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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
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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

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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.

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