Keywords

1 Introduction: Reconceptualisations

The merit of Ester Boserup (1965, 1970) in showing the neglect, or “invisibility”, of women’s work and the gendered differences in agricultural systems and transformation processes lies in having eyes opened to a completely new perspective in many areas of development. It also originated inter- and transdisciplinary debates between (agricultural) economists and social scientists and between liberal, feminist or structuralist approaches. Regardless of her various critics, I think that she has influenced future debates about what can be analysed as the gendered “structuration” (Giddens 1984) of rural economic production and society, which is rarely done in any other work. My guess is that many different approaches to rural development have, in some way, reacted to her hypotheses or developed contrasting concepts, even if this was not explicitly the case. In my view, these debates can be complemented and driven further by the thesis of the on-going informalisation of various gendered social and rural institutions, especially in Africa.Footnote 1

I have previously postulated that through the “invisibilisation of women in the process of modernisation, there occurred a loss of significance of institutions relevant for women” (Lachenmann 1996, p. 232 f.), starting from structural adjustment programmes, where women were marginally considered, as well as in processes of democratisation and the decentralisation of services. In conceptualisations of (good) governance, women and gender do not turn up. In poverty reduction programmes (PRSP), they are only regarded as “vulnerable” groups, not as agents of transformation and their links to the formal, liberalising mainstream economy are not established. Political scientists have shown (Chazan 1989) how women’s activities, whether called “popular female modes of political action”, or subsistence, marginal, informal economy, have generally taken place at the margins of the political or economic systems.

In this paper, I aim to show how the legacy and main ideas of Ester Boserup can lead to further conceptualisations that overcome these basic gaps. This will also be shown in terms of development issues (especially in cross-sector, cross-productive and reproductive spheres, such as food and social security) and in general gender orders of different spheres.

Institutions tend to be conceptualised in the “development world” in very formalistic and modernistic ways, distinguishing between formal and informal institutions and sectors as well as social security, public and private, traditional and modern forms of governance, civil society and the state. However, the main development problems are conceived as issues such as poverty, social cohesion of society, and bad governance (including corruption). These phenomena have been characterised as blurring boundaries and causing a lack of autonomy between the spheres of the state, economy, family and the public.

My endeavour is to show how the consideration and conceptualisation of the links between “female economy” and “spaces” and other fields, as well as of the gendered structuration of different spheres can be achieved. I want to examine the spheres and sectors that are empirically interesting cases of interfaces (Long 2001) and crosscutting issues, where the institutionalisation processes are proceeding uncaptured by development policies and research.Footnote 2 I want to investigate how frontiers are drawn and (re)negotiated, and I also aim to analyse the linkages that I assume exist, though they are often hidden, but which constitute social spaces where disruptions and continuities occur through “knowledgeable actors” (Giddens 1984). These interfaces will be studied through the social embeddedness of institutions, entitlements, and identities, as well as gendered structuration and the transfer of knowledge and resources. I will also evaluate crosscutting issues such as care economy, translocal relations and the flexibility of structures and agency.

After considering the lessons learned from Boserup and beyond, this paper will concentrate on accounting for the special characteristics of a (ideal type of) socially embedded and translocally related female economy in the form of the production of social security and livelihoods. Crosscutting issues will be captured using a relational approach. Through conceptualising translocality, it can be determined how knowledge that does not include gender knowledge is produced. Additionally, how this situation is to a certain extent being overcome with global gender policies and women’s movements negotiating development in translocal spaces and restructuring the public sphere can be shown. In this way, structure and agency are brought together and middle level concepts such as social spaces and institutions are conceived. At the same time, the mainstream concepts of “impact” and “target groups” are challenged and contrasted with all forms of interaction with the negotiation of meaning, concepts, gender relations, interfaces, examining links, and connectivity.

