Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dk4vv Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T17:11:32.077Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Conflict and Cooperation: Gendered Roles and Responsibilities within Cotton Households in Northern Mozambique*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 May 2014

M. Anne Pitcher
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

War, drought and the failure of centrally planned economic policies have resulted in a reorientation of government priorities in Mozambique. Since the late 1980s, agricultural policy regarding food and cash crop production has shifted away from a dependence on state farms towards a reliance on commercial enterprises and the family sector. The government also has applied market principles to the purchase and processing of cash crops and allowed private companies to replace inefficient and poorly managed state enterprises. These decisions have not been adopted hastily; they have been accompanied by numerous studies that try to anticipate the possible impact of these changes at the micro and macro economic level.

Several of these studies are noteworthy in their attention to the position of rural women in Mozambique. They acknowledge the significant role played by women and they detail the numerous productive activities that rural women engage in, from planting and weeding to childcare and collecting firewood (Liberman 1988,1989,1992; Casimiro, Laforte, and Pessoa 1991; Andrade, Cardoso, Casimiro, and Louro 1992; UEM 1993). In light of the tremendous economic changes that the country is undertaking, many of the studies warn the government against policies that will marginalize women and urge officials to incorporate a gender component into projects and policies (Casimiro, Laforte, and Pessoa 1991; Liberman 1992).

Type
Articles
Information
African Studies Review , Volume 39 , Issue 3 , December 1996 , pp. 81 - 112
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 1996

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

A Picker Fellowship generously awarded by the Colgate University Faculty Research Council financed my fieldwork in Mozambique from February to June, 1994. While in Mozambique, the support of many people and organizations made this work possible. I am particularly grateful to the Food Security Project for sharing their resources and their ideas; the Centro de Estudos Africanos at the Universidade Eduardo Mondlane for their encouragement and use of their library; the directors and employees of SODAN and LOMACO companies for offering me transportation and agreeing to interviews; my three interpreters for translating from Makua into Portuguese; and especially, the female and male producers in Netia who took time off from their daily activities to spend some time with me. I appreciate the responses on this paper by participants at the Women's Studies Brown Bag Lunch seminar, Colgate University and the African Studies Association meeting, Toronto (1994). Finally, I would like to thank Martin Murray, Jeanne Penvenne, Eric Morier-Genoud, Jean Davison, Mary Moran and anonymous reviewers for the ASR for their helpful comments. Kevin Rask and Joe Wagner provided valuable technical assistance. Any errors are my responsibility.

