Conference Agenda

The panel, ‘Care on the Margins: voices and strategies of women in the rural , brings together qualitative studies that draw attention to women workers’ individual and collective struggles as farmers and pastoralists in negotiating the gendered division of labour in subsistence, paid and unpaid work. High care work burden on women based on systemic gender inequality constrains women’s access to resources and opportunities confining them in precarious forms of work. There is also a constant strategizing and adapting with increasing care work because of socio-economic, political and ecological changes. Additionally, care work is also used by patriarchal structures to control women’s agencies, maintaining their weaker position in socio-economic relations. The first paper, ‘Women’s Work and Care in Agriculture’ presents the intersectionality of care being provided by single women—usually holding a socially lower status— in the context of agrarian and climate crisis while being denied recognition as ‘farmers’. Here collectivisation of single women farmers is seen as a strategy to recognize women’s work including care work, and build agencies to demand change. Further, the second paper, ‘Negotiating unpaid care work in individual and collective lives: Women in Farmers’ Movements’, discusses collectivisation processes of women farmers to understand the role these processes play in changing familial and feminised nature of unpaid care work, whether, these very care roles are used as a weapon to thwart women’s agencies on strategic care decisions and roles, and highlights the strategies of women farmer collectives to recognize, redistribute and represent care work in the face of backlash. The third paper combines feminist literature on work and ecology and brings forth a further set of complexities in understanding women’s work by discussing the lived experiences of pastoral women workers in negotiating their care roles towards their families, communities, animals and the ecosystems. The paper attempts to highlight the strategies which pastoral women make in the wake of increasing development processes. The panel will therefore highlight the lived experiences of women from the rural hinterlands and how they constantly strategize and reinterpret the modalities of care and work.

The nature of women’s work in farming is unique due to gendered division of labour which involves drudgery, tedious tasks and is largely structured around care. Women farmers work in close contact with their surroundings and are deeply affected not only by adverse changes in climate but also functioning of political economy in the region. Woman farmer’s work in general is mainly considered an extension of her reproductive and care role, which is often attributed to the invisiblization and unrecognition of women as farmers. In the case of single women farmers there is an added layer of scrutiny to which shapes their experience of vulnerability and strategies to negotiate.

This paper has emerged from the field data from ISST’s study on ‘Unpacking Women Farmers’ Strategies for Collectivizing’. The collectivization of women farmers is a significant phenomenon which is believed to be instrumental in developing women farmers’ identity as well as agency through intersubjective conditions of mutual recognition and respect. The study has looked at three forms of collectivization namely, farmers union, farmers producer organization and rights-based organization in four states: Uttarakhand, Punjab, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh. However, this paper is built on the experiences shared by single women farmers who are part of SHGs in rights-based organizations; Prerna Gram Vikas Santha in Yavatmal region of Maharashtra and Rural and Environment Development Society (REDS) in Rayalseema region of Andhra Pradesh. These are drought prone regions which face severe effects of climate and agrarian crisis, and have several instances of Farmer suicides creating several single women headed households.

Single women farmers are marginalized on multiple levels and occupy a particular space in this context of farm work They face a greater level of vulnerability but are also more directly involved with every step of farm work. This positionality often contributes to the work of farming getting seamlessly woven together with the care aspect of femininity. This paper focuses on nuances of care work performed by single women. Through the narratives and in-depth interviews of women, we look at the nature of care work done by single women who are part of collectives.

Diverse women’s movements have come a long way bolstering collective voices from the ground to recognise and value social and economic contributions of women’s work. However, women within movements are also situated within families and communities as individuals, socially and culturally bound by care responsibilities. Do unpaid work responsibilities within families and communities hold women back? What kinds of backlash do members of women’s collectives face – collectively and as individuals? Do women’s collectives help in the processes of negotiating their roles that are tied to familialised and feminised unpaid care work? Does participation in collectives contribute towards redistribution of unpaid care work in public and private spaces? These are some of the questions this paper will address.

The qualitative data used in this paper are from the dataset of an ongoing qualitative study by Institute for Development Studies. It comprises of narratives of women farmers from India, who are actively part of farmers’ movements. Data was collected through individual interviews and focussed group discussions. Key Informant Interviews (KIIs) were also conducted with both women and men leaders of the movements to get the perspective of the collectives towards women’s unpaid care work. The paper examines lived experiences of women to understand the extent to which, and how, unpaid care responsibilities are being weaponized against women’s collectives and also how they are trying to strike a balance between their public lives within collectives governed by forward looking progressive ideals and their individual lives that are governed by patriarchal social norms.

The invisibility around women’s work has been highlighted by feminists over decades. Through multiple debates there has been an attempt to deepen the understanding of women’s work. However, the attempt has largely been through understanding the work of sedantarized communities. Therefore, care is also mostly understood through an anthropocentric lens. “Understanding Pastoral Women's work” was an exploratory research conducted in 2022 by Institute of Social Studies Trust (Delhi), with an attempt to visibilize pastoral women’s work and to broaden the understanding of women’s work through engaging with lives of pastoral women. The research was done in Kangra district situated in the western part of Himachal Pradesh; India with Gaddi, Kanet (Rajput) and (Hindu) Gujjar pastoral communities specifically. Pastoralists of Kangra district, participate in long distance seasonal migration along with practicing agriculture. This paper is based on this research. It attempts to unpack pastoral women’s work keeping alive the various interactions they have with the ecosystems. 

Women in the pastoral communities have been in interaction with the forests, animals and land (fields, meadows, pastures etc.), as part of their work, in ways that haven't been deeply explored, especially in terms of the labour that they perform. This labour includes a significant amount of care work which women do across (ecological) spaces and across species. The paper through building on the literature around women and work as also feminist understandings of ecology will try to come to a possibility in which the work of pastoral women can be understood. Through a conversation with(in) the discourses on development, ecology and women’s work, the paper will attempt to highlight the nuance of pastoral women’s work and the inter-linkages inherent both in pastoral work and economy as well as in the challenges that withhold the pastoral community and pastoral women. It will further highlight the strategies and negotiations which pastoral women fall back on in the wake of increasing developmental interventions. This paper will then provide us with reflections for the possibilities to complicate the discourse on women’s work as also elaborating understandings of care from the perspective of non-sedentarized populations and highlight the inter- linked/relational nature of (women’s) work, especially for creating possible policy measures for the pastoral community.