevant and/or promoted to Canadian extractive companies operating within and outside Canada. While not appraising or pronouncing on the quality of RBC tools, we consider the different actors that promote these diverse tools and whether there is a coherent framework for the efficient and effective application of current and future tools. We focus on RBC tools on human rights, stakeholder engagement, the rights of Indigenous peoples, and the rights of women and girls. Further, we review the position of scholars on the relationship between RBC and IA.

Topics: Extractive Industries, Gender, Girls, Women, Indigenous, Rights, Human Rights, Indigenous Rights, Women's Rights Regions: Americas, North America Countries: Canada

Year: 2020

Neo-Extractivism, the Bolivian State, and Indigenous Peasant Women’s Struggles for Water in the Altiplano

Citation:

Rodriguez Fernandez, Gisela V. 2020. “Neo-Extractivism, the Bolivian State, and Indigenous Peasant Women’s Struggles for Water in the Altiplano.” Human Geography 13 (1): 27–39. 

Author: Gisela V. Rodriguez Fernandez

Abstract:

SPANISH ABSTRACT: 
Al perseguir el progreso y el crecimiento económico, el estado boliviano liderado por el presidente Evo Morales reprodujo la división colonial del trabajo a través de un modelo de desarrollo conocido como neo-extractivismo. Las tensiones arraigadas entre las comunidades indígenas y el estado surgieron debido al fuerte vínculo económico de este último con el sector extractivista. Si bien la economía política del neo-extractivismose ha estudiado considerablemente, la forma en que tales tensiones afectan las relaciones sociopolíticas en las intersecciones de clase, raza y género no se ha explorado y ni teorizado mucho. Para abordar esta brecha de investigación, este estudio cualitativo planteó las siguientes preguntas de investigación: ¿Cómo crea el neo-extractivismo formas inequitativas de género de acumulación por desposesión? ¿Y qué formas de resistencia surgen para desafiar el impacto del neo-extractivismo entre las comunidades indígenas? Al analizar los procesos de reproducción social en Oruro, Bolivia, este estudio muestra que el neo-extractivismo conduce al despojo de tierras indígenas y formas de vida indígenas principalmente a través de la contaminación del agua. Debido a que las mujeres campesinas indígenas son productoras de subsistencia y reproductoras sociales cuyas actividades se centran en el agua, el despojo del agua tiene un efecto más grave y de género en ellas. Sin embargo, las mujeres indígenas y sus comunidades no están ociosas. Han surgido resistencias contra el neo-extractivismo. Paralelamente, las responsabilidades cotidianas de la reproducción social en el contexto de la agricultura de subsistencia, que están integradas en los epistemas andinos de reciprocidad, han permitido a las mujeres campesinas indígenas construir redes de solidaridad que mantienen vivo el tejido social dentro y entre las comunidades. Estas redes de solidaridad proporcionan importantes recursos sociopolíticos que son sitios de resistencias cotidianas que representan una amenaza continua y una alternativa a los mandatos capitalistas, coloniales y patriarcales.
 
ENGLISH ABSTRACT:
In pursuing progress and economic growth, the Bolivian state led by President Evo Morales replicated the colonial division of labor through a development model known as neo-extractivism. Rooted tensions between indigenous communities and the state emerged due to the latter’s zealous economic bond with the extractivist sector. While the political economy of neo-extractivism has been considerably studied, how such tensions affect socio-political relations at the intersections of class, race, and gender remains underexplored and undertheorized. To address this research gap, this qualitative study posed the following research questions: How does neo-extractivism create gendered forms of accumulation by dispossession? And what forms of resistance emerge to challenge the impact of neo-extractivism among indigenous communities? By analyzing processes of social reproduction in Oruro, Bolivia, this study shows that neo-extractivism leads to the dispossession of indigenous lands and indigenous ways of life mainly through the contamination of water. Because indigenous peasant women are subsistence producers and social reproducers whose activities are water centric, the dispossession of water has a direr and gendered effect on them. Indigenous women and their communities, however, are not idle. Resistances against neo-extractivism have emerged. In parallel, the daily responsibilities of social reproduction within the context of subsistence agriculture, which are embedded in Andean epistemes of reciprocity, have allowed indigenous peasant women to build solidarity networks that keep the social fabric within and between communities alive. These solidarity networks provide important socio-political resources that are sites of everyday resistances that represent an ongoing threat and an alternative to capitalist, colonial, and patriarchal mandates.

