Abstract
This chapter shows how the formal participation of men and women in a community-based forest management project shapes and is shaped by informal practices. The gender analysis is based on an ethnographic case study of a village in Andhra Pradesh, India. It aims to contribute to a better understanding of the gendered practices of participation in a highly stratified community structure. The chapter explores how women’s participation is influenced by the prevalent notions and self-images of femininities and masculinities and by their everyday roles in informal practices. It observes that actors adapt the functioning of formal spaces of participation to suit their local situations. The chapter demonstrates that focusing on formal spaces is insuficient to understand gendered participation. Instead, the findings show that despite being marginalised in their formal roles, the women used the project intervention to increase their bargaining power, and to gain visibility and status in the community.
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Notes
- 1.
‘Mainstreaming a gender perspective is the process of assessing the implications for women and men of any planned action, including legislation, policies or programmes, in all areas and at all levels. It is a strategy for making women's as well as men's concerns and experiences an integral dimension of the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of policies and programmes in all political, economic and societal spheres so that women and men benefit equally and inequality is not perpetuated. The ultimate goal is to achieve gender equality.’ (UN Economic and Social Council 1997, p.28).
- 2.
Administratively, India is divided into states, each of which is further divided into districts and blocks, with the village councils at the lowest rung of the state administrative units.
- 3.
APCFM intervention is the second phase of what is popularly known as the Andhra Pradesh Joint Forest Management (APJFM) intervention (1994–2000), which was implemented by the AP state government with sponsorship from the World Bank. APCFM was introduced in Andhra Pradesh as a spin-off from the APJFM, with additional emphasis on the participation of community actors in general and women in particular, to foster gender- equal participation along with community development and forest conservation.
- 4.
The local language in Andhra Pradesh is Telugu. For practical reasons, this was the language the author used to collect and process most of the qualitative ethnographic data.
- 5.
Invited spaces’ refer in this context to the formal spaces created by the interventionists (the Andhra Pradesh state and the World Bank) earmarked for participation of community members, including women.
- 6.
There are several castes recognised by the Indian constitution. This recognition serves as the basis for providing positive discrimination (in provision of social services like health, education and employment opportunities) for the socially backward castes such as the ST (Scheduled Tribes), the SC (Scheduled Castes) and the BC (Backward Castes). The FC (Forward Castes) caste groups are treated in India as socially forward caste groups, and hence are not covered by the positive discrimination policy.
- 7.
Pseudonyms are used in this chapter for protection of the confidentiality of respondents, including the local community actors, the forest department officials and the facilitating NGO personnel.
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Nandigama, S. (2012). Invited Spaces and Informal Practices in Participatory Community Forest Management in India . In: Arts, B., Behagel, J., van Bommel, S., de Koning, J., Turnhout, E. (eds) Forest and Nature Governance. World Forests, vol 14. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-5113-2_5
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