Overcoming inequalities without challenging women’s loyalty to the indigenous community - Case study in the Indigenous Community Nasa Kiwe, Colombia

Blanca Sandoval

Department of Urban and Rural DevelopmentMaster’s ThesisRural Development and Natural Resource Management - Master’s ProgrammeUppsala 2013

Session Transforming Gender Roles in Agriculture: A Diversity of Approaches

Conference Agricultural Research Towards Sustainable Development Goals

September 26 2013

Content

1. Background2. Research questions3. Theorethical framework4. Methodology and methods5. Cases6. Conclusions

1. Background

The indigenous community Nasa Kiwe

To Cali city, Valle´s capital

National road

Nuevo México

La MaríaSantander

townQuitapereza

To Popayán city, Cauca´s capital

Colombia Cauca department

Santander municipality

Nuevo México

General assembly

Manifestation against gold mining

Communitarian work in a communal aloe vera crop

2. Research questions

How do women bring up questions of gender inequalities vis a vis men without challenging their loyalty to an indigenous community?

1. How do women participate in the social and political life?

2. How are unequal power relations perpetuated?

3. How do indigenous women envision their involvement in the social and political life?

3. Theoretical framework

Feminist and postcolonial literature:

• Gender and women´s agency, Seema Arora-Jonsson

• Cultural relativism and colonial discourse, Chandra Mohanty, Maria Mies & Vandana Shiva, Melissa Marie Forbis

• Gender and ethnicity, Astrid Ulloa, Olga Luz Restrepo

• Participation, Susan Senecah, Georgina Méndez, Lynn Stephen

• Development, Sarah Radcliffe & Andrea Pequeño

4. Methodology and methods

• Qualitative research

– Participant observation in 15 events

– 10 unstructured interviews

– Informal conversations

– One survey

• Discourse analysis

5. Cases of analysis

1. Creation of the Community Nasa Kiwe

2. The committe of water supply in Nuevo México

3. Training sesions of the Regional Program of Woman

4. Activities of the Program of Woman Nasa Wike:– Restaurant project

– Cattle breeding proposal

Women´s analysis about gold mining impacts in their territories

This was one way to elucidate inequalities:

– Unequal distribution of land

– Difficulties for women to access credits

– Technical language coined by men limits communication

– Low political influence of women on their indigenous authorities –mainly men

3. Training sesions of the Regional Program of Woman

6. Conclusions

How do women bring up questions of gender inequalities vis a vis men without challenging their loyalty to an indigenous community?

Men and women are committed to their culture and political struggles.

There are inequalities that limit women´s participation in the public sphere.

Women´s personal agency, limited by:

Women´s for political discussion are belittled (women gossip and men discuss)

Attributes of men and women frame their participation– Women: Reserved and supportive– Men: Talkative and leader

Technical language limits communication.

Women´s collective agency, limited by:

Dominant discourses of broader struggles.

Formal compromises on which a group is founded.

Discourse colonization of blaming the outsider.

Women envision:

Relationships between men and women in equilibrium, and with the nature, without discriminations.

A better exercise of the social and political life of communities.

Wish to strengthen their involvement in the public life.

Thanks for your attention!