Women's Land Research Articles

Gender and land degradation neutrality: A cross‐country analysis to support more equitable practices

AbstractWomen and men have unequal opportunities to address land degradation. Although adoption of Sustainable Development Goal target 15.3 leads the world to “strive towards land degradation neutrality (LDN)” by 2030, gender concerns are sparsely considered in LDN programming to date. To achieve LDN in regions with deeply entrenched sociocultural norms requires gender responsiveness, accounting for the varied gender components of land degradation. This paper identifies innovative entry points for, and benefits of, integrating gender issues into LDN, as well as the risks of gender inaction. Assessment of the literature on the links between gender and land reveals land degradation is gendered and closely tied to gender biases in land rights, access to resources and incentives, opportunities to participate in decision making, and the distribution of costs/benefits of projects targeting land improvement. Analysis of selected LDN‐related projects shows that interventions seem to target gender biases by engaging: women's groups that are locally recognised as change agents in driving inclusiveness and gender specialists to coordinate gender mainstreaming activities. Entry points for gender‐responsive LDN are identified, including interventions that merge LDN gender plans with existing gender schemes at local and global levels, enable gender‐sensitive early warning systems, and narrow gender disparities and safeguard women's land rights through gender‐sensitive LDN financing mechanisms. Gender‐responsive LDN is one of several avenues to support growing international efforts to promote gender equality and female empowerment, alongside movement towards a future where more balanced relations ensure women and men can interact with and care for land in more equitable and nonhierarchical ways.

Women's land rights in customary dispute resolution in Rwanda

Women's land rights in customary dispute resolution in Rwanda

Dynamics of Women's Land Rights, Agrarian Change and Gender Transformation in Zimbabwe's Fast Track Land Reform Programme

Women’s land rights feature prominently in contemporary policy debates on agrarian change and gender transformation in Africa, although often accompanied by a certain weary skepticism about what this prominence signifies. On the one hand, policy-makers invoke women as an important category for attention, while on the other hand, analysts and activists regularly denounce the gap between high-level policy commitments and implementation. The basis of this paper is to establish the dynamics of women's land rights, agrarian change and gender transformation in Zimbabwe's fast track land reform programme. Using a qualitative method of inquiry based on interviews, focus group discussions and observations with study participants in Bubi district, an empirical material is constructed and interpreted. Using constructivist grounded theory, dynamics of women’s social goals and strategies in production and reproduction are identified, mapped out and analysed. Drawing on gender theory and new institutional theory, which recognise power and discursive signs of institutional change in rules, norms and values, it uncovers layers of social complexity in the dynamics of female and male land rights as well as between male land rights and female labour in the gender regime. In so doing, it shows how power relations emerging from unequal land and labour rights are enacted in cooperation, competition and conflict, between spouses and between co-wives. The findings show how land, besides being a natural resource for food production, is an important social, cultural and intergenerational symbol in Bubi district. This has implications for women and for their position and room of manoeuvre in food production. It also shows how the gender regime is subject to incremental institutional change through gendered agency, mainly from within the regime but accelerated by land scarcity as an external process. To conclude, the gender regime of land and labour rights has implications for how gender is enacted in everyday strategies, constructed in terms of female and male identities and configured in terms of masculinity and femininity. In the end, it is argued, these conditions affect food production and, in its extension, also food security and gender transformation. This study recommends on the importance of disaggregating women and designing policies that recognise class and other differences among them, and cater for women’s interests in land.

Land grabbing: A gendered understanding of perceptions and reactions from affected communities in Nguti Subdivision of South West Cameroon

AbstractThis article examines the political economic processes and gendered consequences involved in large‐scale land acquisition (LSLA) in rural South West Cameroon. The study adopts a gender‐disaggregated approach to data collection to understand local perceptions and reactions toLSLAin the region. It shows how traditional cultural prescriptions have combined with contemporary land laws to masculinize power over land to the detriment of women. It argues that although men and women are both affected byLSLAprojects, the impacts are much greater for women because what the state considers “empty land”is used by them to secure household food security. Second, it argues that amid societal discrimination over land‐ownership rights, perceived gender differences between men and women appear “rational” in the event ofLSLA—men follow their ascribed roles in overt reactions, women being more covert and much less vocal in land‐related contests. New policies that promote rural women's land rights will not only empower them during land struggles, they will also provide communities with greater security to sustain ecologically viable livelihoods.

