The latest in gender, agriculture and development...
21 January, 2022
Image: Davies Surya and Jilla Dastmalchi
Quote of the Week:
"If women in agriculture are not seen as farmers, what are they seen as?
Prior to 1994, women could not list farmer as their occupation on the census form. Instead they were viewed “non-productive silent partners”. From the 1980s, a grassroots movement of female farmers, advocates and academics worked hard to improve the visibility of women in agriculture. While this influenced the change in the census to allow women to be able to identify as farmers, gendered ideas of farming remain.
Family farms are seen as having two key roles. The physically strong, tough and individualistic dominant primary farmer, and the submissive, nurturing, home-centred, secondary farmer or farm helper. No prizes for guessing which genders are allocated to which roles.
We know that the industry has been, is, and will continue to be heavily dependent on the contribution of women."
This conference adopts justice and equity as central normative lenses to explore just futures in an urbanising and mobile world, facing a climate and ecological crisis in a pandemic or post-pandemic context. It will explore the interconnections of these three major processes, and their implications for future development. Thinking across multiple scales and spatialities – rural/urban, urban/national/global – will provide new insights into the possibilities of just development futures.
“Five women who were detained for protesting against a military coup in the country earlier this year say they were abused and tortured in the detention system after their arrests.
Since Myanmar's military seized power in February, protests have swept across the country - and women have played a prominent role in the resistance movement.
Human rights groups say that although the military in Myanmar (also known as Burma) used disappearances, hostage-taking and torture tactics before, the violence has become more widespread since the coup.
As of 8 December, 1,318 civilians have been killed during military crackdowns on the pro-democracy movement, including 93 women, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP) non-profit human rights organisation.
At least eight of those women died while in custody, four of whom were tortured to death in an interrogation centre.
More than 10,200 people have been detained in total, including over 2,000 women."
Advancing Women in Agriculture through Research and Education (AWARE) is an initiative by the Department of Global Development in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Cornell University to engage a community focused on empowering women in agriculture. AWARE believes that empowering women as an underserved group holds the greatest potential to make significant impacts in agricultural development.
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