There are female social spaces organised where negotiation takes place on a local and intermediary level regarding gender constructs and relations at the interface of state, translocal and transnational networks. However, as far as links are produced with national public debates, the classical “women in development” and “status of women”, as well as “vulnerability” approaches, do prevail in all countries instead of a societal concept of gender and gender order. In principle, this concept would correspond to the translocality represented by a cosmopolitan epistemic community (e.g. reports on Beijing plus 5 resp. 10, such as Molyneux and Razavi 2005).

2 Following Ester Boserup’s Traces

I think the basic gender differentiating perspective of Ester Boserup has been very fruitful for various pathways of engendering farming systems in addition to what can be called “female economy” or “the economy as a gendered structure” (Cagatay et al. 1995). However, many arguments that refer to the “evolutionary” or factor-oriented analytical approach in addition to the lack of analysis of structural and power relations have been raised. The main critique of Boserup’s approach in the early 1980s (Benería and Sen 1981) was directed at the neoclassical foundations as they lacked theoretical considerations and a foundation from a feminist and social science point of view. My view is that all of the debates resulted in very productive advancement in theoretical, empirical and activist work.

The term “invisible woman”, which showed the marginalisation of women’s activities in modernisation processes (commercialisation/market integration), was introduced by the first gender adviser of the World Bank (see Scott 1979) following Boserup’s work. This position was created in 1977 and was the starting point of transnational gender development policies (Lachenmann 1996) that have likely led to “mainstreaming gender”, which is seen as requisite condition in development agencies and programmes. However, it has given transnational women’s and feminist movements the opportunity to enter the transnational public sphere and pursue political and methodological struggles about “engendering development” (Lachenmann 2008a). The appropriation of respective terms shows the loss of the meaning of the “empowerment of women”, a term that was introduced by DAWN Development Alternatives for Women for a New Era. The classical “Women in Development” and the later marginalised “Gender approach” have not led to fundamental changes (Molyneux and Razavi 2005). However, they have allowed for the engendering of debates and policies about gender orders, relations, constructs. Thereby, Boserup’s seemingly static concept of “women’s role in development”, which is often still used without taking into account power relations and only looking at a quasi-natural division of labour, has been overcome. The first concept of “strengthening women’s role in development” perpetuated this “system of ignorance”. The scapegoat of feminism loomed, but the main arguments of this debate were clearly taken up by policy analysts (e.g. the Indian World Bank expert on African agriculture, Lele 1986). Also, many theoretically complex and empirically rich studies performed in the 1980s and 1990s all referred to Boserup but considered rural development in a critical developmental manner (Kandiyoti 1990) or from a socio-anthropological perspective, in contrast to structural approaches. Jane Guyer used the title of “women’s role in development” for a chapter (Chap. 14, 1986) and contributed very rich studies on “the multiplication of labor” by applying “historical methods in the study of gender and agricultural change in modern Africa” (Guyer 1988, pp. 247 ff.). One of her interesting points, similar to the sociological approach presented here, was to “help to illuminate the interaction of local systems with the wider political and economic context” (Guyer 1988, p. 258), including women’s “local organizations.”

Paul Richards’s book, Indigenous agricultural revolution (1985) had a “revolutionary” influence on the concepts of agricultural/local knowledge (Lachenmann 2004) as well as of transformation applied within developmental sociology (Bierschenk and Elwert 1993) and social anthropology but without a specific gender focus. The author (Richards 1985, pp. 51 ff.) quoted Boserup (1965, 1981, 1982) primarily for her systems approach, considering it fitting to suggest change by intensifying production. However, the argument of gendered farming systems and the lack of attention was attributed in his book (p. 116 f.) to Jennie Dey (1981, p. 122), whereas women’s “invisibility of food crop producers (is) compounded by male bias” (p. 115 f.) is attributed to Barbara Rogers (1980). Boserup (1970, p. 116) had written “that in the supposedly immutable communities of primitive agriculture profound changes are in fact occurring”.

