Women in agribusiness amid crises of social reproduction: the case of women workers at the Greenhouse, Turkey

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article focuses on the particular intersection of crises and change in gender- and generation-based social reproduction with agrarian change in the form of a large-scale land grab/investment from a feminist perspective. Based on a case study, it interrogates women’s laboring practices as waged labor in a greenhouse in Western Anatolia. I investigate the reasons why women seem to be determined to continue their employment at the Greenhouse while keeping their distance from their previous lives as small-producers and agricultural laborers. Three dynamics are taken into account: women’s perceptions of being peasant/worker; their future prospects in small-scale agricultural production and young generations’ participation in those activities; the niches women create to transform their lives via their work with critical reference to empowerment.