Graduate student Batamaka Some, supervised by Dr. Mahir Saul, will undertake research on the factors behind the phenomenal increase of export cotton production in Burkina-Faso, with a particular focus on how this has affected relations between spouses, parents, and children within the producing households. Within the framework of structural adjustment macro-economic policies, the common currency of Francophone West and Central Africa was devalued in 1994. This devaluation gave a noticeable boost to export cotton farming in most member countries in West Africa, and more particularly in Burkina-Faso. Though conventional knowledge assumes that production of cash/export crops jeopardizes household food crop production in developing economies, and above all mars women's potential for economic autonomy, observations in cotton-producing households of Southwest Burkina appear to challenge such assumptions. Cotton is the driver of food crop production; and members of cotton farming households operate within a framework of negotiations and bargaining to attain production objectives. Still more, some developments in the cotton sector opened unexpected avenues for some women of the area to produce cotton independently from the usual cotton farms owned by the male heads of households. The researcher hypothesizes that not only the neeed for greater cash income but also a host of other factors influence smallholder farmers' decisions to produce cotton.
The research methodology combines formal surveys of two communities with participant observations, informal interviews, conversations, focus groups, life histories, and observations of social interactions. The study will contribute to ongoing theoretical debates on intrahousehold relations, and women's access to resources in a growing cash crop economy in the Third World. It will also revisit, with a case study presenting novel issues, the discussions phrased in terms of agency and rationality in actions among farming households. More broadly, it could help to reconcile cash and food cropping, and suggest tools for the empowerment of women farmers through their better integration in cash-cropping. The research also will contribute significantly to the education of a social scientist.
