Unsettling the Order

371 Pages·2005·4.77 MB·English

by  Seema Arora Jonsson

Unsettling the Order

Gendered Subjects and Grassroots Activism in Two
Forest Communities

Seema Arora-Jonsson
Faculty of Natural Resources and Agricultural Sciences
Department of Rural Development and Agroecology
Uppsala

Doctoral thesis
Swedish University ofAgricultural Sciences

Uppsala 2005
Acta Universitatis Agriculturae Sueciae
2005: 70

ISSN 1652-6880
ISBN 91-576-6969-4
© 2005 Seema Arora-Jonsson, Uppsala
Tryck: SLU Service/Repro, Uppsala 2005
ABSTRACT
Arora-Jonsson, Seema. 2005. Unsettling the order: gendered subjects and
grassroots activism in two forest communities.
Doctoral Dissertation: ISBN: 91-576-6969-4, ISSN: 1652-6880

The 1990s witnessed a shift in the rhetoric and policies towards people’s
participation and gender equality in environmental issues and rural development.
People are increasingly expected to take responsibility for the development of
their own communities. Against this background, the thesis investigates the
gendered implications of the changing nature of natural resource management and
rural development, by directing attention to women’s agency. In case studies from
rural areas in India and in Sweden, the thesis examines the implications of
women’s organizing for local forest management and rural development. It
analyses the ways in which dominant ideas about development and gender
equality shape the spaces in which women take action and how gendered
discourses are produced, maintained and unsettled in dynamic relationships in
context specific and general ways.

The research draws on theories on gender, development, environment and
women’s empowerment and is grounded in participatory and feminist
methodologies. A collaborative inquiry with the women in Sweden enabled an
approach that allowed looking beyond women’s customary absence from local
organizations and how they might be included in them, to understanding how
women themselves framed needs and issues. The women in Sweden and in India
did not organize themselves solely around resource issues. But in many ways, the
issues were implicit as the women in the communities showed: it was impossible
to separate the forest issues from the others. Organizing as ‘women’ was neither
natural nor self evident. Through their organizing the women consciously
constructed a space for themselves. Paradoxically, in Sweden, where gender
equality has been actively pursued as the bedrock of modern societal organizing,
the space to organize as women was hedged around with ambiguities. In India, the
women used the opening provided by a women’s programme and its
accompanying discourse of gender inequality and women’s oppression to create
an alternative space from which to act and bring about change. The research has
implications for how local management and gender equality are conceptualised in
theory and in practice and importantly for the framing of policies that seek to bring
about gender equitable and sustainable resource management.

Keywords: Gender, local forest management, women’s organizing, rural
development, participatory action research, feminist praxis.

Author’s address: Department of Rural Development and Agroecology, SLU, Box
7005, 750 07 Uppsala, Sweden.
[email protected].

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My parents, a source of love and support, thank you for being there and actually
ploughing through some bits of my draft. Elisabeth, without you we would
probably still be writing. Thank you for making life easier and for our chats at the
kitchen table. No Shankar, when I say time and space I am not launching into
Einstein and Nanni,, now, finally, I hope you can stop wondering what exactly I
am writing about. Thank you Kavita for your help with the pictures. Finally and
most importantly to Sebastian and Maya who are already practicing their activism
on us and to Stefan, husband, friend, reader of innumerable drafts and sparring
partner who so willingly shared his criticism, thank you for making the world a
wonderful place.

I dedicate this thesis to the memory of my grandmother, Chand Rani Arora, a
woman of insatiable curiosity and willingness to keep learning.
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GLOSSARY
India

BOJBP Bruksha O’ Jeevar Bandhu Parishad – the forest
organization/movement that started in Kesharpur village.
Dharna Protest actions
Mahasangha The forest federation spanning Nayagarh district.
Mahila Samiti Women’s group
Padayatra A campaigning march on foot or a ‘journey on foot.
Satyagraha Non-violent protests and hunger strikes.
Sindoor Red powder used in the hair by married women.
Oriya Language spoken in Orissa

Sweden

Bygd Settled area
Fäbodar Pasture areas in the forests
Fäboväsendet The system of summer pasturage
FTPP Forests Trees and People Programme
Glesbygd Sparsely populated areas
Gubbe Old man.
Hushållningssällskap The rural economy and agricultural societies
Kvinnoforum Women’s forum
Socken Parish
SLU Sveriges Lantbruksuniversitet (Swedish University of
Agricultural Sciences)

NOTES
All translations of quotations from Swedish literature and from the field work
in Sweden are my own. In certain places where a suitable translation was
difficult, I have left the original in parentheses for Swedish speakers.

Smaller quotations have been given in the body text while longer quotations
have been indented. The quotations that have been paraphrased are in ‘single
quotes’ while those that are cited verbatim are in “double quotes”. ‘Single
quotes’ have also been used to enclose a term draw attention to to its use
which may contested or under revision.

