Gender Regimes, Citizen Participation and Rural Restructuring, Volume 13 (Research in Rural Sociology and Development)

This volume looks at the construction of gendered citizenship in different rural contexts. These contexts represent different welfare state and gender regimes, and different rural/agricultural conditions as characterized in different countryside types. This is a study of gender, citizenship and gender regimes, in a rural context with an international list of contributors. Front cover 1 Gender Regimes, Citizen Participation and Rural Restructuring 4 Copyright page 5 Contents 6 List of Contributors 10 Editorial Advisory Board 12 Foreword 14 Part I: Introduction 16 Chapter 1. Rural Gender Regimes: The Development of Rural Gender Research and Design of a Comparative Approach 18 Introduction 18 Rural Gender Studies 20 Achievements and Worries 24 Comparative Research 25 Gender Regimes and Citizenship 28 The Rural Gender Regime 31 Different Rural Contexts 32 This Book 34 Social Citizenship 35 Economic Citizenship 36 Civil Citizenship 38 Political Citizenship 39 References 40 Part II: Social Citizenship and Gendered Constructions of Identities 46 Chapter 2. Agrarian Femininity in a State of Flux: Multiple Roles of Finnish Farm Women 48 Introduction 48 Context and Data 50 Past Agrarian Femininities 51 Farm Women and the Welfare State 53 Empirical Material: Semi-Structured Interviews 54 Farm Women: New Roles Under Construction 57 The ‘‘Good Emaumlntauml’’ 63 Conclusions 66 Notes 67 Acknowledgment 68 References 68 Chapter 3. Care Work in Hungarian Agrarian Entrepreneur Families During the Post-Socialist Transition 72 Introduction 72 The Post-Socialist Transformation of the Gender Regime 73 The Specific Features of Rural Care Regimes 76 Gender Processes in Agrarian Entrepreneur Families 77 The Study Among Farm Families 79 Gender Strategies in the Organization of the Reproduction of Everyday Life 83 Conclusion 93 Notes 95 References 95 Chapter 4. Rural Identities in Transition: Male Unemployment and Everyday Practice in Northern Sweden 98 Introduction 98 The Organising of Gender Relations 99 Aim of the Study 101 Local Gender Contracts 102 Local Coping Strategies 104 Method 105 Setting up a Local Socio-Cultural Context 106 Pajala Municipality 109 Jokkmokk Municipality 110 Arjeplog Municipality 111 Identified Coping Strategies in Relation to the Labour Market and Local Gender Contracts 112 Adaptation: Following Traditions and Adjusting to a Changing Labour Market 113 Challenge: Crossing the Gendered Borders of the Labour Market and Being ‘‘Knapsu’’ 114 Retreat: Finding an Alternative Role in Civil Society 116 The Gender Regime and its Local Implications 119 Conclusion: Negotiated Masculinities and Gendered Coping Strategies 120 Notes 123 References 123 Part III: Economic Citizenship: Keeping Farming Alive 128 Chapter 5. Women Working off the Farm: A Case of Economic Citizenship? 130 Introduction 130 Materials and Method 131 Irish Farming Context 133 Theoretical Discussion 134 Official Discourses 136 The Farm Home Advisory Service 138 Living Life Within the Family 141 Gendering Identities 142 Contemporary Discourses: The Report of the Advisory Committee on the Role of Women in Agriculture 145 Women Farmers 147 The Family Farm 149 Gender Relations 151 Conclusions 152 Notes 154 Acknowledgments 154 References 155 Chapter 6. Tracking Empowerment and Participation of Young Women Farmers in Greece 158 Introduction 158 Theoretical Background 161 Research area and Methodology 163 Results 164 The Dynamics of Empowerment 167 Conclusion 175 Notes 178 Acknowledgment 178 References 178 Chapter 7. Parliamentary Discourses: Gender and Agriculture in the Swedish Debate in the 1940s and 1960s 182 Introduction 182 Language and Politics, Some Theoretical and Methodological Remarks 184 The Political Arena and Sources 186 The 1940s: The Confusing Concept of the Family Farm 187 What were the Problems of Family Farms? 190 Gender Outcomes of the 1940s 192 The 1960s: Family and Agriculture in the Omnipresent Welfare State 194 Family, Enterprise and Farmer 194 Women and Modernisation 195 Family Farms and Landscape 196 Gender in Between Modernity and Environment 197 A Concluding Reflection of Gender, Concepts and Family Ideals from the 1940s to the 1960s 198 Notes 202 References 203 Part IV: Civil Citizenship: Transfer and Inheritance of Property 206 Chapter 8. Gendered Interest and Motivation of the Younger Generation in Agriculture and Farm Succession 208 Introduction 208 Gender Differences in Farm Succession 209 The Swiss Gender Regime: The Gendered Praxis of Farm Succession 210 Research Questions 215 Research Methods 216 Postal Survey 216 Focus Group Interviews 217 Farm Succession and Nature of Interest in Agriculture 218 Economic Feasibility of Farm Succession 