Little/Dolan 9310537 The recent and widespread growth of contract farming in East Africa has the potential to fundamentally alter the division of labor and power relations between men and women. This project will examine how the institution and expansion of horticultural contracting is changing gender relations in Meru District, Kenya. Because gender relations are redefined in the face of shifting economic relations, the delineation of power relations and social divisions based on the traditional household is key to an analysis of contract farming. In some areas the participation of women in contract farming has provoked intra-household struggles over labor rights and resource allocation. While a small number of contracting schemes in Kenya have been intensively researched there are virtually localized analyses that examine contract production from either a household or gender perspective. Moreover, although research on the connection between gender-based crop and property rights has been extensive in West Africa, it is largely absent in East Africa. This gap provides a fertile opportunity for an in-depth local study on the interface of gender relations and contract production in Kenya that will provide valuable data for comparative studies of agrarian change in Africa. This project will synthesized various methods of inquiry-feminist anthropology, political economy and practice theory - to integrate symbolic and materialist approaches to social change. Significant questions to be addressed include: 1) how do socioeconomic conditions enable or constrain indigenous gender relations? 2) To whom are the ben efits of contract farming accruing? 3) Is there a change in the sexual division of labor of subcontracting? 4) How are customary social practices manipulated or recast in the context of contract farming? 5) How do indigenous gender ideologies affect the reproduction of contract farming as both a social institution and a means of capital accumulation? *** s( t( gh their RTG's. I assume you already know of the regular NSF Graduate Fellowship program that supports graduate study in all sciences as well as history and Z a S X Z ! ! f ? Z a Z L Times New Roman Symbol & Arial & Lucida Sans Bookman Old Style z z | | z c " h ) @ g little dolan abstract abstract thesis abstract little dolan Raymond Hames Raymond Hames
