Dissertation Research: Mens' Cotton, Womens' Cotton, and Intrahousehold Negotiations: Gender Dynamics in Rural Southwest Burkina Faso

研究生Batamaka Some将在Mahir Saul博士的指导下，研究布基纳法索棉花出口大幅增长背后的因素，特别是这如何影响生产家庭中配偶、父母和子女之间的关系。在结构调整宏观经济政策的框架内，法语国家西非和中部非洲的共同货币于1994年贬值。货币贬值明显促进了西非大多数成员国的棉花出口种植，尤其是布基纳法索。尽管传统知识假设经济作物/出口作物的生产危及发展中经济体的家庭粮食作物生产，尤其是危及火星妇女的经济自主潜力，但在布基纳法索西南部棉花生产家庭的观察结果似乎挑战了这种假设。棉花是粮食作物生产的驱动力；棉农家庭成员在谈判和讨价还价的框架内经营，以实现生产目标。此外，棉花部门的一些事态发展为该地区的一些妇女开辟了意想不到的途径，使她们能够独立于通常由男性户主拥有的棉花农场生产棉花。研究人员假设，不仅对更多现金收入的需求，而且还有许多其他因素影响小农生产棉花的决定。研究方法将对两个社区的正式调查与参与者观察、非正式访谈、对话、焦点小组、生活史和社会互动观察相结合。这项研究将有助于正在进行的关于家庭内部关系的理论辩论，以及第三世界日益增长的经济作物经济中妇女获得资源的机会。它还将通过一个案例研究，提出新的问题，重新审视在农户行动中以代理和理性的方式进行的讨论。更广泛地说，它可以帮助协调经济作物和粮食种植，并提出通过更好地整合经济作物来增强女农民能力的工具。这项研究还将对社会科学家的教育做出重大贡献。

Graduate student Batamaka Some, supervised by Dr. Mahir Saul, will undertake research on the factors behind the phenomenal increase of export cotton production in Burkina-Faso, with a particular focus on how this has affected relations between spouses, parents, and children within the producing households. Within the framework of structural adjustment macro-economic policies, the common currency of Francophone West and Central Africa was devalued in 1994. This devaluation gave a noticeable boost to export cotton farming in most member countries in West Africa, and more particularly in Burkina-Faso. Though 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, observations in cotton-producing households of Southwest Burkina 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 of the area to produce cotton independently from the usual cotton farms owned by the male heads of households. The researcher hypothesizes that not only the neeed for greater cash income but also a host of other factors influence smallholder farmers' decisions to produce cotton. The research methodology combines formal surveys of two communities with participant observations, informal interviews, conversations, focus groups, life histories, and observations of social interactions. The study will contribute to ongoing theoretical debates on intrahousehold relations, and women's access to resources in a growing cash crop economy in the Third World. It will also revisit, with a case study presenting novel issues, the discussions phrased in terms of agency and rationality in actions among farming households. More broadly, it could help to reconcile cash and food cropping, and suggest tools for the empowerment of women farmers through their better integration in cash-cropping. The research also will contribute significantly to the education of a social scientist.