Book contents
- Gender, Property and Politics in the Pacific
- Gender, Property and Politics in the Pacific
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Maps
- Acknowledgements
- Glossary
- 1 Grounding Debates about Land
- 2 Navigating Custom, Church and State
- 3 Chiefs, Priests and Vuluvulu
- 4 From Taovia to Trustee
- 5 ‘Land Is Our Mother’
- 6 Women Speak for Land
- Bibliography
- Index
6 - Women Speak for Land
Disrupting and Re-forming Property and Authority
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 19 January 2023
- Gender, Property and Politics in the Pacific
- Gender, Property and Politics in the Pacific
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Maps
- Acknowledgements
- Glossary
- 1 Grounding Debates about Land
- 2 Navigating Custom, Church and State
- 3 Chiefs, Priests and Vuluvulu
- 4 From Taovia to Trustee
- 5 ‘Land Is Our Mother’
- 6 Women Speak for Land
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Solomon Islanders often refer to the idea that women may not, cannot and do not speak about land matters, and it is clear that the recursive constitution of property and authority not only sediments land control, but state norms and institutions, as (hyper)masculine domains. Yet it is equally clear that women do ‘speak’, and this chapter focuses on collaborative efforts to disrupt dominant understandings of property, territory and political authority and assert more expansive practices. This chapter argues that first, an analytical emphasis on state-sanctioned property reinforces the dominant portrayal of gender relations in the region, according to which women are silenced and victims of their culture and religion, and reproduces material inequalities. Second, the political strategies actually used by women, which appear to resonate elsewhere in the region, suggest that custom and Christianity provide greater scope to contest the terms of property, territory and authority than is generally recognised. This has important implications for understanding the ways in which property might be challenged and re-formed.
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- Gender, Property and Politics in the PacificWho Speaks for Land?, pp. 208 - 234Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2023