Women, Culture and Africa's Land Reform Agenda.

Pre-colonial Africa prides itself on adherence to diverse cultural affinity and traditional belief systems, which defines the place of women in respect to land access, use and ownership. Land resources continue to play important roles in both agrarian and industrial societies; thus the absence of effective land management and gender construction in land allocations has deepened gender inequality, restricted women’s capacity building and agricultural development in Africa. This article explores the impact of traditional African practices and cultural beliefs on women’s land ownership and use, and also reconciles women’s land rights (access and control) with the realities of land reform in post-colonial Africa. It explores how gender inequalities, in terms of land ownership and rights, have jeopardized attempts at agricultural productivity and sustainable development in Africa. However, it is tasking to ‘universalize’ African culture and locate it in a center, due to the diverse cultural values found in Africa. However, there are certain belief systems that run through most African communities, such as the denial of women’s land rights and the patriarchal nature of societies. Thus, the article found that, despite the development of legal frameworks that expand women’s property rights, cases of cultural impediments to the exercise of land rights abound in Africa.

Raising the voices of Pacific Island women to inform climate adaptation policies

Policymakers and natural resource managers are increasingly recognizing the importance of broader geographic and gender participation in assessing climate vulnerability and developing effective adaptation policies. When such participation is limited, climate mitigation and adaptation polices may miss key opportunities to support vulnerable communities, and thus inadvertently reinforce the vulnerability of marginalized groups. This paper reports rich qualitative data from women leaders in conservation, development and climate adaptation projects to support local communities across seven Pacific Island nations. The results indicate the following priorities to support climate adaptation policies in the Pacific: (1) increased recognition for the importance of traditional knowledge; (2) greater support for local women's groups, including strategic planning and training to access climate finance mechanisms; and (3) climate policies that consider alternative metrics for women's empowerment and inclusion, formalize women's land rights, and provide land for climate refugees. Existing evidence is discussed which supports the importance of these priorities in the Pacific. Their input identifies research gaps in climate adaptation and provides important guidance for governments, non-governmental organizations, and development agencies leading climate adaptation efforts.

Islands in the West: Classical Myth and the Medieval Norse and Irish Geographical Imagination by Matthias Egeler

Reviewed by: Islands in the West: Classical Myth and the Medieval Norse and Irish Geographical Imagination by Matthias Egeler David James Griffiths Egeler, Matthias, Islands in the West: Classical Myth and the Medieval Norse and Irish Geographical Imagination (Medieval Voyaging, 4), Turnhout, Brepols, 2017; hardback; pp. xii, 357; 33 b/w illustrations, 4 b/w tables; R.R.P. €100.00; ISBN 9782503569383. The history of an idea is a difficult thing to capture. Concepts can shift and be reworked as they are handed down through generations and across cultures. It is problematic to clearly identify whether an idea has been borrowed, deliberately transmitted, appropriated, or is simply the result of some form of parallel evolution. A more recent, and exhaustive, history of a particular construct—the fabled ‘Islands in the West’—can be found in Matthias Egeler’s monograph, which charts the ‘entanglement’ of different legends of a transmarine paradise across Irish, Norse, Mediterranean, and Near East examples. It is not so much a search for origins but an attempt to catalogue the similarities and differences in each version, without ascribing cultural meaning, motive, or purpose. It is an approach that seems to have a great deal of promise at the start of Islands of the West. The text goes backwards in time, first analysing the more recent (i.e. early and high medieval) examples of paradisiacal islands, before exploring examples further back in the historical record. Chapter 1, ‘North-Western Europe: Scandinavia, Ireland and the Land of the Living’, is a thorough exploration of Irish and Norse cycles such as The Voyage of Bran and the Book of Settlements, as well as other less prominent myths that depict a realm that is variously described as a ‘Land of Women’, ‘Wine-Land’, ‘Land of the White-Men’, and so on. It focuses particularly on how each depiction uses tropes of gender, power (including fertility and land), and immortality in different ways. The problems with considering the Christian context of the transfer of these pagan tropes to written format is noted, as well as how ideas of monastic isolation may have shaped a Hiberno-Norse desire for a distant idealized realm. What comes across in the first chapter is perhaps the issue of grouping all these different transmarine realms as a productive form of analysis. Egeler almost overwhelms the reader with the sheer depth and breadth of the material studied, so that it is difficult to take a step back and adopt a critical look. This essential difficulty with cross-cultural analysis—making a definitive judgement—is compounded by the problems of evidence that Islands of the West explores in its subsequent chapters. Chapter 2, ‘The Classical Mediterranean: Rome, Greece and the Islands of the Blessed’, is probably the least convincing of the chapters. In part this is because Egeler starts to use evidence from Etruscan funerary images, combined with allegorical depictions of the Roman and Greek afterlife. The lack of detailed understanding of Etruscan rites and language makes the parallels [End Page 212] Egeler is attempting to establish—a clear, overarching Mediterranean association between the afterlife and a sea voyage for deceased souls—stretched at best, and a lot seems to depend on whether Etruscan depictions of sea creatures on funerary displays are a core motif or a flourish, or exactly whether the Garden of the Hesperides counts as transmarine and is therefore a useful part of the analysis. Chapter 3 is brief and largely consists of examining and refuting existing theories that seek to connect the Irish and Norse concepts of ‘Islands in the West’ right back to biblical and Mesopotamian understandings of the Flood, with their depictions of a flood hero who is translocated to a distant land, and associations with some form of powerful fruit (the apple of the Garden of Eden, for example). Egeler rightly observes that making this link requires a total inversion in the various mythic tropes, with the Near East mythos typically involving some kind of submerged world and temptation by women. This is at odds with the Greek and Roman sources that are posited as mediators between a Near East origin and an Irish ‘end point’, which makes tracking the cultural...

