New publication on researcher, assistant and participant subjectivities

Situated knowledge in cross-cultural, cross-language research: a collaborative reflexive analysis of researcher, assistant and participant subjectivity 

Martina Angela Caretta 

This article analyzes situated knowledge through the lens of the author and her three field assistants. This work is written self-reflexively and is based on geographical fieldwork in Eastern Africa. It seeks to capitalize on the personal and professional relationships of the researcher and her field assistants to improve both research outcomes and working arrangements. Reflecting on episodes of failure, anxiety and misunderstanding, it disentangles the power geometry of situated knowledge and sheds light on the vital role played by the assistant/interpreter and by his/her positionality ‘in the making’ of cross-cultural, cross-language research. Grounded in a feminist epistemological perspective, this article shows that methodological reflexivity should engage not only the researcher or the participants but also the field assistants. This praxis is crucial to enhancing the validity of studies conducted in a cross-cultural, cross-language environment across social science.

Read the full article here doi:10.1177/1468794114543404

Frosty and cold winter .. . .

July 11th  at 0730. A frosty morning the Witwatersrand University research station at Komati Gorge.

For a Swede it does not really make sense to leave for 25 degrees South and 1600 m above sea level in the middle of July, when summer finally has come to the northern hemisphere. But the attraction, in spite of cold mornnings and cold lecture halls, is the combination of a meeting in Komati Gorge and surrounding Bokoni area with the network "African Farming: an interdisciplinary pan-African perspective on farming" and the long row of papers presented on the "Farmers" session of the combined meeting in Johannesburg of The 14th Congress of Pan African Archaeological Association for Prehistory and Related Studies & The 22nd Biennial Meeting of the Society of Africanist Archaeologists. Four papers and two poster presentations report on work in the interdisciplinary Bokoni research programme, where one component has been the cooperation (2010 to 2012) between South African archaeologists and Swedish geographers under Swedish-Research Links programme.  New to me this time were the commendable efforts to make Bokoni sites accessible for the general public and to cooperate with local communities in this. This webpage is an example of this. It provides a good overview of the fascinating history of the Bokoni people and their system of intensive and terraced agriculture.

Hydropatriarchies and landesque capital.

2014 is the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations’ year of family farming.Moreover, the African Union designated 2014 the year of agriculture and food security. Family farming, and hence food security, in Africa would not be possible without the contribution of women, who make up for circa 50% of small holder farmers. The majority of agricultural production in Africa is in fact in the hands of smallholders. Nevertheless, women´s role in agricultural production is still somehow not at the forefront of the debate on food security, as it should be. Continue here...

This is the blog post I wrote on the RGS-IBG journals blog Geography Directions to advertise my recent publication on The Geographical Journal titled 

Hydropatriarchies and landesque capital: a local gender contract analysis of two smallholder irrigation systems in East Africa

Here is the abstract: 

Water is a natural resource whose control for productive purposes is often in the hands of men. Societies grounded on such unequal gender relations have been defined ‘hydropatriarchies’. Against this background, this paper presents a gender analysis of landscape investments, conceptualised as landesque capital in smallholder irrigation farming in East Africa. Based on the analysis of how local gender contracts are negotiated, I argue that as processes of landesque capital formation are often explicitly gendered, attentiveness to gender dynamics is required to fully understand such practices. Moreover, as investments in landesque capital, for example, irrigation, terracing and drainage systems, have primarily been conceptualised as the result of men's systematic work, this study highlights women's contributions to the creation of landesque capital, taking smallholder irrigation as an example. Findings show that a distinction between ‘incremental’ and ‘systematic’ change (Doolittle 1984; Annals of the Association of American Geographers 74 124–37) is central to understanding the gender dynamics of landesque capital investment, but it is not sufficient. As women's work processes are typically not systematic, possibly promoting incremental change, they contribute to the production of landesque capital by supporting and facilitating men's work. However, the work of women is, as a rule, homogenised and stereotypically rendered as reproductive and secondary, due to the underlying cultural norms that limit, control or exploit women. This conceptualisation, or rather lack of, I argue, risks leading to a gender-blind analysis of land use intensification processes. Building on the gendered and symbolic nature of landesque capital, I propose a local gender contract analysis that integrates the cultural, symbolic and physical dimensions of the local gender division of labour into agricultural work and landscape change processes.

Read the full article here

Reading suggestions for the summer

The summer is approaching and (hopefully) you will have enough time available to read some popular/fictional literature. Here comes my suggestion! 

I just finished reading the memoir One day I will write about this place by Binyavanga Wainaina a Kenyan writer who is a contributor to several international magazine as the Guardian and has been recently nominated by the TIME as one of the 100 most influential people in 2014. With both parents from Uganda in his memoir Wainaina writes about growing up in Nakuru and recalls the political development of his country - and to some extent of South Africa where he attended university - from the Moi regime until the 2010 elections. I found it a fascinating and illuminating piece of work reflecting both on personal and national struggles. It gives an insider look on Kenyan societal issues in the last 30 years, but it also contains great descriptions of landscapes: personal favorites the bus trips he took to Pokot and Uganda. 

