Assets, agency and legitimacy: Towards a relational understanding of gender equality policy and practice

Rao, Nitya ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6318-0147 (2017) Assets, agency and legitimacy: Towards a relational understanding of gender equality policy and practice. World Development, 95. 43–54. ISSN 0305-750X

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Abstract

Gender equality policies seeking to give women assets, particularly land, have often failed to achieve their goals. Explained as a failure of implementation and adequate resourcing, the deeper problem lies in using a segmented rather than holistic analytical framework that treats both assets and women as discrete, individual objects, rather than socially embedded and networked. Land gives meaning to people’s lives, it is more than a source of material wealth; hence access to land is coveted, contested and negotiated in multiple ways by differently positioned people. Drawing on long-term primary research in India, as well as secondary research in China and Indonesia, in relation to women’s access to land, I unpack some of the complexities and contradictions in terms of both legal and social interpretations of legitimacy as well as women’s agency. Apart from having a large proportion of their population dependent on agriculture, the choice of countries is also useful in constructing typologies of governance systems and social relations at different institutional levels that shape women’s access to land, a prime one being inheritance. I demonstrate the need for an alternate, relational framework that is both dynamic and transcends binaries, unpacking the multidimensionality of women’s agency vis-a-vis assets, in diverse livelihood, environmental and governance contexts, if gender equality goals are to be met.

Item Type: Article
Uncontrolled Keywords: sdg 5 - gender equality ,/dk/atira/pure/sustainabledevelopmentgoals/gender_equality
Faculty \ School: Faculty of Social Sciences > School of Global Development (formerly School of International Development)
University of East Anglia Research Groups/Centres > Theme - ClimateUEA
UEA Research Groups: Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Groups > Literacy and Development Group
Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Groups > Gender and Development
Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Groups > Health and Disease
Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Groups > Life Course, Migration and Wellbeing
University of East Anglia Schools > Faculty of Science > Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research
Faculty of Science > Research Centres > Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research
Depositing User: Pure Connector
Date Deposited: 14 Feb 2017 02:23
Last Modified: 14 Jun 2023 12:53
URI: https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/62536
DOI: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2017.02.018

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