Adaptation strategies to floods: A gender-based analysis of the farming-dependent char community in the Padma floodplain, Bangladesh

This paper examines the determinants affecting adaptation strategies adopted by men and women in char farming households in Zanjira, Bangladesh, to deal with floods. The term char land refers to a mid-channel island that periodically appears in the riverbed owing to accretion. The study used primary and secondary data. Primary data were collected from a household survey from 115 men and 128 women, interviews with key informants, focus group discussions and in-depth interviews with farmers. For a gender analysis, the study used two separate step-wise regression models. Results showed that significant variables determining adaptation strategies included agricultural land access, availability of agricultural labor, experience in farming, literacy, age, and training. Both regressions showed a good fit of the model. The higher adjusted R2 values for the female model revealed that the determinants included are more critical for flood adaptation strategies than those in the male model. Regression results revealed that agricultural land access, agricultural labor, and literacy were the most important determinants for both groups. Agriculture land access and literacy were more important for women than men. This suggests that women's land accessibility and literacy need to be improved to help them better adapt to floods. The influence of agricultural labor also seemed equally important for men and women. These findings inform useful policy recommendations for dealing with floods. Promoting less labor-intensive but more remunerative adaptation strategies would help men and women manage farming effectively.

Longitudinal analysis of the impact of economic empowerment on risk for intimate partner violence among married women in rural Maharashtra, India

The purpose of this study was to assess via longitudinal analysis whether women's economic empowerment and financial inclusion predicts incident IPV. This prospective study involved analysis of three waves of survey data collected from rural young married women (n = 853 women) in Maharashtra at baseline and 9&18 month follow-ups. This study, which was in the field from 2012 to 2014, was conducted as part of a larger family planning evaluation study unrelated to economic empowerment. Participants were surveyed on economic empowerment, as measured by items on women's income generation and joint decision-making of husband's income, and financial inclusion, as measured by bank account ownership. Women's land ownership and participation in microloan programs were also assessed but were too rare (2-3% reporting) to be included in analyses. Longitudinal regression models assessed whether women's economic empowerment predicted incident IPV at follow-up. At Wave 1 (baseline), one in ten women reported IPV in the past six months; 23% reported income generation; 58% reported having their own money; 61% reported joint control over husband's money, and 10% reported bank ownership. Women's income generation and having their own money did not predict IPV over time. However, women maintaining joint control over their husband's income were at a 60% reduced risk for subsequent incident IPV (AOR = 0.40; 95% CI = 0.18, 0.90), and women gaining joint control over time were at a 70% reduced risk for subsequent incident IPV (AOR = 0.30; 95% CI = 0.13, 0.72), relative to women whose husbands maintained sole control over his income. Women who initiated a new bank account by Wave 3 also had a 56% reduced likelihood of reporting incident IPV in this same wave (AOR = 0.44; 95% CI = 0.22, 0.93), relative to those who maintained no bank account at Waves 1 and 3. These findings suggest that women's joint control over husband's income and her financial inclusion as indicated by bank ownership appear to reduce risk for IPV, whereas her income generation or control over her own income do not. Awareness of and participation in financial inclusion services may help reduce women's risk for IPV in rural India and elsewhere.