References

Adepoju, Aderanti and Oppong, Christine. 1994. Gender, Work and Population in Sub-Saharan Africa. Portsmouth: Heinemann.Google Scholar
Andrade, , Ximena, , Cardoso, Ramos, Casimiro, Isabel, and Louro, Carta. 1992. “A mulher e o meio ambiente,” Estudos Moçambicanos 11/12:111–28.Google Scholar
Arnfred, Signe. 1988. “Women in Mozambique: Gender Struggle and Gender Politics,” Review of African Political Economy 41: 5–16.Google Scholar
Babalola, S.O. and Dennis, Carolyne. 1988. “Returns to Women's Labour in Cash Crop Production: Tobacco in Igboho, Oyo State,” in Davison, Jean (ed.) Agriculture, Women, and Land: The African Experience. Boulder: Westview Press, pp 79–89.Google Scholar
Bernal, Victoria. 1988. “Losing Ground-Women and Agriculture on Sudan's Irrigated Schemes: Lessons from a Blue Nile Village” in Davison, Jean (ed.) Agriculture, Women, and Land: The African Experience. Boulder: Westview, 131–56.Google Scholar
Blumberg, Rae Lesser, ed. 1991. Gender, Family, and Economy. Newbury Park: Sage.Google Scholar
Casal, Adolfo Y. 1991. “Discurso socialista e camponeses africanos: Legitimaçāo políticaideológica da socializaçāo rural em Moçambique (FRELIMO, 1965-1984),” Revista Internacional de Estudos Africanos 14–15: 35–75.Google Scholar
Casimiro, Isabel, Laforte, Ana and Pessoa, Ana. 1991. Women in Mozambique. Maputo: UEM, CEA.Google Scholar
Clark, Gracia. 1994. Onions are My Husband: Survival and Accumulation by West African Market Women. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Davison, Jean, ed. 1988. Agriculture, Women, and Land: The African Experience. Boulder: Westview.Google Scholar
Davison, Jean. 1993. “Tenacious Women: Clinging to Banja Household Production in the Face of Changing Gender Relations in Malawi,” Journal of Southern African Studies 19, 3(September), 405–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dorosh, Paul, del Ninno, Carlo, and Sahn, David. 1995. “Poverty Alleviation in Mozambique: A multi-market analysis of the role of food aid,” Agricultural Economics 13: 89–99.Google Scholar
d'Ourém, Joāo. 1969. “O Algodāo na Economia de Moçambique,” Economia de Moçambique VI, 2: 17–21.Google Scholar
Fortuna, Carlos. 1993. O Fio da Meada. Porto: Ediçōes Afrontamento.Google Scholar
Friedl, Ernestine. 1984. Women and Men: An Anthropologist's View. Prospect Heights: Waveland Press.Google Scholar
Geffray, Christian. 1985. “La condition servile en pays makhuwa,” Cahiers d'études africaines XXV. 4:405–535.Google Scholar
Geffray, Christian. 1991. A Causa das Armas: Antropologia da guerra contemporanea em Moçambique. Oporto: Ediçōes Afrontamento.Google Scholar
Gerard, Padre E. 1941. “Costumes dos Macua do Medo,” Moçambique. XXVII: 5–23.Google Scholar
Guy, Jeff. 1989. “Gender Oppression in southern Africa's precapitalist societies” in Walker, Cheryl (ed.)Women and Gender in Southern Africa to 1945. London: James Currey.Google Scholar
Guyer, Jane. 1980. Household Budgets and Women's Incomes. African Studies Center Working Paper no. 28. Boston University.Google Scholar
Horn, Nancy. 1994. Cultivating Customers: Market Women in Harare, Zimbabwe. Boulder: Lynne Rienner.Google Scholar
House-Midamba, Bessie and Ekechi, Felix. 1995. African Market Women and Economic Power: The Role of Women in African Economic Development. Westport: Greenwood.Google Scholar
Instituto de Algodāo de Moçambique (IAM). 1970. Relatório.Google Scholar
IAM. 1972. Relatório.Google Scholar
IAM. 1974. Relatório.Google Scholar
Interviews. 1994a. Cotton Households. Netia (May).Google Scholar
Interviews. 1994b. Regulos. Netia (21 May).Google Scholar
Interviews. 1994c. Organization of Mozambican Women. Nampula and Memba (April/May).Google Scholar
Isaacman, Allen. 1985. “Chiefs, Rural Differentiation and Peasant Protest: The Mozambican Forced Cotton Regime 1938-1961,” African Economic History 14: 15–56.Google Scholar
Isaacman, Allen. 1996. Cotton is the Mother of Poverty: Peasants, Work and Rural Struggle in Colonial Mozambique, 1938–1961. Portsmouth: Heinemann.Google Scholar
dos Santos, Joāo Ferreira, n.d. “Brief Presentation of Joāo Ferreira dos Santos Group.”Google Scholar
Liberman, Gloria. 1988. “Mulheres camponeses em Moçambique-Notas de um trabalho em curso.” DNDR-UNICEF (WIRD), Working paper.Google Scholar
Liberman, Gloria. 1989. “Contribuiçāo para um perfil da mulher camponesa: Dados socioeconómicos e culturais por distritos.” DNDR-UNICEF (WIRD). Working paper. July.Google Scholar
Liberman, Gloria. 1992. “Rural Rehabilitation Project in Mozambique: Report on the Possible Impact on the Status of Rural Women in Zambezia and Sofala Provinces.” World Bank. Working Paper. April/May.Google Scholar
Lovett, Margot. 1989. “Gender Relations, Class Formation, and the Colonial State in Africa” in Parpart, Jane and Staudt, Kathleen (eds.)Women and the State in Africa. Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 23–46.Google Scholar
Machado, A.J. de Mello. 1970. Entre os Macuas de Angoche. Lisbon: Prelo Editora.Google Scholar
