This theme aims to challenge some of the accepted notions about gender and social relations in agriculture in Sub-Saharan Africa. Our research takes a ‘social relational’ approach - recognising that people operate within different social, economic and political contexts, not as isolated individuals. We are also challenging common framings in policy and practice that equate “gender” with “women”, and put women and men in opposition to each other.
We aim to demonstrate how a social relational approach can change the problem analysis and therefore the policy solutions to changing the status of disadvantaged groups.
Our focus is on processes of change - in particular:
Christine Okali, FAC Gender and Social Difference theme convenor, will attend two forthcoming meetings on gender and agricultural research in October 2012.
The first is an international seminar on 'Gender Relations and Women’s Agency in Rural Environment: What Has Changed, What Is to Be Changed in Sub-Saharan Africa'. It is organised by the General Directorate for International Cooperation of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Italy, and will take place in Rome in October.
How are the interests of young men and women similar or different, from an agriculture policy perspective? What are their priorities? We asked FAC researchers and experts in youth policy and agriculture to address this question, in a series of short interviews filmed at the FAC Conference on Young People, Farming and Food in Accra, Ghana in March 2012.
In a blog post, Christine Okali examines the impact of the new Women's Empowerment in Agriculture Index.
"...The Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index has just been launched with great fanfare. It intends to serve as a tool for measuring and monitoring women’s roles and their engagement in agriculture with the aim of closing identified “gender empowerment gaps”. But does the WEA Index fall into the same trap of previous attempts, essentializing women’s roles and failing to get to grips with the social relations at the heart of gender dynamics in agriculture?..."
Christine Okali, FAC Gender & Social Difference theme convenor, attended the Expert Group Meeting of UN-Women in Autumn 2011.
The event was entitled: "Enabling rural women's economic empowerment: institutions, opportunities and participation", and was held on 20-23 September 2011 in Accra, Ghana.
The paper Achieving Transformative Change for Women's Empowerment (PDF) by Christine Okali was featured as an Expert Paper at the meeting (ref EGM/RW/2011/EP.8).
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An e-debate in May 2011 drew on insights about household gender relations, including conjugal relations, arising from feminist and other research relevant to ongoing debates about the potential of small farms to contribute to increasing food supplies in sub-Saharan Africa.
Okali, C. and Naess, L.O. (2013) Making Sense of Gender, Climate Change and Agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa Working Paper 57
Gender & Social Difference