Doctoral Dissertation Research: Gender, Authority and the Politics of Land Reform

这个项目调查了女性角色和领导力的变化。该项目将以获得土地为视角，探讨妇女在一个许多人认为性别平等是常态的国家中的社会和经济地位。男人们正在从矿山工作中返回家园，一场全面的土地改革进程正在改变莱索托的土地持有方式。该项目以三个研究问题为中心：(1)在过去十年中，随着男性的回归以及新法律的颁布，男性和女性获得土地的机会是如何以及为什么发生了变化？(2)是否存在分配给妇女的土地的地理分布，这种地理分布是如何随时间变化的？(3)领导人是否寻求维持他们在土地分配方面的权力？如果是这样，他们的陆地控制演习如何影响男性和女性对土地的获取？这些问题将在莱索托的一个村庄进行八个月的定性实地调查，包括调查、访谈和与当地居民和酋长的焦点小组讨论，以回答这些问题。其他工作将集中在对首都马塞卢的政策制定者、官僚和发展专家的采访。本研究将探讨性别政治在莱索托土地委员会方面的多重尺度。该项目将增进对导致妇女生计脆弱性增加或减少的社会、政治、经济和文化条件的了解。性别是脆弱性的关键指标；了解妇女如何获得更有保障的土地权利是减轻脆弱性的有力工具。这一分析也将对权威文献做出贡献。它试图了解莱索托酋长在不断变化的政治经济背景下的作用。在权力方面，该研究扩展了国家对酋长进行合选的想法，并调查了当酋长的元素与选举产生的地方机构（实际上是在该机构内）同时被授权时会发生什么。该项目旨在帮助以一种全面的方式了解两性关系，从而加强对艾滋病危机中女性化问题的了解。此外，这项工作有一个明确的政策含义：莱索托和整个发展中世界的土地改革是一个持续的进程，这项研究将确定实现更公平分配的途径。作为博士论文研究进步奖，该奖项还将提供支持，使有前途的学生建立一个独立的研究生涯。

This project investigates the changing role of women and leadership. Using land access as the lens, the project will explore the social and economic status of women in a country where many consider gender equality to be the norm. Men are returning home from working in mines and a sweeping land reform process is changing how land is held in Lesotho. The project centers on three research questions: (1) How and why has access to land for men and women changed as men have returned and since new laws were enacted in the last decade? (2) Is there a geography of land that is allocated to women and how has that geography changed over time? (3) Are leaders seeking to maintain their power over land allocation? If so, how do their land control maneuvers affect both men's and women's access to land? These questions will be answered in a village setting in Lesotho with eight months of qualitative fieldwork, including surveys, interviews and focus groups with local residents and chiefs. Additional work will focus on interviews with policymakers, bureaucrats and development experts in the capital, Maseru. This study will explore multiple scales of gender politics in terms of land committees in Lesotho. The project will enhance understanding of the social, political, economic and cultural conditions that lead to increased or reduced vulnerability of women's livelihoods. Gender is a key indicator of vulnerability; understanding how women can obtain more secure land rights is a powerful tool in mitigating vulnerability. The analysis will also make a contribution to the literature of authority. It seeks to understand the role of Lesotho's chieftaincy in a changing political-economic context. In terms of authority, the study expands ideas of co-optation of chiefs by the state and investigates what happens when elements of the chieftaincy are empowered at the same time as an elected local body (in fact, within that very body). The project seeks to help understand gender relations in a holistic way that may enhance understanding of the feminization of the AIDS crisis. Additionally, there is a clear policy implication to this work: land reform in Lesotho and throughout the developing world is an ongoing process and this study will identify pathways towards fairer distribution. As a Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement award, this award also will provide support to enable a promising student to establish an independent research career.