220 Nature of Interest in Agriculture 221 Gender-Specific Socialisation 224 Conclusion 227 References 230 Chapter 9. Succession Patterns in Norwegian Farm Generations: Gendered Responses to Modernity 232 Introduction 232 Background 234 Theoretical Approaches and Research Questions 235 Life Histories from Three Farm Families 239 Analysis and Discussion 245 Conclusion 249 Notes 251 Acknowledgments 251 References 251 Chapter 10. From Formal to Female Property Rights: Gender and Inheritance of Landed Property in Estuna, Sweden, 1810–1845 254 Women, Inheritance, and Property Rights in Rural Sweden 255 Outline 256 Estate Inheritors: Male Favourites and Female Substitutes 257 Cases of Several Siblings Inheriting Landed Property 258 The Realization of Assignments: Female Property Rights Protected 259 Being Bought out of the Estate 260 The Rights of Heiresses Were the Rights of Minors 262 The Weak Property Rights of Wives 264 The Solution: ‘‘Bringing in’’ the Wives 265 Formal Property Assignments: Causes and Consequences 267 Why Make Property Matters Judicial Matters? 268 Making Inheritance Matters Judicial Matters: A Winning Ticket for Women? 269 Conclusion: the Formal Rights of Individual Women 269 Civil Rights on the Legislative Level 270 Civil Rights on the Judicial Level 271 Notes 271 References 274 Part V: Political Citizenship: (NON)Participation and Empowerment 276 Chapter 11. Barriers to Women’s Participation in Rural Policy Making 278 Introduction 278 Methodology 281 Setting the Context 282 Women’s Exclusion from Rural Governance Structures 283 Women’s Position in (Rural) Society 284 A Traditional Gender Ideology 285 The Dominance of Agriculture and Economy in Rural Political Discourse 286 The Lack of Fundamental Change in New Governance Arrangements 287 Constraints to Meaningful Participation 288 The Formal Structure 289 The use of Knowledge 289 The Political Discourse 290 Social and Experiential Knowledge 291 Conclusion 293 References 294 Chapter 12. The Rural Gender Regime: The Austrian Case 298 Introduction 298 The Male Dominance of Rural Politics 300 The Rural Gender Regime 302 Women’s Experience in Rural Politics 307 Conclusions 309 Note 311 References 311 Chapter 13. Men, Masculinities and the (Re)Gendering of Local Government in Rural Australia 314 Introduction 314 Theoretical Framework 315 Methodology 318 Paternalistic Managerial Men and the ’Woman Councillor’ 320 Discourses of Resistance 322 Discussion 326 Note 327 References 327 Chapter 14. Shifting Images of the ’Community’: Community-Based Politics and Women’s Citizenship in India and Sweden 332 Introduction 332 Community-Based Politics and Women’s Citizenship 333 The Research Settings and Methods 336 Discussion 349 Conclusion 354 Notes 356 References 356 Part VI: Concluding Remarks 360 Chapter 15. Dynamics of Change and Reconstitution in Hegemonic and Rural Gender Regimes 362 Rural Gender Regimes and Civil Citizenship 365 Rural Gender Regimes and Social Citizenship 370 Rural Gender Regimes and Economic Citizenship 375 Rural Gender Regimes and Political Citizenship 383 Summary 387 References 391 About the Authors 394 Annotation. This book aims to unravel how rural gender regimes are constituted, enforced, made sense of and resisted, and how struggles of resistance lead to empowerment and change in various countries in the four corners of Europe as well as Australia and India. The book focuses on the intricate relationship between laws and institutions and everyday life. It analyzes on the one hand how laws and institutions are constituted and on the other hand how gender regimes are built at the local rural level, sometimes in compliance with these frames and sometimes contesting them. The articles, in diverse ways, give voice both to women's struggles for recognition and men's voices in gendered rural societies. Through applying the concepts of the welfare state and gender regimes within rural research, this book contributes to the further development of a comparative theoretical framework for rural gender studies. The importance of integrating rural gender studies into both the mainstreams of rural and feminist research has been emphasized in previous research, as has that of developing comparative analytical frameworks. The conceptual framework adopted in this volume sets out to meet this challenge by approaching rural gender relations as the meeting point of two core research areas: gender regimes and rural transformative processes. Research into gender regimes offers a promising analytical framework for comparing gender relations in diverse rural settings. At the same time, by addressing rural concerns deriving from the specificity of rural transition processes and gender regimes, the approach also contributes to an elucidation of the complexity of citizenship. Book jacket