Keywords: extractivism, Bolivia, indigenous, women, resistance, extractivismo, mujeres indígenas, resistencia

Topics: Development, Extractive Industries, Gender, Women, Indigenous, Infrastructure, Water & Sanitation, Rights, Indigenous Rights, Land Rights Regions: Americas, South America Countries: Bolivia

Year: 2020

Conservation as Enclosure: An Ecofeminist Perspective on Sustainable Development and Biopiracy in Costa Rica

Citation:

Isla, Ana. 2005. “Conservation as Enclosure: An Ecofeminist Perspective on Sustainable Development and Biopiracy in Costa Rica.” Capitalism Nature Socialism 16 (3): 49–61.

Author: Ana Isla

Annotation:

Summary:
"This paper argues that the rhetoric of sustainable development reinforces the power and reach of global capitalism. Using the language of conservation, industry, large environmental NGOs, and local government elites are sacrificing the survival of forest peoples to capital accumulation. Enclosures of common lands for the purpose of bioprospecting liquidate the customary claims of forest ownership. As a result, conservation as enclosure suppresses the human rights of local communities and the rights of nature. In this process, campesinos and indigenous people are impoverished as their local environments move from abundance to scarcity in a commodified world, and they themselves become displaced, marginalized, even criminalized, and unwaged in a waged global world. Women lose their autonomy in gender and development programs that claim to promote equality by including them in the international market. They are pushed into capitalized biotech micro-enterprises, become indebted, overextend their work time, and substitute family food production for the cultivation of medicinal plants—all for less than a minimum wage. By these predatory programs, a vulnerable local nature and vulnerable local women are tied into the world economy, not for conservation or emancipation, but to be exploited for capital accumulation" (Isla 2005, 13-4).

Topics: Development, Environment, Gender, Women, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality, Indigenous, Rights, Human Rights, Indigenous Rights Regions: Americas, Central America Countries: Costa Rica

Year: 2005

The Protection of the Environment: A Gendered Analysis

Citation:

Yoshida, Keina. 2020. “The Protection of the Environment: A Gendered Analysis.” Goettingen Journal of International Law 10 (1): 283-305.

Author: Keina Yoshida

Abstract:

This article addresses the International Law Commission’s Draft Principles on the Protection of the Environment in Relation to Armed Conflicts. The main argument presented is that any principles on the protection of the environment – pre-conflict, during conflict, and post-conflict – should be complementary to and inclusive of both the Women, Peace and Security agenda and Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Diccimination Against Women as part of a holistic and integrated approach to environmental protection. The erasure of the specific women’s human rights instruments, including Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Diccimination Against Women, cannot be legitimized on the basis that mentioning gender equality or the right to nondiscrimination is redundant given that other more general instruments have been cited or that considering them is too controversial. Their inclusion as part of the underlying international human rights framework is vital.

Topics: Armed Conflict, Environment, Climate Change, Gender, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality, Rights, Human Rights, Women's Rights, UN Security Council Resolutions on WPS

Year: 2020

Women, Land and Power: The Impact of the Communal Land Rights Act

Citation:

Claassens, Aninka, and Sizani Ngubane. 2008. “Women, Land and Power: The Impact of the Communal Land Rights Act.” In Land, Power and Custom: Controversies Generated by South Africa's Communal Land Rights Act, edited by  Aninka Classens and Ben Cousins, 154-183. Cape Town, South Africa: UCT Press.

