UNRISD project on Gender and Land to be presented at Humboldt University, June 12

As part of a series of seminars held by the Humboldt University on the topic of Gender and Agrarian Change, UNRISD Research Coordinator Shahra Razavi will present the results of her research project on “Agrarian Change, Gender and Land Rights” on June 12 in Berlin, Germany.

The presentation, titled ‘Accessing land through markets? Liberalisation and the debates on women’s access to land’ will explore the interface between land and gender, in particular women’s inadequate land rights. The growing size and influence of women’s movements have drawn attention to unequal land rights as an important mechanism through which female poverty and subordination is sustained and reproduced. Whilst some argue that women’s access to land should be unambiguous, others oppose it categorically, viewing women’s land rights as a tool of pro-liberalization lobbies in opening up indigenous systems of land tenure to market forces and foreign commercial interests.

The UNRISD project aims at critically reflecting on different aspects of the gender and land question, its analysis being informed by different understandings of gender relations and the most important arenas within which those relations operate.