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

研究生Batamaka Some在Mahir扫罗博士的指导下，将研究布基纳法索出口棉花产量惊人增长背后的因素，特别关注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，西非和中非法语国家的共同货币于1994年贬值。这一贬值明显促进了西非大多数成员国，特别是布基纳法索的棉花种植出口。虽然传统知识认为，经济/出口作物的生产会危及发展中经济体的家庭粮食作物生产，尤其会损害妇女的经济自主潜力，但对布基纳法索西南部棉花生产家庭的观察似乎对这种假设提出了挑战。棉花是粮食作物生产的驱动力;棉花种植家庭成员在谈判和讨价还价的框架内运作，以实现生产目标。此外，棉花部门的一些发展为该地区的一些妇女开辟了意想不到的途径，使她们能够独立于男户主拥有的通常的棉花农场生产棉花。研究人员假设，不仅需要更多的现金收入，而且还有许多其他因素影响小农生产棉花的决定。研究方法结合了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，生活史和社会互动的观察。这项研究将有助于目前关于家庭内部关系和妇女在第三世界日益增长的经济作物经济中获得资源的理论辩论。它还将通过一个提出新问题的案例研究，重新审视在农户行动中的代理和合理性方面进行的讨论。更广泛地说，它可以帮助协调经济作物和粮食作物种植，并建议通过更好地融入经济作物种植来增强女农民权能的工具。这项研究也将大大有助于社会科学家的教育。

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.