Decisions by Third World farmers about which crops to raise and how to produce them are related to the gender of the decision makers. Because women and men play markedly different roles, greater understanding about the incentives for increased productivity and distribution of proceeds must include exploration of the dynamices of gender-specific income generation and household responsibility. In the past two decades, women have established a major new cash-crop system centered on vegetable production has emerged in The Gambia. The process has entailed the inversion of the income-earning potentials of husbands and wives, the radical alteration of the farming system, and the advent of a new sense of urgency in gender conflicts. Men have adopted different strategies to control the growing network of market gardens. This doctoral dissertation project will focus on the ways in which women are defending themselves against these attempts to encroach on their new economic position. Data will be collected from village and communal garden site censuses, garden surveys, individual interviews, income and land tenure surveys, and archival materials. These data will be used to test four hypotheses related to climate change, seasonality, competing land use systems, and the dual nature of social and technical conflicts over gardening. Research will be focused on sites located primarily in the North Bank community of Kerewan. This project will provide an opportunity to analyze intrahousehold bargaining and negotiation under circumstances in which women appear to have an economic upper hand. It will make an important contribution both to the understanding of gender conflict and to the social fabric of Third World agricultural development. This project also will provide an excellent opportunity for a promising young scholar to continue to develop independent research skills.