Italics have also been used for emphasis.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Abstract....................................................................................................................3
Acknowledgement...................................................................................................5
Glossary and Notes..................................................................................................6
Table of Contents.....................................................................................................7

PART I - INTRODUCTION AND METHODOLOGY

CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION: THREE PLACES AND PARTIAL CONNECTIONS

A tale of three places..........................................................................................11
A changing world and some questions...............................................................13
Local management and development: a gendered empirical field......................15
The Studies.........................................................................................................17
Women’s activism, rural development and resource management:
within and between literatures............................................................................20
Absences and Possibilities..................................................................................26
Tensions in the research design..........................................................................29
Overview of the thesis........................................................................................35

CHAPTER TWO
METHODS OF INQUIRY

Introduction........................................................................................................38
The social and material contexts of local resource management
and rural development........................................................................................39
Bridging the distance..........................................................................................41
Tools of Analysis................................................................................................49
The practicalities of the approach.......................................................................57
Conclusion..........................................................................................................63

PART II - A FRAME OF REFERENCE: THE STUDY IN
INDIA

CHAPTER THREE
FOREST RELATIONS AND THE WOMEN’S BRIGADES: EVERYDAY
LIFE IN NAYAGARH

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Introduction.........................................................................................................65
Forests, Gender and Development......................................................................66
Gender and Development....................................................................................68
The forest communities of Nayagarh..................................................................70
Shaping the forests: the Friends of Trees and Living Beings..............................72
The women’s groups...........................................................................................83
Stories from the groups.......................................................................................86
Linked by struggle: a politics of the possible......................................................91
The women’s groups vis-à-vis the BOJBP and the Mahasangha.......................92
The programme as a point of conflict.................................................................97
To be able to create a separate space...................................................................99
Postscript: how do you channelise help?...........................................................102
Conclusion.........................................................................................................104

PART III – THE STUDIES IN SWEDEN

CHAPTER FOUR
TALES FROM THE FIELD: FORESTS, GENDER AND THE SWEDISH
PERIPHERY

Introduction.......................................................................................................107
Constructing the forests as masculine...............................................................108
The making of the Glesbygd.............................................................................117
Rural development in Sweden: an uncertain framework?.................................123
Research ‘from below’......................................................................................126
Conclusion.........................................................................................................127

CHAPTER FIVE
LIVING IN DREVDAGEN

Introduction.......................................................................................................129
Drevdagen.........................................................................................................129
Stories from the village.....................................................................................133
The forest question for the village.....................................................................146
The first round of interviews.............................................................................149
Start where you can...........................................................................................155
Conclusion.........................................................................................................156

CHAPTER SIX
TURN TO ACTION: COLLABORATIVE INQUIRY IN DREVDAGEN

Introduction.......................................................................................................158
Phase I: Establishing a framework....................................................................158
Phase II: Collaborative Inquiry.........................................................................164
Phase III: The turn to action: a women’s forum................................................180
Reflecting on the collaborative inquiry.............................................................183
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Conclusion......................................................................................................188

PART IV: RELATIONAL DYNAMICS AND STRATEGIES

CHAPTER SEVEN
ORGANIZING AS WOMEN: MAKING SPACE FOR A HOUSE OF
DREAMS

Introduction.......................................................................................................191
The women’s forum..........................................................................................191
Linking lives to places: gendered subjectivities................................................208
Conclusion.........................................................................................................229

CHAPTER EIGHT
UNSETTLING THE ORDERS: THE DYNAMICS OF RURAL
DEVELOPMENT AND LOCAL FOREST MANAGEMENT

Introduction.......................................................................................................230
The gender of local development......................................................................230
Some organizing principles of rural development.............................................243
The other side of development: the outsiders....................................................253
Conclusion.........................................................................................................268

PART V: ANALYSIS AND CONCLUSIONS

CHAPTER NINE
MAKING SENSE OF LOCAL MANAGEMENT AS RURAL
DEVELOPMENT

Introduction.......................................................................................................271
Local groups and the power over development.................................................272
Local forest management: a limiting discourse?...............................................273
Opening up a space...........................................................................................277
Struggles over meanings...................................................................................283
Having, Loving and Being: policy and village activity in Drevdagen..............285

CHAPTER TEN
‘WOMEN ARE LIKE BOATS’: DISCOURSE, POLICY AND
COLLECTIVE ACTION

Introduction.......................................................................................................292

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The practices of equality: jämställdhet for individuals
and empowerment for others..........................................................................294
The power to name the difference..................................................................299
Empowerment................................................................................................313
A faith in progress..........................................................................................317
Both empowered and marginalised................................................................321

CHAPTER ELEVEN
CONCLUDING REFLECTIONS

The three questions:
(i)................................................................................................................... 324
(ii)...................................................................................................................326
(iii)................................................................................................................. 330

BIBLIOGRAPHY..............................................................................................332

SAMMANFATTNING PÅ SVENSKA
Avslutande resonemang.......................................................................................354
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