Co-opting cattle spaces: Women, cattle, and empowerment in Northwestern Botswana

Abstract

This paper offers spatial insights on gender, development, and empowerment scholarship through a case study of women and cattle in Botswana exploring the interconnections between space, nature, material action, and subjectivities. Using women’s access to and interactions with cattle as an entry point, this paper demonstrates the value of including space in conceptualizations of empowerment. It particularly highlights how enacting cattle rearing activities in certain spaces impacts women’s pride and self-confidence, contributing to changes in subjectivities and gender/spatial ideologies. Subjectivities are both contested and reinforced through women’s actions in cattle spaces in rural Botswana, with certain activities being simultaneously empowering and disempowering. Broadly, this paper reveals the significance to empowerment initiatives of contextualizing asset acquisition in socio-spatial norms. Demonstrating the importance of space in empowerment research also has implications for gender mainstreaming policies.