Women’s Labor and the Transformative Potential of Alternative Agrifood

Research output: Contribution to conferencePresentation

Abstract

Gender as a social category continues to play a key role in determining the allocation of power and privilege in society.  Despite this fact, gender has gone relatively unexamined in agrifood scholarship, including research examining resistance in the agrifood system and the transformative potential of alternative agrifood.  While some scholarship has focused on gender in the public sphere (i.e. women as farmers, women as farmworkers, women as restaurant workers), very little research has been attentive to gender dynamics in the private sphere as it relates to agrifood system resistance.  This is particularly problematic given recent concerns about the economization of the individual within alternative agrifood.

This paper draws from a research project which examined the ways in which traditional gender norms are perpetuated within and by households that engage in alternative agrifood practices, in order to examine the relationship between alternative agrifood engagement and the mental labor of food provisioning for women.  Qualitative methods are employed in the analysis using data gathered from Ohio residents.  Findings suggest that engaging in alternative agrifood is more mentally laborious for women, particularly women with lower incomes, women with children, women with partners, and women who are employed.  The paper concludes by considering how the failure to consider the legacy of patriarchy and contemporary practices related to gender inequality in the private sphere limits market based approaches to agrifood system change, but also the ways in which we must move beyond the focus on individuals when considering resistance to corporate agrifood.
Original languageAmerican English
StatePublished - 11 Aug 2016
Event2016 XIV IRSA World Congress of Rural Sociology - Toronto, Canada
Duration: 11 Aug 2016 → …

Conference

Conference2016 XIV IRSA World Congress of Rural Sociology
Period11/08/16 → …

EGS Disciplines

  • Agricultural and Resource Economics
  • Gender and Sexuality

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