Gender, Class, and Access to Water: Three Cases in a Poor and Crowded Delta

Crow, Ben; Sultana, Farhana

doi:10.1080/08941920290069308

Cited by 120 publications

(102 citation statements)

References 12 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…), interventions that aim to improve livelihoods may in fact reinforce existing inequalities. In Bangladesh and in the Solomons, for example, women and nonlandowners are more likely to be marginalized from decisions about how natural resources are used, developed, and managed (Foale and Macintyre 2000, Crow and Sultana 2002, Cohen et al 2016. Customary tenure systems often give certain individuals and groups preferential access and more power in decision making than others.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Identifying opportunities to improve governance of aquatic agricultural systems through participatory action research

Apgar¹,

Cohen²,

Ratner³

et al. 2017

E&S

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

ABSTRACT. Challenges of governance often constitute critical obstacles to efforts to equitably improve livelihoods in social-ecological systems. Yet, just as often, these challenges go unspoken, or are viewed as fixed parts of the context, beyond the scope of influence of agricultural, development, or natural resource management initiatives. What does it take to get governance obstacles and opportunities out in the open, creating the space for constructive dialogue and collective action that can help to address them? We respond to this question by comparing experiences of participatory action research (PAR) in coastal and floodplain systems in four countries (Zambia, Solomon Islands, Bangladesh, and Cambodia) with a focus on understanding how to build more equitable governance arrangements. We found that governance improvement was often an implicit or secondary objective of initiatives that initially sought to address more technical natural resource or livelihood-related development challenges. We argue that using PAR principles of ownership, equity, shared analysis, and feedback built trust and helped to identify and act upon opportunities to address more difficult-to-shift dimensions of governance particularly in terms of stakeholder representation, distribution of authority, and accountability. Our findings suggest that the engaged and embedded approach of researcher-facilitators can help move from identifying opportunities for governance change to supporting stakeholders as they build more equitable governance arrangements.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Identifying opportunities to improve governance of aquatic agricultural systems through participatory action research

Apgar¹,

Cohen²,

Ratner³

et al. 2017

E&S

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The present results suggest that increasing feminization of the labor force, such as is occurring in much of Africa (Casale & Posel, 2002), may increase women's labor burdens as the "second shift" (Hochschild, 2001) moves to coastal Ghana. Women already shoulder many of the demands of family life, child care responsibilities, and resource collection within developing regions (Crow & Sultana, 2002;Parrado, 2002;Rose, 2000). At the start, it was argued that improved drinking water access may not be perceived as a priority development need if a relatively satisfactory household collection strategy is in place.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Indeed, women often bear the primary responsibility for resource collection (e.g., Bour, 2004;Crow & Sultana, 2002;Ardayfio-Schandorf & Kwafo-Akoto, 1990), with these responsibilities impacting women's health (Buor, 2004;Higgins & Alderman, 1997) and also lessening the potential for time spent elsewhere (e.g., market activities, agricultural production, and cooking) (Kumar & Hotchkiss, 1988).…”

Section: Household Decision-making and Natural Resource Scarcitymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In Africa alone, by 2025, 25 nations are projected to experience stress with regard to water resources (UNEP, 2002). Indeed, many developing regions already feel the pressures resulting from such shortages, with women and young girls often spending several hours daily collecting the natural resources necessary for household maintenance (e.g., Crow & Sultana, 2002).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Household strategies in the face of resource scarcity in coastal Ghana: are they associated with development priorities?

Hunter

2006

Popul Res Policy Rev

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In many developing regions, women and young girls spend several hours daily in the collection of natural resources. Still the link between these household resource strategies and stakeholder perceptions of development priorities remains unexplored. This project examines this association with survey data representative of the adult population from Ghana's Coastal Region. Although natural resource scarcity and the sustainability of resource use represent key development challenges, there are others (e.g., energy, sanitation, employment, and educational opportunities). As such, even in the face of natural resource scarcity, individuals may place greater importance on other dimensions of development, especially if household resource strategies are perceived as relatively efficient. The analytical focus here is on water and the results suggest that gender roles shape household water collection strategies, while also shaping these strategies' perceived opportunity costs. Specifically, Ghanian adults more often see drinking water provision as their primary development need when water sources are distant and/or when male household members collect water (particularly male heads). In the end, I argue that social science inquiry benefits by contextualizing social dynamics within environmental context, particularly within cultural settings in which human subsistence is intimately tied to the state of the natural environment.

show abstract

“…While there is agreement that the social relations of water are poorly understood (Tortajada 1998;Crow and Sultana 2010;Truelove 2011) it is clear that historically women have been fundamental in the provision and management of water at household and community levels and that if daily practice is examined gender relations interact with class, material inequalities and other social power relations resulting in inequality in water security and access. While so 6 frequently women and girls take responsibility to provide water men frequently own the productive assets, make decisions in government offices and communal institutions.…”

Section: Constructing a Political Economy Of Gender Tourism And Watermentioning

confidence: 99%

Towards a gendered political economy of water and tourism

Cole

Ferguson

2015

Tourism Geographies

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In many holiday destinations, the tourism industry exerts an enormous strain on water supplies. This generates a range of social problems, not least because local inhabitants often have to compete with the tourism sector over the access, allocation and use of water for their personal and domestic needs. Nevertheless, there has been very little academic research on the link between tourism and the impact of water scarcity on destination populations in developing countries. While there is a wealth of literature on gender and tourism development, such research has tended to focus on employment relations and tourism policy and planning, neglecting ecological issues such as water. Drawing on original ethnographic research conducted in Tamarindo, Costa Rica, in 2013, this paper makes a preliminary attempt to address this gap in the literature by developing a gendered political economy approach to water in tourism development.Three key themes are identified from this research: the salience of intersectional inequalities of gender, class and nationality, in particular the different experiences of Nicaraguan women, Costa Rican women and women from the Global North; how the role of social reproduction is vital to understanding gender and water in Tamarindo due to enduring assumptions about women's perceived responsibility for water; and the gendered dimensions of conflicts over water. Such conflicts are highly gendered and contribute to reshaping of power relations in this international tourism destination. In the conclusions, we argue that our findings demonstrate the need to pay attention to both intersectionality and social reproduction, as well as to identify a future research agenda for developing a gendered political economy approach to tourism and water.

show abstract

Gender, Class, and Access to Water: Three Cases in a Poor and Crowded Delta

Abstract: Water plays a pivotal role in economic activity and in human well-being. Because of the prominence of water in production (primarily for irrigation) and in domestic use (drinking, washing, cooking)

Cited by 120 publications

References 12 publications

Identifying opportunities to improve governance of aquatic agricultural systems through participatory action research

Identifying opportunities to improve governance of aquatic agricultural systems through participatory action research

Household strategies in the face of resource scarcity in coastal Ghana: are they associated with development priorities?

Towards a gendered political economy of water and tourism

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About