Mba, Nina. 1989. “Kaba and Khaki: Women and the Militarized State in Nigeria” in Parpart, Jane and Staudt, Kathleen (eds.) Women and the State in Africa. Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 69–90.Google Scholar
Metselaar, L.C., Gonçalves, R.M.A., Baloi, O. S., and Maiopue, F.A., 1994. “Relatório da Missāo de Levantamento de Dados nos Distritos de Malema, Lalaua, Ribaué e Murrupula na Província de Nampula.” Maputo (March).Google Scholar
Mozambique, . 1973. Inspecçāo dos Serviços Administrativos, Relatório da Inspecçāo Ordinaria á Administraçāo do Concelho do Monapo, Arquivo Histórico de Moçambique (AHM) ISANI, Caixa 84.Google Scholar
Mozambique, . 1988. Ministério de Agrícultura, Direcçāo de Economia Agraria, Sector de Análise de Unidades Economicas (SAUE), “Dossier das Empresas Estatais Agrarias da Província de Nampula.” Maputo.Google Scholar
Mozambique, . 1991a. Conselho dos Ministros. Resoluçāo Interna 3/91. “Autorizaçāo do Projecto Sodan.” 24 May.Google Scholar
Mozambique, . 1991b. MOA/MSU/UA. “A Socioeconomic Survey in the Province of Nampula: Cotton in the Smallholder Economy.” Working Paper no. 5E. January.Google Scholar
Mozambique, . 1994a. Ministério de Agricultura (MOA), Departamento de Estatística, “An (sic) Preliminary Analysis fo (sic) the Size of Land Holdings in the Family Sector in Mozambique using Information from the 1993 Ministry of Agriculture Survey of the Family Sector.” May.Google Scholar
Mozambique, . 1994b. MOA. “Regulamento para a cultura de algodāo,” Diploma Ministerial 91/94.Google Scholar
Mozambique, . 1994c. MOA/MSU, “Evolution of Rural Economy in Post-War Mozambique: Insights from a Rapid Appraisal in Monapo District of Nampula Province.” Working Paper no. 16. January 10.Google Scholar
Myers, Gregory. 1994. “Competitive Rights, Competitive Claims: Land Access in Post-war Mozambique,” Journal of Southern African Studies 20, 4: 603–32.Google Scholar
Myers, Gregory, Eliseu, Julieta, and Nhachungue, Erasmo. 1993. “Segurança e conflito em Moçambique: Estudos de caso sobre acesso á terra no periódo do pós-guerra.” Land Tenure Center, University of Wisconsin-Madison/MOA. December.Google Scholar
Netia Administrative Post. 1986. “Mapa das aldeias e bairros comunais de localidade.”Google Scholar
Obbo, Christine. 1989. “Stratification and the Lives of Women in Uganda” in Parpart, Jane and Staudt, Kathleen (eds.) Women and the State in Africa. Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 178–94.Google Scholar
Parpart, Jane and Staudt, Kathleen. 1989. Women and the State in Africa. Boulder: Lynne Rienner.Google Scholar
Pitcher, M. Anne. 1993. Politics in the Portuguese Empire: The State, Industry and Cotton, 1926-1974. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Pitcher, M. Anne. 1995. “From Coercion to Incentives: The Portuguese Colonial Cotton Regime in Angola and Mozambique” in Isaacman, Allen and Roberts, Richard (eds.) Cotton, Colonialism and Social History in Sub-Saharan Africa. Portsmouth: Heinemann, 119–43.Google Scholar
Pitcher, M. Anne. 1996. “Recreating Colonialism or Reconstructing the State? Privatisation and Politics in Mozambique,” Journal of Southern African Studies 22, 1:49–74.Google Scholar
Robertson, Claire and Berger, Iris, eds. 1986. Women and Class in Africa. NY: Africana Publishing.Google Scholar
Safilios-Rothschild, Constantina. 1994. “Agricultural Policies and Women Producers” in Adepoju, Aderanti and Oppong, Christine, Gender, Work and Population in Sub-Saharan Africa, 54–63.Google Scholar
Schmidt, Elisabeth. 1991. “Patriarchy, Capitalism and the Colonial State in Zimbabwe,” Signs 16,4.Google Scholar
Stamp, Patricia. 1986. “Kikuyu Women's Self-Help Groups: Towards an Understanding of the Relation Between Sex-Gender System and Mode of Production in Africa,” in Robertson, and Berger, (eds.)Women and Class in Africa. NY: Africana Publishing, 27–46.Google Scholar
Strasberg, Paul. 1994. MSU Research Associate. MOA/MSU Research Team. Personal Communication. 11/01.Google Scholar
Tschirley, Dave. 1995. MSU Analyst. MOA/MSU Research Team. Personal Communication. 05/03.Google Scholar
Universidade Eduardo Mondlane (UEM), Centro de Estudos Africanos (CEA). 1986. “A Transformçāo da Agricultura Familiar na Província de Nampula,” CEA Relatório no. 80/3.Google Scholar
Universidade Eduardo Mondlane (UEM), Centro de Estudos Africanos (CEA), Departamento de estudos da mulher e do género. 1993. “Direito á sucessāo e herança.” Working paper.Google Scholar
USAID. 1989. Office of Women in Development. “Executive Summary of Making the Case for the Gender Variable: Women and the Wealth and Weil-Being of Nations,” October.Google Scholar
Welch, Gita Honwana, Dagnino, Francesca and Sachs, Albie. 1985. “Transforming the Foundations of Family Law in the Course of the Mozambican Revolution,” JSAS 12/1 (October): 60–74.Google Scholar
Whitehead, Ann. 1994. “Wives and Mothers: Female Farmers in Africa,” in Adepoju, Aderanti and Oppong, Christine, Gender Work and Population in Sub-Saharan Africa, 35–53.Google Scholar
World Bank, Women in Development Team, “Mozambique: Gender Issues,” no. 1.9 (November 1992).Google Scholar