It is probably true that Boserup’s work supported the simple approach of “integrating women in development”, which was criticised with the argument that women were already integrated through their unpaid labour and submitted to “housewifization” (Mies et al. 1991; Wichterich 1987). Nevertheless, it is also true that all of the debates have shown how approaches to agricultural development and other sectors were targeting the wrong actors and do not take the gendered structure into account, especially with regard to the interface between subsistence and market and that between the reproductive and productive sectors. This has not changed much until recently, as shown by the poverty and food crises. Kandiyoti (1990; Lachenmann 1992) noted that developmental politics were not interested in these arguments but instrumentalised them for utilising the “potential” of women for economic growth (i.a., World Bank 1994). In contrast, women were (and are) labelled as “vulnerable” and were only considered as actors in the poverty reduction policies within the “informal sector” (mostly without a link to mainstream economic policies).

Social economist Sen (1985) refers to Boserup’s work (1970, p. 16), saying that she rightly criticised Margaret Mead (1950, p. 190) for having made too strong generalisations when she wrote: “The home shared by a man …, into which men bring the food and women prepare it, is the basic common picture the world over”. Sen’s concept of entitlement used at that time (1985, p. 15 ff.) is still valid regarding the informalisation of institutions. However, like Boserup who previously makes the argument of access to technology, land and labour, he views the “household” as an entity and does not examine structures of embeddedness and translocal relations (see the previous debate in Joekes and Kabeer 1991). We know that in most African countries, men and women maintain separate budgets. However, women cannot always control their own monetary income and are required to use it more often for general family needs. As there is no uniform household welfare, women rely on extra-household cooperation and transfers (Laaser 2005; Wanzala 2001). It is important to consider special arrangements of how production and consumption units overlap and transcend the domestic unit. This is the case in polygynous families, for example, in which the economic relationships can be rather diverse.

In most African countries, policies are still handling gender according to the classical “Women in Development” (WID) approach that looks at the “role of women” and views them as housewives instead of producers. Thus, many opportunities and efficient economic policies are lost, including not only the typical “access to xyz” approaches that ignore the typical link between the reproductive and productive sectors but also “income generating activities”, which seek to assist all women by means of microcredit schemes. The proponents of these projects stress that women are better when it comes to repayment. It can be assumed that one of the main economic problems in Africa continues to be how to overcome the disruption of the embedded economy caused by “modern” approaches (this corresponds to the Boserupian preoccupation).

The term “women’s issues” might represent important gender specificities and concerns, but this makes us follow a dual instead of relational gender approach. Relations or interface/interaction between the subsistence-market, the reproductive-productive sector, and the inter-household relations (apart from gendered intra-household relations), in short, the meso level, are needed to link micro and macro and understand the gendered fields of economic activity.

The challenge is how to analyse all development fields in a dynamic, gendered way. When using an interface approach, attention is paid to interactions between different fields, groups, institutions, co-operation arrangements (e.g. in the field of technology), brokers, and the flexible organisation of work, as well as analyses of the concrete risks of market integration. This is true even if the markets are socially organised and follow very diverse logic (see e.g. women traders in Sudanese markets, Nageeb 2001; buyem sellem, the female vendors of food staff in Cameroon, Batana 2007). The social organisation of resource management and the allocation of resources in different sectors (in programmes and projects in the sphere of agriculture) are also interesting. In these sectors, women are often excluded but develop hidden strategies that then enable them to edge in and make use of new economic opportunities, such as collective forms of land tenure and collateral when taking credit (see irrigation schemes in Ghana, Becher 2001).

Therefore, one can envision an approach starting from Woman’s Role in Development (Boserup 1970) to gender analysis to engendering development. Boserup considered the dynamics of transformation (Boserup 1965, 1981, 1982). This approach would be transformative with regard to examining processes and development policies (Kabeer 1994). The negotiation of underlying gender order(s) is studied in respect to changing gender constructs and relations, such as empowerment, in translocal arenas by various societal forces.

