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

该项目调查女性和领导力角色的变化。该项目以土地获取为视角，探讨在一个许多人认为性别平等已成为常态的国家中妇女的社会和经济地位。男人们从矿山工作回家，全面的土地改革进程正在改变莱索托的土地持有方式。该项目围绕三个研究问题：（1）随着男性回归以及过去十年新法律颁布以来，男性和女性获得土地的方式如何以及为何发生变化？ (2) 是否存在分配给妇女的土地地理分布以及该地理分布随时间有何变化？ (3) 领导人是否寻求维持土地分配权力？如果是这样，他们的土地控制策略如何影响男性和女性获得土地的机会？这些问题将在莱索托的一个村庄中通过八个月的定性实地考察得到回答，包括调查、访谈以及与当地居民和酋长的焦点小组讨论。其他工作将集中于对首都马塞卢的政策制定者、官僚和发展专家的采访。本研究将探讨莱索托土地委员会中性别政治的多个层面。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。性别是脆弱性的一个关键指标；了解妇女如何获得更有保障的土地权是减轻脆弱性的有力工具。该分析也将为权威文献作出贡献。它试图了解莱索托酋长在不断变化的政治经济背景中的作用。在权力方面，该研究扩展了国家选举酋长的想法，并调查了当酋长的成员同时获得选举产生的地方机构（事实上，就在该机构内部）的权力时会发生什么。该项目旨在帮助全面了解性别关系，从而增强对艾滋病危机女性化的理解。此外，这项工作具有明确的政策含义：莱索托和整个发展中国家的土地改革是一个持续的过程，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，该奖项还将为有前途的学生建立独立的研究生涯提供支持。

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.