Top picks by Nicoline de Haan, CGIAR GENDER Platform Director
1. Southern Nigerian youth from rural areas
Three clear reasons rural youth in southern Nigeria have a bright future are Fractured Lives and Ambitious Tomorrows by Crossouard et al. My mind is glued to it. It is first because it concerns youth. Although we frequently talk about youth and how important they are for the future, there is not much research that has been done on rural youth. As the CGIARGENDER Platform evolves, our work will expand to include youth issues. We need more evidence and theoretical thinking. My second reason has to do with the article’s method: I was years ago in Kenya doing research on how rural education is preparing youth for tomorrow. This article also addresses this issue. I chose this article as it concerns Nigeria. After seven years spent there, Nigeria has always fascinated me. It was also great to see CGIAR scientist in this research.
2. Climate policy and practice should reflect gender equality
Lau et.al., Gender Equality and Climate Policy Hindered by Assumptions It is one those articles that should have gone out long ago. It discusses the assumptions still being made in agricultural gender research. You will see that women are more connected and caring than men. These assumptions can be detrimental to progress in climate change mitigation and even counterproductive, as the authors show. We can now move forward and address the real issues by putting this article out there.
3. Environment and Development: Gender Expertise
Resurreccion and Elmhirst has written an excellent book entitled Negotiating Gender Expertise on Environment and Development. This book contains critical reflections by gender experts about their experiences working with environment and development organisations, such as CGIAR. The book is unique in its format. It features a series conversations between Bernadette Resurreccion, Rebecca Elmhirst and gender experts working to put gender and social inclusion at the heart of sustainability research and practice. These conversations show the motivations and struggles of professionals working in this area, as well as the achievements, negotiations, and everyday struggles. Each chapter is unique, but they will all resonate with us who work in this field. you will be able to understand your profession better.
4. Forests are home to many cultiinities
Colfer’s new book, Masculinities within Forests: Representations to Diversity, explores the role of masculinities in forest management. Colfer has extensive experience working in different contexts such as Indonesia and the USA. This book is timely and examines diverse masculinities, how they influence forest management practices, while acknowledging men’s autonomy in expressing their masculine identities. I was impressed by the depth of the content and how it is presented. The book also addresses masculinities between professionals in forestry and among forest communities. Colfer’s ability and willingness to revisit decades of ethnographic data in a fresh way to create this book impressed me. Wow!
5. Diffusion & dilution
Doss’ diffusion and dilution: Power and perils of Integrating Feminist perspectives into Household Economics is important for me because it acknowledges our progress in integrating feminist economic views into mainstream economics and also points out areas that can be improved. It helps us keep our eyes on the prize. It is important to consider the potential benefits and harms of collecting data on domestic and gender-based abuse. Sometimes it feels like we take too lightly the decision about collecting data about domestic or gender-based abuse. This article also opens up discussion on two other topics that I love: First, how can we capture the complexity and power relationships between household members in which decisions are made? What can be done to measure social norms and the impact they have on people’s decisions and abilities? What can we do to change them?
6. Review of evidence
This is the brief review of evidence on gender equality, women’s empowerment and food systems by Njuki and co.
It is known mainly for its gendered-based food system framework. It brings together the diverse ways gender can affect choices, abilities, and outcomes in food system. It is a theoretical framework that answers key questions about gender and agricultural system research. This framework also supports evidence. I believe its most important contribution is how it unifies the different “entry point” gender constraints. Gender inequalities are not limited to those that creep into food systems’ biophysical, economic or technological drivers. Other shocks, vulnerabilities, and other factors can have different effects on women and men. Gendered food systems are systems because of their interdependence and dynamic nature. This underscores the need for a holistic approach to gender equality in agriculture.
7. Advancing gender equality
You don’t need to read the entire book. Instead, you can read the introduction. Pyburn and van Eerdewijk’s introduction for Advancing Gender Equality Using Agricultural and Environmental Research beautifully presents the topics. The book does not ask what gender equality means for agricultural development. It instead asks how agricultural/environmental research can improve gender equality. CGIAR’s first chapter gives a great overview of gender research. This chapter places CGIAR’s efforts to address the issue of gender within the context of wider development and gender thinking. Each chapter is summarised in the introduction, along with information on the methodological breakdown and geographic distribution of the reviewed studies.
8. Gender and agriculture economics
Gender researchers at the GCIAR know that men and women in developing countries have differing preferences and interests. Good policies and programs are designed to take this into consideration. What about the contributions of researchers? Offutt & McCluskey wrote How Women Saved Agricultural Economics. The article explains that women (and other minorities) are often underrepresented in academic and government economics roles. Also, they are less likely to receive awards or editorships for their achievements due to implicit bias as well as overt discrimination. The authors state that the increased diversity of women in the field has made the discipline more relevant over the past several decades. This research demonstrates the importance of increasing women’s representation in academic fields that are historically underrepresented by minorities. While the study focuses primarily on US agricultural economics, it also prompted further analysis of how these trends apply to other countries, including India and Kenya, as well as within other institutions.
9. Systems for food and agriculture
Social dimensions are often not included in foresight studies of agriculture because they can’t be quantified. Lentz’s Food and Agriculture Systems Foresight Study, Implications For Gender Poverty and Nutrition Review is a rare review which argues for including a nutrition, gender and poverty focus in foresight studies. This would make sure that we don’t encourage inequalities or perpetuate them, and also that policy- and innovation-led approaches are possible. Participatory foresight analysis has always intrigued me, having tried it using visioning, scenario planning and backcasting. This paper provides valuable insights on how to sequence or bundle interventions, and what the consequences of these interventions are for the entire agri-food industry. Even those unfamiliar with foresight methodologies, the paper is very interesting and informative.
10. Gender and landownership
The sticky topic of women’s restricted land ownership has been a constant theme in discourses and debates for quite some time. Nowhere has there been any progress made in reducing gender differences in land ownership. Cheryl Doss (2018) challenged the notion that women own less than 1% of global land. This complex topic is still being debated. Agarwal’s 2021 paper, How Many and which Women Own Land in India?, utilizes longitudinal data from the Village Level Studies. This data was collected by the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics. A set of Indian villages were used to collect the data. The results are used to analyze which women are most likely and how their patterns have changed.
The CGIAR GENDER Platform has also highlighted the importance of unpacking intersectionalities in order to gain better insights and inform targeted solutions. This paper highlights the importance intersectional approaches.
