VAD/SGAS-Tagung uni basel16. Mai 2008

Change and persistence in crisis :

a gender case study

in Western Ivory Coast

Thomas Bearththomas.bearth@flashcable.ch

Zoom 3 - Tura – das „Trapez“

Zoom 4-Kpata (Dorfebene)

19.9.2002 – 16.4.2007

Crisis and gender

How crisis affects

- Gender relations

- Gender discourse

- Gender taboo

Crisis & conflict

- Economic power relation

- Empowerment of women

- Urban poverty

Crisis as a learning experience

In the context of

Gerontocratic rule

Economic disaster

Loyalty to rule vs. Survival need

Female exclusion from public arena

Resilience of tradition

Konon, Action Research (RANT)

Women in the gerontocratic system

• Control of all aspects of public life by male elders

• Nature of this control: includes occult power.

• Violation of rules tends to be sanctioned as sorcery.

• Lñáñá as a resource.

Gender divide as a sacral institution

• Religious institutions translated into taboos which dominate social life.

• The sacred is gendered

• Hence: Gender is sacred

• The sacred is excluded from the class of negotiables

• ‘The social is embedded in the « sacred »’• The sacred as pretext for maintaining control.

Die Palaverhütte: Think tank (M) lokaler Entscheidungen

Die Palaverhütte – Afrikas „think tank“ ist männlich

Dual-gendered distribution of sacred institutionsThe limits of „apatam-centered research strategies“

Nach

Gonnin

1986:213

Communicative spaces-1

Communicative spaces-2

Dual-gendered economy

• Rights of property in the exogamous clan:– Bride-price (law of transitivity)

– Transmission by patrilineal descent (agnatic law)

• Division of labour, dual-gender system– Male revenue (cash crop)

– Female revenue for zñáän ‘soup’– Male control over F+M revenue

– Loophole: F economic activity + associations

Being a Tura women means to cope with3-fold marginalisation

• - Tura = minority, isolated, remote, retarded. Quote Dantomba

• - as a woman within Tura society. Her place is not in the public space (apatam, palaber hut), but in the houseu

• - latency, in school. Limited right to own resources.

« Speaking a minority language compounds the marginalisation of being a woman. »

(Robinson 1996 :216)

Socio-political effects of crisis

Institutional vacuum

Disappearance of state government

Zero mobility

French-speaking administration and institutions vanish

School system collapses

Compensation

Strengthening of traditional authority

Revitalization of Tura culture

Celebrations

Tura

Language festival

Cycle of secondary poverty induced by war (gwili) and isolation

Breakdown of local economy

male economy female economy

PRE-CRISIS cash crops garden produce

CRISIS Export routes Markets dried closed out

Palm leave broomsjoint male-female activity (video FEB. 2005)

only income-generating activity left (DG-203, 205, passim)

Palm leaves for economic survival

Palm leave brooms industry

Kpata, February 2005

PBI is emblematic of unsustainabilityboth in ecological and economica terms

• 1 palm tree yields: 2-3 brooms, 10h work + 1-4h transport on foot, producer price: 8c/piece. 3 years needed for recovery (if at all); 3 years yield from palm oil sales is 10 times as much!

• Palm tree by-products - soap and potassum (salt substitute) - must now be bought on the market.

• The palm-tree eco-system of small mammals (protein source) is destroyed.

PBI money increases dependency from money and destroys basis for sustainable income.

The women know it. (We know this from LLH-1.)

Local analysis-1 (men)

• Listening to what men are saying

• Miõn' koá yaa eá ko lääleá wöàöà koá aà peì zeá yñáin eá ñàñn ko miõn leàeà zaâa yaáan-le-gä-le

• All that is left of our „maleness“ now is the word in our mouth.

• Even for 50 cfa to buy tobacco, we depend on them.

Local analysis-2 (women)

Listening to what women are saying. Ko väaánwñáñá' go le \any other

income-generating activity We palm-broom-F1 make TM.4. Ko väaánwñáñá’ go laâ, le ko

suáuàkpñáñá lõ laaá, le ko aàng gba wñáññá buu-buunñáboà-aá laâa

We make brooms DEF and we dried-cassava buy CONT, and we them give money 10-10-little-PL

Local analysis-3 (all)

• Ale-kõàõà aàa bhe le. • “Its manner does not exist.”F/M: There is no alternative (to the PBI)Old men: There is no alternative (to

relinquishing our authority).

From dependency to poverty: re-alignment of gender roles

• The Pre-war economic system, or what remains of it, is shaken to its foundations.

• Strategies for coping with poverty fail: system of inter-gender borrowing

• New: self-diagnosed poverty• Women’s new role as the only provider in accordance with

traditional role images• Radical reversal of dependency relations

• the crisis sparked a more radical reversal in the balance of economic power between men and women

Communicative spaces-3Sitting in the old man’s place

2007: 2 years later Pre-postcrisis? Coffee + PBI (still!) + Firewood

A paradigm of change and persistence

Changes due to crisis Change and persistence in gender relations

Inversion of economic dependency relations

Claim to ownership of acquired property

Female control of economic survival resources

No attempt to conquer public space

Recognition of female economic prominence by men

The prison doors are open, but …Recognition of male dominance as a prerequisite to female initiative (Singo 2007:236)

IdemUrban context (AGRA Project)Women’s association in Abidjan

Attempts at explanation

• Entrenchment of tribal ideology

• Socialization• Strategy

• Economic

• Non negotiable O-knowledge

• In-group solidarity

• Success story of indirect strategies

• Extreme poverty: co-depence, defies change

Learning from crisis?

• Integrating crisis experience 

• Negotiating scope of negotiation

• Expanding scope of negotiation

• Kono Ditomba

• Ditomba 0701.doc

To learn more

Dynamiques du genre : le cas toura. Stratégies de survie en temps de crise. Abidjan : Editions Livres Sud (EDILIS). Avec des contributions de Joseph Baya, Thomas Bearth, Rose Marie Beck, Mohamed Doumbia, Douoh Honorine Guéli, S. Jacques Silué, Geneviève Singo, Lydie Vé Kouadio. Préface François A. Adopo. 286 p. + iv planches couleur. ISBN : 978-2-915403-64-0

Vente en librairie : 7500 cfa. Vente en Europe : 24 € (www.soumbala.com).

www.lagsus.de

Thanks to the Volkswagen Foundation for sponsoring LAGSUS

IN A TIME OF CRISIS

Language, Gender & Sustainability

Thank you for your attention