Women's land rights as a pathway to poverty reduction: Framework and review of available evidence

This paper reviews the literature on women’s land rights (WLR) and poverty reduction. It uses the Gender, Agriculture and Assets Project (GAAP) conceptual framework to identify pathways by which WLR could reduce poverty and increase wellbeing of women and their households in rural areas. It uses a systematic review search methodology to identify papers for inclusion, but adopts a more synthetic approach to assess the level of agreement and the amount of evidence within this literature. The paper examines the evidence from qualitative as well as quantitative studies on each of these pathways. Owing to the scarcity of experimental studies, the review of empirical work is based mostly on observational studies. We find some evidence on these relationships, but many of the key pathways have not been empirically analyzed. The evidence is strong for relationships between WLR and bargaining power and decision-making on consumption, human capital investment, and intergenerational transfers. There is a high level of agreement, but weaker evidence on the relationship between WLR and natural resource management, government services and institutions, empowerment and domestic violence, resilience and HIV risk, and consumption and food security. There is less agreement and insufficient evidence on the associations between WLR and other livelihoods, and a higher level of agreement, but still limited evidence on associations between WLR and credit, technology adoption, and agricultural productivity. Notably, we find no papers that directly investigate the link between WLR and poverty. Many gaps in the evidence arise from a failure to account for the complexity of land rights regimes, the measurement of land rights at the household level, the lack of attention paid to gender roles, and the lack of studies from countries outside Africa. Many studies are limited by small sample sizes, the lack of credible counterfactuals, lack of attention to endogeneity and selection bias, and possible response bias on questions of domestic violence and empowerment. There are very few rigorous evaluations of reforms that strengthened WLR. The paper concludes that gaps in the evidence should not deter the careful design and implementation of programs and policies to strengthen WLR, given the ongoing land tenure reforms in many countries. Different modalities and mechanisms for strengthening WLR could be tested, with appropriate counterfactuals. Program designers and evaluators can strategically identify pathways and outcomes where evidence gaps exist, and deliberately design studies to close those gaps.

Land tenure and forest rights of rural and indigenous women in Latin America: Empirical evidence

Latin America's land-use and communal forests needs a better understanding through a lens of women. This research article aims to examine Latin America's secured individual land tenure legal reforms and communal rights in indigenous territories. Two empirical case studies are presented to assess the current dynamics of rural women's land title rights in coffee agroforestry under Colombia's new Formalización Propiedad Rural program, and indigenous Quechua women's communal forest land rights for indigenous foods like kañawa and quinoa farming in highland Bolivia. In doing so, it also gives an introduction to the five empirical research papers that are part of this Special Section edited by the author. The specific case studies are from the Brazilian Amazon, Bolivia's Gran Chaco area, Nicaragua's indigenous territories and two studies from Mexico – one from Oaxaca's central valley and the other is based on smallholder farming in Calakmul rural area. In conclusion, the author discusses the need to prioritise women's role in individual land rights and communal forest tenure in Latin American countries.

Women's rights to land and communal forest tenure: A way forward for research and policy agenda in Latin America

In this synthesis paper, the authors of this Special Section contribute towards a collective research and policy agenda on rural and indigenous women's forest and land rights in Latin America. Based on the key lessons from the empirical evidence, we map out a way forward for the research agenda and suggest a few key institutional and policy priorities for rural Latin America.

