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Becoming Farmers: Opening Spaces for Women's Resource Control in Calakmul, Mexico

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 September 2022

Claudia Radel
Claudia Radel*
Affiliation:
Utah State University
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Abstract

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Despite empirical findings on women's varied and often extensive participation in smallholder agriculture in Latin America, their participation continues to be largely invisible. In this article, I argue that the intransigency of farming women's invisibility reflects, in part, a discursive construction of farmers as men. Through a mixture of quantitative and qualitative methods, including interviews with one hundred women in Calakmul, Mexico, I demonstrate the material implications of gendered farmer identities for women's control of resources, including land and conservation and development project resources. In particular, I relate the activities of one women's agricultural community-based organization and the members' collective adoption of transgressive identities as farmers. For these women, the process of becoming farmers resulted in increased access to and control over resources. This empirical case study illustrates the possibility of women's collective action to challenge and transform women's continued local invisibility as agricultural actors in rural Latin American spaces.

Resumen

Resumen

A pesar de conclusiones empíricas sobre la variada y a menudo extensa participación de la mujer en la agricultura minifundista en América Latina, esta participación continúa siendo en gran parte invisible. En este artículo, argumento que la intransigencia de la invisibilidad de la mujer agricultora refleja, en parte, una construcción discursiva que trata a todos los agricultores como hombres. Por una mezcla de métodos cuantitativos y cualitativos, incluyendo entrevistas a cien mujeres en Calakmul, México, demuestro las implicaciones materiales de las identidades agrícolas marcadas por género, por el control de los recursos por parte de la mujer; incluyendo la tierra y su conservación y los recursos para el desarrollo del proyecto. En particular, relaciono las actividades de una de las mujeres de la organización de la comunidad agrícola con la adopción colectiva de los miembros de identidades transgresivas como agricultores. Para estas mujeres, el proceso de hacerse agricultoras les dio mayor acceso a los recursos y a su control. Este caso práctico empírico ilustra la posibilidad de realizar una acción colectiva femenina para desafiar y transformar la continua invisibilidad local de la mujer como actoras de la agricultura en espacios rurales latinoamericanos.

Type
Research Article
Information
Latin American Research Review , Volume 46 , Issue 2 , 2011 , pp. 29 - 54
Copyright
Copyright © 2011 by the Latin American Studies Association

Footnotes

This article grew out of my doctoral dissertation, which was supported by a Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Fellowship and a National Science Foundation Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant. I also received an AAUW Short-Term Research Publication Grant in support of this article. I owe additional thanks to the LARR anonymous reviewers. Finally, I thank all the women I interviewed in Calakmul, for their time and patience.

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