3 Processes of Gendered Structuration and Informalisation

The main analytical argument of this paper refers to the informalisation processes of predominantly female institutions, even and precisely during the formalisation of crosscutting issues, such as social and food security, livelihood, and even decentralisation and democratisation at the local level (Lachenmann 2006). Therefore, the prevailing dualistic concepts are overcome, which led to relations being ignored, as is the case between the market and domestic economies, which is constituted by embeddedness (Lachenmann 1999; Lachenmann and Dannecker 2001). This is also true of translocal relations and social spaces constituted by female (and peasant) groups, thereby delegitimising forms of mutual help and services. The concept of the informal sector introduced by Keith Hart in the 1970s (Hart 2008; Meagher 2007) has become a “black box” that is used without further analysis, usually with the (often implicit) understanding that modernisation and development would eventually cause it to disappear. However, many poverty studies recognise that it guarantees more and more livelihoods. It is also noted that women are its key actors, implying that economic efficiency is much lower and that the policies do not make sense. Neither the constitutive character of this field for the general economy nor the special interaction between the formal and informal sectors, which I suggest addressing here, are the subject of serious examination. Furthermore, the processes of informalisation are not viewed as a part of the on-going transformations. Hart (2008, p. 4) highlights the “dialectic of formal and informal economy in the context of “development” discourse over the last four decades” and refers to the effects of structural adjustment programmes (SAPs) as having an “informalising” effect on the economy. Meagher (2007) states that there is an apparent decrease in the knowledge about the present day reality of the informal sector; however, there is also growing interest and an “expansion of informality”.

These debates can be connected to our approach of considering locally negotiated concepts of development. Development is conceived in a very broad sense, as social change and transformation are brought about by political action, civil society, and purposeful policy intervention. By using an interface approach, we can examine different levels of societal structuration and interaction at arenas where new gender relations are negotiated. I prefer this approach to a dualistic one of distinguishing between practical and strategic gender needs (as does Caroline Moser 1993). Empowerment, the concept forwarded in transnational women’s policy, corresponds mainly to the economic autonomy of women, despite being co-opted by development bureaucracies, and their capacity to act in civil society (Grosz-Ngaté and Kolole 1997).

The gendered structuration might be conceptualised as economic relations between formal and informal sectors (e.g. finance) which cross the boundaries of formal institutions, formally employed persons, and distances that create innovative forms of interacting. These include social networks, livelihoods, the cooperation between genders regarding the exchange of resources and labour, and the crossing of boundaries between different logics of economic agency (such as in the areas of reproduction and production). These are not taken into account when conceiving and combating poverty, business women interacting with men who work in formal organisations and vice versa, and borders drawn as a result of recent development policies between local governance institutions and civil society organisations. They can be analysed by studying the social spaces of negotiating public issues or conceiving formal institutions (such as social forestry) or informal institutions, such as the rehabilitation of irrigation schemes (which are structured according to gender), religious, male and female groups and organisations that constitute crosscutting spaces.

In general, development theory and policies do not consider these new interactions and spheres, and these relations are not addressed at all when studying the “impacts” or new development and social policies. The relevant interactions are not taken account of in a modernist view on the one side and a paternalistic, antipoverty perspective on the other. Transnational relations in migration, new forms of shadow economy in formerly socialist regimes, cross-sector livelihoods, and interfaces between all informal forms of economy and politics have only recently been discovered.

Thereby, the interaction of subsistence and market economies needs to be studied in detail, specifically regarding the female economy as one field of agency interacting with others. This corresponds to the call of critical macro economists (such as Cagatay et al. 1995), specifically the relationship between the reproductive economy and the productive sector, and also considers the role of markets in assuring livelihoods, the necessities of subsistence economy, markets that are sometimes segregated by gender and region, and the entitlements and institutions related to economic resources, such as land, as well as the forms of organisation of market actors. This would mean overcoming the old distinctions between formal and informal sectors, the upgrading of typically female economic fields, and a realistic consideration of opportunities. The possibilities of liberalisation and the reduction of bureaucratic and authoritarian modes of state governance and patrimonial structures of patron-client relations and privileges will also need to be considered.