Unlocking the Household ‘Black Box’: A Gendered Analysis of Smallholder Farmers' Participation in the Cassava (Manihot esculenta crantz) Value Chain in Tanzania

AbstractWomen in developing countries are often omitted from key parts of the agricultural value chains. We used household survey data in bi‐probit and ordinary least squares regression models to estimate the determinants of women's participation in cassava cultivation and marketing in Tanzania. Land size and region, among other factors, were significant determinants of household decisions to grow cassava. Policies for improving women's land rights and infrastructure would help to promote their participation in cassava production, processing and marketing. Improved methods of delivering extension information would also improve women's participation in the cassava value chain markets. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

JURIDICAL REVIEW OF RIGHT OF ACCESS TO LAND FOR INDONESIAN WOMEN CITIZEN WHO ARE BOUND BY MIXED MARRIAGE LAW (CASE STUDY DECISION OF THE CONSTITUTIONAL COURT NUMBER: 69 / PUU XIII / 2015)

ABSTRACTMixed marriages are marriages involving a race between nations, therefore, marriage is also subject to the principles applicable in the Indonesian Law and International Law. Mixed marriage has penetrated the whole of Indonesia . Notary role in making the deeds relating to pernjanjian marriage, inheritance etc.Dealing with the issue of marriage between men and women WNA WNA especially about women's access rights to land for the citizen and problems. Therefore, the authors take the title on the Juridical Review of the Acquisition of Land Rights for Women Bound citizen Mixed Marriage (Case Study No. Constitutional Court.69 / PUU XIII / 2015). The contents of the Constitutional Court about: Testing Law No. 5 of 1960 on the Basic Regulation and the Basic Agrarian Law No. 1 of 1974 on Marriage of the Constitution of the Republic of Indonesia th 1945.Dalam decision mentions the Applicant, Ny. Ike Farida an Indonesian citizen. Applicant is a woman who is married to a Japanese national men by a valid marriage and are registered in the District Office of Religious Affairs Makasar East Jakarta Municipality No. 3948 / VII / 1995, the Civil Registry Office Prop. DKI Jakarta as defined in the Marriage Reports Receipt No. 36 / KHS / AI / 1849/1995/1999 dated May 24, 1999. Related to marriage, the applicant does not have marital separation agreement treasures, never abandoned his Indonesian citizenship and disenfranchised here at home. Applicant want to buy Flats in Jakarta, after the keel, towers not being handed over, and even then the purchase agreement terminated unilaterally by the developer. Then formulated the problems are: 1) What is the procedure of acquiring land rights for women citizens who are bound intermarriage? 2). Constraints and solutions that arise in obtaining the Women's Land Rights for citizens who are bound Mixed Marriage (Case Study No. Constitutional Court.69 / PUU XII / 2015)? As this study is sociological or empirical, in which the authors conducted a study which examined at first was secondary data, then resumed research on primary data in the field, or to society, an interview with the National Land Agency, notary, and two female citizens who marry foreigners. And examine the rules relating to mixed marriages, prevailing in Indonesia. The results showed the conclusion that the Notary has an important role in helping clients about: procedures for securing land rights for the citizen who is married to foreigners, namely the reduction in the rights, for example, from Properties menjaiHakPakai, the reduction in the rights of land owners. Constraints faced is the problem of domicile for male foreigners who are married to the citizen, and a couple of mixed marriages between Indonesian citizens and foreigners do not make a marriage agreement during their marriage. The solution is that if the land area can be divided into 2: 1/2; 1/2 for the wife, the land was downgraded to a Right of Use by registering at BPN, and made a covenant marriage.

Effects of macro-economic factors on women's formal land ownership status in Cameroon

The problem of gender inequality in formal land ownership in Africa is often attributed to African indigenous culture. Deviating from convention, this study considers the problem to be a function of macroeconomic factors. Empirical data were drawn from Cameroon. Multiple regression analyses involving natural logarithm and commensurate statistics were employed to analyze the data. Gender inequality, the dependent variable, was operationalized as the percentage of land titles issued to men minus the percentage issued to women. Two macroeconomic indicators, per capita gross domestic product (GDP) and per capita gross national income (GNI), comprised the predictor variables. A strong inverse relation between the dependent and predictor variables was hypothesized. Multiple tests validated all but one of the hypotheses. This revelation suggests that economic growth-promoting strategies can lead to the evaporation of gender-based gaps in access to land. The revelation is consistent with neoclassical theories that consider economic development a viable tool for improving the status of women. A positive relation between per capita GNI and gender inequality, conflicting with the hypothesized link, was found. This implies a need to redistribute the fruits of development in order to, inter alia, narrow the gender-based discrepancies in access to land.

