Abstract
This article links feminist political ecology with the academic debate about commoning by focusing on the gendered distribution of common pool resources, in particular land and water. The research is set in the context of a coastal land reclamation project in Egypt’s Nile Delta, in a region where conflicts over resources such as arable land and fresh water are intensifying. Drawing on recent literature on commoning, we analyse the conditions under which different groups of resource users are constrained or enabled to act together. The article presents three case studies of women who represent different groups using land and water resources along the same irrigation canal. Through the concepts of intersectionality, performativity, and gendered subjectivity, this article explores how these women negotiate access to land and water resources to sustain viable livelihoods. The case studies unpack how the intersection of gender, class, culture, and place produces gendered subject positions in everyday resource access, and how this intersectionality either facilitates or constrains commoning. We argue that commoning practices are culturally and spatially specific and shaped by pre-existing resource access. Such access is often unequally structured along categories of class and gender in land reclamation and irrigation projects.
Highlights
This article presents the case of women and their access to land, water and ecosystems in one of Egypt’s most famous land reclamation mega-projects
The research is set in the context of a coastal land reclamation project in Egypt’s Nile Delta, in a region where conflicts over resources such as arable land and fresh water are intensifying
In a geopolitical context of increasing transboundary conflict over Nile water resources, our research project studies the gendered distribution of access to natural resources resulting from public irrigation investment in the Nile Delta
Summary
This article presents the case of women and their access to land, water and ecosystems in one of Egypt’s most famous land reclamation mega-projects. Four consecutive Egyptian presidents have initiated a series of settlement schemes that have distributed land and houses to groups of beneficiaries, including landless people, university graduates, war veterans and investors Such horizontal agricultural expansion faces increasing sustainability challenges due to mounting pressures on limited national water resources. This article focuses on the commoning strategies and gendered subjectivities of three important land user groups in the reclamation project As we argue, these subjectivities play a role in differential access to land, water and livelihood resources. The male bias in access to and control over resources reflects the patriarchal structures that dominate government institutions, family life and economic decision-making in Egypt In spite of these structural disadvantages, the three women presented here own, access and control resources to sustain their livelihoods. Ecology (FPE) and utilises the theories of intersectionality, subjectivity, and performativity to unpack the intersecting social categories of gender, class, culture and place that shape these women’s experiences with livelihood generation and resource access
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