Theorisation of development and transformation must be based specifically on localisation processes. This does not mean that we should study “the impact” of liberalisation or globalisation processes or of certain global governance policies, economic policies, as is often done by scholars and women’s organisations criticising and constructing “Neo-Liberalism” as a global anti-force. We should also avoid studying survival strategies (never included in the economic mainstream) without analysing the contexts and solutions to problems of the respective situations. At the same time, we must challenge the concepts of “target groups”, which only represent a one-way perspective, in favour of interaction and agency.

An important feature of engendering (Lachenmann 2008b) is overcoming the micro-macro divide, mainly by bringing structure and agency together. Therefore, we need a dynamic, process-oriented, relational approach. This approach should start from the perspective of social actors and social and cultural meaning, elaborate on processes of the construction and structuring of gender, consider changes and conceive middle level concepts, such as space, institutions, links, interfaces, and room for manoeuvring.

4 Gendered Embeddedness of the Economy

The gendered embeddedness of the economy within society (Granovetter 1985) includes economic relations beyond the household level. This concept shows the gendered access and control of (natural) resources, including labour, property rights, and environmental knowledge. There are links involving resource access and use between different levels: household and family/community of women’s origin. Additionally, there are social institutions of translocal resource access, reciprocity, structures of co-operation, alliances and collective access. Markets are socially organised, including with regard to trading and modes of accumulation.

Women have often concentrated either on the parallel economy outside of the state or on the “endogenous” economy (McGaffey and Windsperger 1990). It is very important to examine what is happening to these female “modes of accumulation” (Geschiere and Konings 1993) with the onset of liberalisation, deregulation, and re-regulation. The typical interface and co-operation between the “informal” and “formal”’ sectors often represented by women are not taken into account to upgrade economic activities. This involves numerous exchanges between the genders regarding activities and resources (such as credit). Examples of such an exchange would be between men working as state employees and their wives trading with their colleagues (Laaser 2005) or men using credit from the informal sources of their wives to obtain business loans from banks, as seen in Cameroon.

It appears there are no new opportunities, as old channels are being used on a large scale by new speculative male ventures. The opportunities, which were previously offered by the Social Dimension of Adjustment Programmes and are now offered by current employment programmes, such as anti-poverty programmes for “vulnerable” women, are generally directed towards dynamic and young urban men. As a result, women are crowded out of their “traditional” economic fields. Examples of this exclusion include vegetable gardens maintained by young men instead of women, cereal trade run by male co-operatives instead of women, or the marketing of women-grown products and training through development cooperation. The same effects can result from the dissolution of parastatals and marketing boards, as well as from the breakdown of cash-crop production for world markets (such as coffee and cocoa), which is accompanied by the entry of men into food crop market production (Cameroon, Batana 2007) following the introduction of new technologies. There is no upgrading of women’s self-employment structures. A link to regional economics, the management of natural resources, and other fields is not being created.

The typical participation of women in a low-earning and precarious informal sector while still balancing both domestic and external economic activities is often recognised. However, in terms of the World Bank’s (1994) approach to highlighting women’s economic potential (contrary to empowerment goals), some have rightly noted that women “play a major role in both food production and marketing” (this is still an afterthought of Boserup’s ideas). However, they have failed to mention the risk of women losing this important position in the economy when men start to enter into food crop production and marketing or by upscaling business. These observers do not seem to discern the methodological consequences and fail to seriously extend their data collection to the inter-household and inter-community levels. However, women can be shown to negotiate their entry into markets, even though the public sphere is marked by strict segregation, as in Sudan (Nageeb 2001, 2004).

