African female scientists: where are they?

During the conference of the Association of American Geographers which took place in Los Angeles between the 9th and 13th of April I took part to a panel on Feminist Critical Participatory Methodologies. I gave a short presentation on my work in Kenya and Tanzania involving the utilization of a pamphlet in Swahili to counter check with participants and informants findings and improve reciprocal understanding.

All in all the panel was great and I got a lot of inspiration to continue my work on this topic. Listening to the struggles and challenges faced by scholar colleagues employing participatory techniques was encouraging. I was impressed by the work done by Naya Jones  at the University of Texas through the network she co-founded Food for Black Thought about the impact of gentrification of East Austin. I thought the methodology of "minga" by prof. Yvonne Riano from the University of Bern relates quite closely to my use of the pamphlet. However, while discussing after the panel two questions came up: is participatory research only for marginalized groups? And why is the majority of participatory methodology literature produced in North America, aren´t these practices accepted within the European academy?

Most importantly, these questions made me reflect on the very limited presence of African female geographers at the AAG. During the conference I focused mostly on sessions about Eastern Africa, rural and feminist geography, but I did not come across research involving participatory methods with African women farmers. The only exception was the work by Dr. Wangui from Ohio University with female pastoralist in northern Tanzania.

I am convinced these two elements are related. Participatory research, as the AAG panel shows, is in fact mostly done by "insiders". The limited number of African female scientists is confirmed by the BBC podcast Sisters in Science  which focuses on women botanists and enthomologist at the University of Dar Es Salaam. As all women scientists all over the world they report the difficulties of juggling between work and family and how the support of their parents and husband was crucial to be able to succeed in having an accademic career. However, they stress, women in science are so few because the government investment in education and university is minimal.

Girls´ drop out is massive already in secondary school and if they reach the tertiary level they are stigmatized by their colleagues when they leave work early to take care of their children. Moreover, interviewees add "of the ones that went abroad to get their PhD very few came back". Sweden has invested 2 million SEK in the education of African PhD students and, as reported in this post by the NAI, a study is undergoing to evaluate the career paths taken by these scientists. What has emerged so far is indeed the challenge faced by women in dealing with family life and a PhD programme and the lack of academic resources in their home countries when they decide to return.

Hopefully this post triggers some reflections on this topic and widens the discussion with the participation of African women scholars themselves!

The gender dimension of land grabbing in Africa

Prompted by previous posts and by the recent report by Oxfam "Promises, Power, and Poverty. Corporate land deals and rural women in Africa" I would like to focus on the consequences that land deals have on women farmers, who are the backbone of small holder farming in Africa. Private land corporations are mostly interested in the production of soya, jatropha and eucalyptus wiping out small plots used for the production of food crops, mostly in the hands of women farmers.

Women in most of the continent have no property rights and decision making is left in the hands of their husbands who could be potential beneficiaries of monetary compensations or agricultural jobs linked with these deals. Moreover, women´s ecological knowledge is denied. Nevertheless, they are still in charge of food production which means that they have to scramble for resources and eat less, compromising their health. The practice of reducing their own portions or giving up eating during times of hardships is a common practice which women reported also to me during my  fieldwork in Kenya and Tanzania. Obviously women prioritize feeding their children because they do not want to jeopardize their survival of their children. Additionally, in dire times they give more food to their husband  because of patriarcal societal norms endowing men with the role of head of family, even though he is not the main food provider. In relation to this phenomenon Kabeer (1989)  talks of "seasonality of beating" as violence against women is much more frequent during times of food scarcity.

Engaruka in Tanzania, where I carry out fieldwork for my PhD research, is a good example of how small holder agriculture can co-exist with low intensity biofuel production. There in fact, jatropha is used as a hedge bush and planted along irrigation furrows and channels. Picking seeds represent an extra cash income for farmers and a provider of fuel for local provision of electricity, as mentioned by Karin Edberg in her 2010 MA thesis and by a 2009 IIED report.

Against this backdrop women farmers in Tanzania want their sustainable agricultural practices to be acknowledged, facilitated and promoted by the government. Reading different sources one priority emerges in the context of the ongoing constitutional reform: equal property rights for men and women. Among various initiatives promoting this reform with a special focus on the rights of women farmers, my attention was drawn particularly by the Oxfam Female Food Hero Awards (check out the video!) and the Tanzania Gender Networking Programme which in 2011 organized a forum with 4000 women calling for the recognition of women´s food sovereignity in the context of an increasing number of private land acquisitions.

Doctoral positions at Stockholm University

Two doctoral positions in Human Geography at Stockholm University are now advertised. It is part of a new EU-funded ITN network on Resilience in East African Landscapes, and draws on cooperation between major European departments studying the historical and present aspects of East African farming and herding landscapes.

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Read more about the hosting Stockholm research environment PLATINA.

More info from lowe.borjeson@humangeo.su.se and mats.widgren@humangeo.su.se