Now, going back to the more academic focus of this blog and adding to the reading suggestions: check out the blog post I recently got published in the London School of Economics and Political Science "Field research lab" blog about member checking! 

Shutting off Crimea's Water Supply?

According to various sources, Crimea had had its water supply cut-off (See this and this). Crimea receives 80% of its water (drinking and irrigation water) from the Northern Crimean Canal which, despite its name, begins in Kherson Oblast on the Ukrainian mainland. The source of the water is the Dnipro river. The Ukrainian authorities appear to have either completely cut off the water or significantly reduced the flow -- sources are somewhat contradictory here. 

Former Prime Minister and current presidential candidate Julia Timoshenko herself said in March that, if Kyiv wants to consider Crimea a part of Ukraine, Kyiv should not shut off their water and electricity, which also comes from the Ukrainian mainland. I wonder then if cutting off water is a small indication that Kyiv sees Crimea as lost. In either case, I'm not sure this is a good idea. 

Anyway, I have produced a quick map of the canals in southern Ukraine based on information from openstreetmap.org, which is an open source mapping site. You can see how Crimea is connected in terms of water to the Ukrainian mainland. Note that, as openstreetsmap relies on volunteers to upload their local maps, the accuracy cannot be guaranteed. However, in my experience with openstreetmap, the accuracy is pretty good, and as good as or better than a lot of other map layers available out there. 

A gender perspective on the upcoming Tanzanian constitution in light of the recent legislative developments in Kenya

Tanzania is to have a new constitution by the end of the year, President Kikwet stated recently. The official enactment was originally planned for the end of this month. The new constitution is set to limit the power of the central government (reducing its areas of responsibility from 22 to 7; the number of ministers to 15; the MPs from 300 to 75) and to move to a three-tier federal government. This will be composed by Tanganyika, the federal government and Zanzibar, trying to put to an end the Zanzabari claim that the central government is caring most for the interests of the mainland.

The unveiling of the new constitution comes at the end of a two years constituent process during which the Constitutional Review Commission has toured the country and sat with interests groups. Among which women´s groups. The most apparent gain for women with this new piece of law is the 50% guarantee of parliament representation as opposed to the current 30%. Yet, there is no consideration on the same quota to applied in presidential appointments. As in the international debate, the idea of quota based on gender has been widely contested both by the general Tanzanian men public and most notoriously by the Charles Kitima, the vice chancellor of Saint Augustine University, who claimed such quota would be unnecessarily costly and that qualification should override gender in appointing officials. This last statement could be widely agreed upon whether Tanzanian women would have equal access to qualifying education as men have, but in the current situation women are starting the race from the back row.

Accordingly, Tanzanian women´s organization have been critical about the upcoming constitution for several reasons. First, they say that the term "person" should be defined in the constitution as it is commonly interpreted as meaning only men, which is the case in the current constitution which reads i.e. "every person is entitled to respect and protection of HIS person". Secondly, art. 46 on the rights of women currently states that women are free to participate in politics and governance, but it does not assert the right to be protected from marginalization and oppression or the right to equal pay, which is stated in the Ugandan and Zimbabwan constitutions, for instance. Finally, the text is also missing references to a minimum age for child marriage, which is an ever worrying topic in Tanzania. World Bank data shows that 22.8 % of girls aged 15 to 19 in Tanzania had children or were pregnant in 2010 and that Tanzania has the highest adolescent fertility rate in the world (129). These two facts are directly linked with early marriage and a high school dropout rate.

As for the Kenyan constitution, which entered into force in 2010, women in Tanzania will be given equal inheritance rights and access to land and property during marriage, after the termination of marriage or the death of their husband. The battle for equal land rights was fought by the Kenyan Federation of Women Lawyers during the constituent process. Nevertheless, such provision should stop the countless cases of widows who are taken away their land, but it does not necessarily ensure that in case of divorce women are recognized any right. In fact, as stated in the Kenyan constitution, litigation should be resolved by "local community initiatives", which are often composed by village elders who tend to go with the traditional norms that land should not be given to women.

Following the traditional norms is also what the Kenyan parliament is aiming at with the bill passed last month giving leeway to polygamy. The text of the bill recites that a man is allowed to take as many women as he can support. No reference is made to a prior agreement with the first wife, if there has ever been one. This bill, who is to be signed by President Kenyatta to enter into force, has sparkled a great divisive debate in Kenya, which prided itself on a more gender equal constitution. Hopefully, lawmakers and women organizations in Tanzania will make sure that the new constitution results in a tangible advancement of women´s condition and will not suffer any future step-back as in Kenya.

More iconic farming images

One observant reader of the last blog post   reminded me that the man with the pitch-fork is probably a conscious or unconscious reference to the iconic painting American Gothic by Grant Wood.


Yes of course!! And that raises the issue why Eco-energy´s artist decided to exclude the woman... a thought I was struggling with before I realised the connection to this serious American couple.. Image-google "American Gothic" and you will find more artists using this iconic image to convey other messages. But they seem all to have the woman there, all except Eco Energy...