Presented at the Agri4D 2013 conference at the session on Transforming Gender Roles in Agriculture: - Ways Forward

1. Conference Agricultural Research Towards Sustainable Development Goals
Session Transforming Gender Roles in Agriculture:
A Diversity of Approaches
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 Development
Master’s Thesis
Rural Development and Natural Resource Management - Master’s Programme
Uppsala 2013
September 26 2013

2. Content
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Background
Research questions
Theorethical framework
Methodology and methods
Cases
Conclusions

3. 1. Background
The indigenous community
Nasa Kiwe
To Cali city,
Valle´s capital
Nuevo
México
National road
La María
Santander
town
Quitapereza
To Popayán
city, Cauca´s capital
Santander
municipality
Nuevo México
Colombia
Cauca
department

4. General assembly
Manifestation against gold mining
Communitarian work in a
communal aloe vera crop

5. 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?

6. 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

7. 4. Methodology and
methods
• Qualitative research
– Participant observation
in 15 events
– 10 unstructured
interviews
– Informal conversations
– One survey
• Discourse analysis

8. 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

9. 3. Training sesions of the Regional Program of Woman
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

10. 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.

11. 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.

12. 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.

13. 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.

14. Thanks for your
attention!