The making and unmaking of gendered crops in northern Ghana

Abstract

In rural West Africa, the gendered division of labour extends to labelling certain crops as ‘male’ or ‘female’. With the introduction of new varieties of crops and technologies, these constructions of gendered plants undergo a process of renegotiation at social intrafaces. This process of attaching meaning to new features in cultivation results in the remaking of gendered crops. These negotiations, in turn, have an effect on the construction of gender in specific ethnic and environmental settings, unlinking labour from its gendered connotations and, thus, unmaking the social meaning and creating room for manoeuvre. Based on fieldwork among the Dagomba and Kusasi people in northern Ghana, this study examines how gendered responsibilities and access to the cultivation of crops are linked and expressed in obligations related to the cultural ideal of a proper meal, in this case consisting of the food categories (male) staple and (female) soup, which serve as the blueprint for assigning crops to a specific gender.

Gender and Biodiversity: A New Approach to Linking Environment and Development

“…In some of the case studies, gender relations are balanced and cooperative as in Mayan communities in Mexico (Lope Alzina 2007) while in northern Mexico male outmigration pushes women into decision‐making positions (Chambers and Momsen 2007). In Africa, women have a major role in agricultural production but one that is based on local culture and in many places is changing in the face of the introduction of new crops (Padmanabhan 2007). In predominantly Islamic countries, such as Bangladesh, women do not play a very public role in agriculture but are vital to the preservation of indigenous crops (Oakley and Momsen 2005, 2007).…”

“…Their practical knowledge is often locally specific but global discourse may inform the substance of such knowledge. In West Africa, root crops provide the staple diet, but in Ghana, the introduction of soybeans changed the gendered relationships with the basic food crops (Padmanabhan 2007). In the Brazilian interior, the development of a national park has resulted in the community having an economy increasingly based on ecotourism attracting many outsiders, with agriculture in decline, and Robert Voeks (2007) has traced the impact of these developments on the gendered and life‐stage‐based loss of knowledge of wild medicinal plants.…”

Is bean really a women’s crop? Men and women’s participation in bean production in Uganda

“…One major concern is the gender division of labor where household members participate in different activities based on gender roles and responsibilities. These roles can be divided based on the type of crop and type of agricultural task [20]. Chayal et al [22] highlighted weeding, winnowing, harvesting, drying of grains, storage and processing as majorly being women tasks.…”

“…On the positive side, there are cases where commercialization is believed not to reduce women control over crops as case of groundnuts in Zambia's Eastern Province [5], cassava in Malawi and Nigeria [19] and onions in Northern Ghana [20]. Given that we are not sure of what will happen to women's participation in bean-related activities in Uganda when the crop finds market, it calls for investigative efforts to understand men and women's participation in bean production to ably target interventions in the sub-sector and make informed policies that can make bean a profitable crop for women once the crop becomes more profitable.…”

Collective action in agrobiodiversity management: gendered rules of reputation, trust and reciprocity in Kerala, India

“…The requirement of fairness for successful exchange embodies most often the twin rule of 'equals should be treated equal and unequals unequal' (Ostrom, 2005, p. 20). It is important to note that people assess others through crosschecking and triangulation-that is comparing information from more than two different sources-among the individual relational categories is simultaneously a discourse of confirming and negotiating values (Padmanabhan, 2007).…”