Women's land rights, rural social movements, and the state in the 21st‐century Latin American agrarian reforms

AbstractThis paper addresses the disjuncture between women's formal land rights and their attaining these in practice, examining the four agrarian reforms carried out by progressive governments after 2000 in Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador, and Venezuela. It finds that while all four strengthened women's formal land rights, only the reforms in Bolivia and Brazil resulted in a significant share and number of female beneficiaries. In both countries, strong national‐level rural women's movements were the main advocates behind women's land rights in a context in which they formed part of the coalition that brought these regimes to power. In Bolivia, women have benefited principally through joint titling of land to couples in the country's massive land regularization programme. Brazil's reform has been the most redistributionary, and women have benefited through the priority given to female household heads as well as the mandatory joint allocation of land to couples in the agrarian reform settlements.

Meriel Talbot and the Society for the Overseas Settlement of British Women, 1919–1937

In 1917 the British government began making plans for post-war adjustments to the economy, which included the migration of surplus women to the dominions. The Society for the Overseas Settlement of British Women was established in 1920 to facilitate the migration of female workers to the dominions. Earlier studies have argued that overseas emigration efforts purposefully directed women into domestic service as surplus commodities, thus alleviating the female ‘surplus’ and easing economic hardships of the post-war period. This article argues that as Publicity Officer for the SOSBW, Meriel Talbot targeted women she believed would be ideal candidates for emigration, including former members of the Women's Land Army and affiliated groups. With the proper selection of female migrants, Talbot sought to expand work opportunities for women in the dominions beyond domestic service, while reducing the female surplus at home and servicing the connection between state and empire. Dominion authorities, whose demands for migrant labour vacillated between agricultural workers during the war years and domestic servants after 1920, disapproved of Talbot's efforts to migrate women for work in agriculture. Divergent policies led to the early failure of the SOSBW in 1923.

Becoming a Land Girl: Reprinting Alice Meynell's "The Shepherdess" in the Landswoman

This article uncovers an unexpected periodical context for Alice Meynell's 1895 poem Shepherdess, which was reprinted in the Landswoman: The Journal of the Women's Land Army and Women's Institutes on November 1, 1918. It argues that the Landswoman capitalized on the poem's rural theme and Meynell's cultural identity as an Angel in the House. Why was the poem published in the Landswoman ? How does this periodical context affect the poem's meaning? Why did the Landswoman opt for the 1895 poem rather that publishing an example of Meynell's more politically outspoken World War I poetry?

An Equal Right to Inherit? Women's Land Rights, Customary Law and Constitutional Reform in Tanzania

This article explores contemporary contestations surrounding women’s inheritance of land in Africa. Legal activism has gained momentum, both in agendas for law reform and in test case litigation, which reached the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women in ES and SC v. United Republic of Tanzania. Comparing the approach of Tanzania to that of its neighbors, Uganda, Kenya and Rwanda, this article explores patterns of resistance and omission towards enshrining an equal right to inherit in land and succession laws. It identifies two main reasons: neo-liberal drivers for land law reform of the 1990s and sociopolitical sensitivity surrounding inheritance of land. It argues that a progressive approach to constitutional and law reform on women’s land rights requires understanding of the realities of claims to family land based on kinship relations. It calls for a holistic approach to land, marriage and inheritance law reform underpinned with constitutional rights to equality and progressive interpretations of living customary law.

Controlling land they call their own: access and women's empowerment in Northern Tanzania

Formal rights to land are often promoted as an essential part of empowering women, particularly in the Global South. We look at two grassroots non-governmental organizations (NGOs) working on land rights and empowerment with Maasai communities in Northern Tanzania. Women involved with both NGOS attest to the power of land ownership for personal empowerment and transformations in gender relations. Yet very few have obtained land ownership titles. Drawing from Ribot and Peluso's theory of access, we argue that more than ownership rights to land, access – to land, knowledge, social relations and political processes – is leading to empowerment for these women, as well as helping to keep land within communities. We illustrate how the following are key to both empowerment processes and protecting community and women's land: (1) access to knowledge about legal rights, such as the right to own land; (2) access to customary forms of authority; and (3) access to a joint social identity – as women, as ‘indigenous people’ and as ‘Maasai'. Through this shared identity and access to knowledge and authority, women are strengthening their access to social relations (amongst themselves, with powerful political players and NGOs), and gaining strength through collective action to protect land rights.