Authors: Aninka Claassens, Sizani Ngubane

Annotation:

Summary:
"This chapter examines the likely impact of the Communal Land Rights Act 11 of 2004 on rural women in South Africa. It is based on research undertaken by the authors in the context of the legal challenge1 to the Act. The Act deals with the content and vesting of land rights as well as the powers and functions of the structures that will administer 'communal' land. The chapter looks at the interplay between land rights and power over land. The discussion begins with a description of some of the problems facing rural women in the former homeland areas covered by the Act. It then describes issues raised by women's organisations in late 2003 during the parliamentary process leading to the passing of the Communal Land Rights Bill. There were two main objections to the Bill. The first was that entrenching the power of traditional leaders over land was likely to reinforce patriarchal power relations and harden the terrain within which women struggle to access and retain land. The second was that the Bill would entrench past discrimination against women by upgrading and formalising 'old order' rights held exclusively by men" (Claasens & Ngubane 2008, 154).

Topics: Armed Conflict, Civil Society, Gender, Women, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality, Patriarchy, Governance, Rights, Land Rights, Property Rights, Women's Rights Regions: Africa, Southern Africa Countries: South Africa

Year: 2008

Ways to Come, Ways to Leave: Gender, Mobility, and Il/Legality among Ethiopian Domestic Workers in Yemen

Citation:

De Regt, Marina. 2010. “Ways to Come, Ways to Leave: Gender, Mobility, and Il/Legality among Ethiopian Domestic Workers in Yemen.” Gender & Society 24 (2): 237–60.

 

Author: Marina De Regt

Abstract:

Based on anthropological fieldwork in Yemen, this article examines the relationship between gender, mobility, and il/legality in the lives of Ethiopian domestic workers. Studies about migrant domestic workers in the Middle East often focus on abuse and exploitation, making a plea for the regulation of women’s legal status. Yet legal migration does not automatically mean that women gain more rights and become more mobile; regulation may also entail more control. The relationship between method of entry and legal status is not fixed, and the boundaries between legality and illegality are often blurred, with women moving in and out of il/legality and legal organizations following illegal practices, and vice versa. Gendered state policies and practices also affect women’s space for maneuvering, and attempts at regulation may further restrict rather than increase their mobility.

Keywords: international relations, transnational relations, migration, work, occupation

Topics: Displacement & Migration, Migration, Gender, Women, Rights, Women's Rights Regions: MENA, Asia, Middle East Countries: Yemen

Year: 2010

Listening to the Landscapes of Mama Tingo: From the ‘Woman Question’ in Sustainable Development to Feminist Political Ecology in Zambrana-Chacuey, Dominican Republic

Citation:

Rocheleau, Dianne. 2007. “Listening to the Landscapes of Mama Tingo: From the ‘Woman Question’ in Sustainable Development to Feminist Political Ecology in Zambrana-Chacuey, Dominican Republic.” In A Companion to Feminist Geography, edited by Lise Nelson and Joni Seager, 419–33. Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishing.

Author: Dianne Rocheleau

Abstract:

Summary:
“In the rural countryside of the Dominican Republic environmental change has long been tied to livelihoods and landscapes and enmeshed in struggles for social justice and rights to land. In the early 1990s I went with a team of three other researchers to the rolling hills of the Zambrana–Chacuey region in the center of the country to learn about and document the recent community forestry experience of women and men who had been engaged in peasant land struggles against large commercial landowners for decades. Our goal was to see how gender and class had affected their sustainable development and forestry enterprise efforts, and in turn, how these initiatives had changed gendered social relations in the region. We ended up in a dialogue that I call “listening to the landscape,” since every feature in this patchwork of farms, forests, gardens, and homesteads was tied to stories of individual lives, families, communities, and social movements” (Rocheleau, 2007, 419).

