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Development, Marginalities and Sustainable Livelihoods Note on Gender and Development Professor Swati Banerjee

Submitted by, Ahona Sen Roll No- 2012LE002.

Note on Gender and Development The gender constructions that emerge through Hapkes analysis of the results of development initiatives for the two fishing communities of Beemappally and Kochethop in the Trivandrum district of Kerala, reflect how cultural and societal factors have mediated gender roles differently for the two communities and how that has impacted the communities individual responses to the consequences of the development initiatives. Mechanisation of fishing and motorisation, a move away from traditional modes of fishing employing traditional indigenously mage fishing boats and gear, were taken to be the solutions to increase productivity and hence economically benefit the fishing community. However, over fishing using newly introduced technology, resulted in the depletion of the fish harvests and the fishing communities found themselves struggling with an ecological crisis. In explaining how the Christian community of Kochethop and the Muslim community of Beemappally responded to such a crisis of development, that further made their livelihoods insecure, Hapke uses the household survival strategy and this is how she reveals the gender constructions in the two communities that influence differently the household survival strategies adopted. The gender construction evident in the Muslim community of Beemappally is such that men are to engage in the activity of fishing as well as marketing of the produce, with women being thought to be appropriately suited for the task of drying the fish that their husbands or sons fetched, with women taking the fish produce for marketing in mostly exceptional cases where the women were either very poor, or old or heads of their households. Thus what emerges is that catching or marketing of fish is not considered to feminine and thus women refrain mostly from such activity unless dire need pushes them towards it. This gender construction has influenced hoe the Beemappally community responded to the developmental crisis encountered. The men had to take on second jobs or migrated to the Gulf, without the idea of sending women to the emerging markets. This is how the Christian community of Kochethop differs from the Muslim Community of Beemappally. The gender construction among the Kochethop community is such that it is socially acceptable for women to be the marketers of fish in the local markets or on the shores of the beach where the men of the house brought in the catch. Thus in this community the women are more able to exploit the markets and thus support their households due to low restriction on their mobility. The gender construction is such that women are not to required to be confined to the home space only. This greater freedom for womens mobility has also in many cases allowed them to become primary earners through migration to the Gulf and working as domestic servants there. Gender construction has also been seen to constrain womens capabilities to expand their earnings through expansion in commercialised marketing since they are subjected to societal restrictions in interacting with non-kin men, and rendered vulnerable by their gender to physical harassment by men in larger marketing spaces. Thus we see the gender construction that is revealed in Hapkes analysis, in defining what is suitably mens work and what is appropriate work for women, and how such definitions influence responses to changing economic conditions.
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In this context, I feel it is absolutely essential to look at gender and the vulnerabilities that are associated to the female gender in their experience of processes of development. Gender constructions that designate opportunities of work as suited for one gender as against the other lead to a skewed development. This article also reveals how despite women being involved in an important economic activity such as marketing of fish produce, have been invisibilised in the sense that the state have ignored the component of the fishing economy which involve women; that is, the state has not taken adequate steps to assist women with technological or capital inputs in marketing, a segment of the overall fishing activity that is in the Kochethop community dominated by the women. Gender construction that looks upon women as unsuited for or unimportant in economic activity seems in my opinion to have influenced such an oversight on part of the state. Thus I feel, to ensure that development initiatives do indeed lead to development promoting equality, it is essential that the specific disadvantages that women face culturally and socially are taken into account and thus a looking at development through a gender lense is crucial. Reference Hapke,M Holly; Development, Gender and Household Survival in a Kerala Fishery ,Economic and Political Weekly, March 31, 2001.

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