Gender In Nicaragua Research Articles

Beyond the bean: Analyzing diversified farming, food security, dietary diversity, and gender in Nicaragua’s smallholders coffee cooperatives

ABSTRACT Diversification is key for agroecological transformations, but little is known about how it relates to farmers’ dietary diversity and food sovereignty. Our team and coffee cooperative staff conducted a participatory action research mixed methods study, including 171 surveys and 50 interviews. Over 70% of the farmers reported self-initiated diversification activities. Statistical analysis showed a significant positive correlation between crop diversity and dietary diversity, while controlling for farm size and income. To assess gender relations females responded to 41% of the surveys, and we separated focus groups by sex. Average male-owned farms were 1.8 ha larger than women-owned farms, yet we found no significant differences in household food security or dietary diversity. Additional disparities included male vs. female perceptions about who does additional diversification work and who decides about strategies. Although the co-op has a strong gender equity and technical assistance program, our analysis of extension training documents identified useful content and a smaller percent of female participants in diversification vs. gender sessions. Suggested strategic actions for co-op planning include supporting: (1) female land ownership, (2) diversification focused farmer-led experimentation, and (3) more training for men on gender, women on diversification, and all participants in feminist agroecology.

After Revolution: Mapping Gender and Cultural Politics in Neoliberal NicaraguaStill Fighting: The Nicaraguan Women’s Movement, 1977–2000

After Revolution: Mapping Gender and Cultural Politics in Neoliberal NicaraguaStill Fighting: The Nicaraguan Women’s Movement, 1977–2000

The Mother of the Nicaraguans

Clothed in unsoiled white, arms outstretched to embrace her family, the Nicaraguan family, Violeta Barrios de Chamorro campaigned for president. She projected an image of herself as the mother of her country. Though a presidential candidate and a public figure, she was presented as symbolic of the private woman, the traditional mother. Donia Violeta promised that, just as she had reconciled her own politically torn family, she would reconcile the Nicaraguan people, torn by more than a decade of war. Violeta Chamorro won the presidential election of 1990 with 54.7 percent of the vote (Barricada Internacional, 1990: 6). The symbolism of that campaign foreshadowed antifeminist' policies that have been put into place in a number of areas including education, day care, and macroeconomic policy. Yet despite her political successes, Donia Violeta's vision of proper family relations has not come to dominate Nicaraguan life. Gender in Nicaragua remains contested, though that, in and of itself, is a rather uninteresting observation. After all, where is it that gender relations are not contested? What is interesting in Nicaragua is the how and why of the contest. In Nicaragua, debates over gender take place with reference to the revolutionary mobilization2 of the 1980s: rejecting it, embracing it, or, most often, in ambivalent relation to it.