Topics: Class, Development, Environment, Feminisms, Feminist Political Ecology, Gender, Gendered Power Relations, Livelihoods, Rights, Land Rights Regions: Americas, Caribbean countries Countries: Dominican Republic

Year: 2007

Kebijakan Luar Negeri Feminis Swedia (2014-2018)

Citation:

Maha, Irayomi F. and Shary Charlotte Henriette Pattipeilohy. 2020. “Kebijakan Luar Negeri Feminis Swedia (2014-2018).” Journal of International Relations 7 (1): 1-12.

Authors: Irayomi F. Maha, Shary Charlotte Henriette Pattipeilohy

Abstract:

ENGLISH ABSTRACT:

In 2014, for the first time Sweden declared itself a country with a feminist foreign policy. The statement that drew international attention and attention was delivered by the Swedish foreign minister, Margot Wallstrӧm, who is an activist for women and gender equality. In implementing this policy, there are six external policies carried out by Sweden which are implemented by the Swedish foreign ministry and the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA). The six policies include; fulfillment of human rights, freedom from acts of physical, mental and sexual violence, participation of women in preventing and resolving conflicts in the pre and post-conflict period, participation in elections, fulfillment of economic and development rights and finally the right to reproduce and sexually healthy. can analyze Sweden's reasons for implementing these six policies. The unit of analysis in foreign policy consisting of individuals, countries and the international system is used. This research is an explanatory research type and qualitative research type with literature research data collection techniques and uses congruent methods to analyze data. The results of this study indicate that the three unit level analyzes, both individual, state and international system, encourage the formation of feminist foreign policy from Sweden. 

Keywords: feminist foreign policy, sweden, SIDA, individual, state, international system

Topics: Conflict, Conflict Prevention, Feminisms, Feminist Foreign Policy, Gender, Women, Gender Equality/Inequality, Governance, Elections, Post-Conflict Governance, Health, Reproductive Health, Post-Conflict, Post-Conflict Reconstruction, Rights, Human Rights, Sexual Violence Regions: Europe, Nordic states, Northern Europe Countries: Sweden

Year: 2020

A Challenging Agenda for Troubled Times: The Swedish Feminist Foreign Policy

Citation:

Kouvo, Sari. 2020. “A Challenging Agenda for Troubled Times: The Swedish Feminist Foreign Policy.” Retfærd 4: 65-88.

Author: Sari Kouvo

Abstract:

In 2014, the Swedish Government declared that it was a feminist government. Foreign Minister Margot Wallström also took the opportunity to announce that Sweden would become the first country in the world to adopt a feminist foreign policy. The feminist banner was raised at a time when Europe, including Sweden, was grappling with what has come to be called the migration crisis and a rise in violent extremism across ideological, political and religious boundaries, and when the world seemed to be shifting further into conflict mode. This is also a time when notions of feminism and gender equality are as furiously promoted as they are contested. The aim of this article is first, to situate the Swedish Feminist Foreign Policy in the broader context of Swedish equality politics and foreign policy. Second, to discuss how the term feminism used in the policy and what the overall contents of the policy are. Third, to problematize the policy through two examples focusing on the one hand on the challenge of a braver politics and on the other hand on the in-built tension between Sweden’s Feminist Foreign Policy and the Swedish trade and defence interests and in particular Swedish arms trade. The article focuses on developments during the first government term, 2014–2018, but it will also touch upon the developments during the second government term, 2019–2022. The article shows that the Policy has made a difference. It has raised awareness and built knowledge of women’s rights and equality within the Ministry and helped ensure that these issues are systematically integrated into much of foreign policy. The fact that the Policy has continued after the elections and is now being taken forward for another government term has helped institutionalise the policy and may also have increased international interest. 

Topics: Feminisms, Feminist Foreign Policy, Gender, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality, Rights, Women's Rights, Weapons /Arms Regions: Europe, Nordic states, Northern Europe Countries: Sweden

Year: 2020

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