Growing cotton: Household negotiations in export-oriented agriculture in Africa, Burkina Faso

Conventional knowledge assumes that production of cash/export crops jeopardizes household food crop production in developing economies, and above all, mars women’s potential for economic autonomy. In Southwest Burkina Faso, observations in cotton-producing households appear to challenge such assumptions. Cotton is the driver of food crop production; and members of cotton farming households operate within a framework of negotiations and bargaining to attain production objectives. Still more, some developments in the cotton sector opened unexpected avenues for some women, in Southwest Burkina, to produce cotton independently from the conventional cotton farms owned by the male head of household. This dissertation asks why some smallholder farmers in Southwest Burkina choose to grow cotton in addition to commonly grown food-crops, and how this impacts relations between spouses, and parents and children within the household. It reaches the conclusion that a host of complex factors influence smallholder farmers’ decision to produce cotton, which requires looking beyond the need for greater cash incomes. The research methodology combines participant observations, informal interviews, conversations, focus groups, life histories, and social interactions, with formal surveying methods. This study contributes to ongoing theoretical debates on intrahousehold relations, and women’s access to resources in a growing cash crop economy in Africa, and the Global South. It also revisits the discussions phrased in terms of agency and rationality in actions among farming households. More broadly, it can contribute to reconcile cash and food cropping, and suggest tools for the economic empowerment of rural women through their full integration in cash farming.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Anthropology

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2010

Author dc:creator

• Somé, Batamaka

Contributors dc:contributor

• Saul, Mahir
• Bunzl, Matti
• Bassett, Thomas J.
• Torres, Arlene

• gender
• household
• commercial farming
• women
• agriculture
• labor
• West Africa
• Burkina Faso
• cotton
• food crops
• cash crops
• development
• globalization
• intrahousehold
• farmers
• rural
• gender negotiations
• bargaining
• head of household
• land
• social capital
• researcher's identity
• native anthropology
• development anthropology
• export agriculture
• African agriculture

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright Batamaka Somé

Language dc:language

en

Handle dc:identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/16957

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/16957