This presentation was held by Noora-Lisa Aberman on 14 May 2014 at the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) in Nairobi Kenya, at a gender and climate change workshop. The workshop was organise by the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) and International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).

1. Gender, Power and Groups
in Western Kenya
Presentation by Noora-Lisa Aberman
Study collaborators: Barrack Okoba, Elizabeth
Okiri, Mary Oyunga, & Paul Tana (KARI);
George Otiep (CARITAS); Regina Birner (Uni
Hohenheim); Julia Behrman (NYU-Sociology)

2. Project Rationale
• Men and women are differently affected
by climate change and have different
priorities for adaptation;
• Climate change adaptation “political”
process with distributional implications;
• Individuals with decision-making power or
control over assets better able to adapt;
• Farmers’ groups are key adaptive
strategy in Kenya.

3. Study
• Qualitative study examining power
and decision making dynamics
between men and women in farmers’
groups;
• Data collection on-going; field work
lead by KARI

4. Study
• Component 1: How do communities in
Western Kenya understand/define power
and decision making?
Alsop warns that development
organizations working to promote women’s
empowerment “without any clear and
explicit conceptual underpinning”, may
end up perpetuating the systems and
structures that one is trying to change
(2004, 16).

5. Study
• 16 gender-disaggregated focus group
interviews with active farmers’ groups in
South Nyanza (Homa Bay and
surroundings, primarily Luo people)
• Region chosen for ease of access and
high concentration of groups working on
adaptation technologies (sustainable
agriculture)
• Interviews translated, transcribed and
thematically coded with qualitative
software

6. Preliminary results

7. Power defined as:
– Accomplishments: hard work and results
– Ability to influence or control another
• May be seen as domination or supportive
influence
• “I have power in organizing my family when I
want to do something, power for planning”

8. Power defined as:
– Ability to influence or control another
• Frames power as “zero-sum game”  if you
gain power, I loose control and thus also loose
power
• “I am a member and the leaders that we
have are good, that is why I don’t have to go
beyond them [in power] because I don’t see
anything bad about them.”

9. • Women frame power as something
viewed or perceived externally
– When others view your hard work and
results
• "What I would like to do to [increase my
power] is to have a good house and when
people pass by they see, and also my children
to have very good education and people
would say that this lady she struggled to teach
her kids and now her kids are professors."

10. Power for men:
• (as described by men and women)
framed as “natural” and “God-given”
– “According to Luo tradition and
according to the bible, men are more
powerful than women, but according to
the government all people are equal.”

11. Appreciation of harmony:
• Seemingly contradicting the “control”
definition of power
• In the home, women are seen as largely
responsible for maintaining harmony.
• Masculine ideals are threatened by
departures from harmony and control:
– “…when my wife annoyed me…instead of
doing anything I just told her to pack and
leave. The reason why my powers reduced is
because I did not do anything to her… And
my family members told me to forgive and I
just forgave her.”

12. Appreciation of harmony:
• In the group, collective decision making
is attributed to the formal governing
structures—rules and by-laws.
• However, women focus only on formal
structure—unexamined faith in “how
things should work”
• Men also acknowledge departures from
equality due to individuals’
characteristics—e.g., a wealthy group
member has more decision making
power

13. Implications
• Zero-sum conception of power may
hinder success of empowerment
initiatives
– Collective power ideal in groups may
promote conceptual cross-learning for
household power conceptions to address
this.
– “Though women should be controlled by
men, in a group they are the majority and
they do influence and have a lot of control in
the group activities.”

14. Implications
• In addition to increasing women’s
control over assets, increasing their
ability to assess their own power status
will promote greater awareness of the
gaps