5 Food and Social Security, Natural Resource Entitlements

Food security as a global field of governance and livelihoods/entitlements as concepts of a “social economy” are very relevant in Africa and can be considered to be crosscutting issues (as are gender and environment). Livelihoods are very often constructed not only by private and public means but are also constructed through translocal systems of social and gender relations. Social security is a system made of gifts and distribution (upheld to a large extent by women) in a manner that links formal and informal institutions (Lachenmann 1997; Tanzania, Steinwachs 2006). Migrants created new and gendered translocal livelihood systems. In the past, only remittances were examined and critics made about the mere “consumption” finality. Typically, money from young male migrants is sent to their mothers (the older women) instead of to the fathers (as I observed in Senegal). However, in some cases, migrants enter into agreements with local traders to avoid conflict within the family. In many cases, there are groups and associations that assist at the sending end in locations such as Paris or New York.

A typical case is the shared responsibility for education and health services between different family and social networks, with links to kin living in towns and/or working in the formal sector. Consider the case of translocal gendered relations between two (ex) co-wives in Senegal. One woman takes care of all of their children as a housewife in the reproductive sphere with the support of a formally employed husband who has corresponding connections to state institutions, such as schools and hospitals. The other wife works in a semi-formal job in the peasant movement and takes care of matters in the nation’s capital, such as accommodation and university access for their children. She performs a variety of “self-help jobs”. Her compensations and per-diems amount to a salary of sorts, and she establishes connections to formal state-authority structures and policies by means of her former work in the community development sector (she lost this job as a result of structural adjustment) (empirical case study by the author).

Therefore “gendered social security” (social security in the widest sense of the term) or formal/informal connectivity are very important dimensions of embeddedness (Risseeuw and Ganesh 1998). Alternatively, problems of “insecurity” and sustainable livelihoods should also be considered. Women should be regarded as active providers/producers instead of passive recipients of social security. Furthermore, it is important to examine changing social institutions and their meanings in terms of social security (such as bride price, reciprocity etc.), the institutionalisation of patterns and strategies in their “quest for security” (Elwert et al. 1983), and the interaction between subsistence-market economies, urban-rural spaces, networks, social relations, and alliances that provide both social security and shifting solidarities.

The local economy is characterised by a ‘subsistence logic’, with women making livelihoods (including household energy and water and other natural resources, such as collecting wood and gathering other products) as a priority and perspective. These resources are now subject to new regulations at the decentralised level and a certain blockade as their shifting from the social to the public level takes place (Ngo Youmba-Batana 2007).

Since the start of structural adjustment programmes (SAP), it can be observed that community and women’s resources are siphoned off by the formalisation of social security and cost recovery. A lot of fund raising has already taken place on the local level in traditional (e.g. for baptisms) or ‘neo-traditional’ forms, such as Roscas (rotating saving and credit systems). However, it has been primarily women who collect this money and who do the voluntary or self-help work involved in providing basic services. Therefore, the cost recovery and the formalisation of basic services provision becomes problematic. In Senegal, I observed that a rural community was taught how to make a health centre viable by increasing fees, without discussing problems of access or how to formalise the employment of local female midwives.

The gendered construction of environment can be directly linked to concepts of livelihood, as well as to rural and local development. There is a clear relationship between environmental relations and gender order in society regarding access, entitlements, institutions, division of labour, and environmental knowledge. Changes in gender relations are very relevant for modes of environmental change (Joekes et al. 1995).

During environmental and socio-economic changes, women tend to be marginalised regarding political organisation, property rights and new regulations. Often, access to land and natural resources passes through relations of marriage and alliances that are translocal and go beyond territorialities. As soon as local services (water supply, grain mills etc.) are formalised or monetised (such as wood and gathering products), the source of the finances is no longer taken into account (e.g. for labour-saving devices), as the husbands see it purely as a women’s concern. Modern institutions lead to the invisibility of these links and entitlements, which lose validity, and do not contribute to new opportunities. Gendered labour is very important for resource protection and control of new or protected resources.

In the case of Senegal, activities and organisational forms were developed in times when self-help projects were promoted by village workers which contradicted the new formal decentralised political regime. Contrary to all of the praise of “civil society”, local initiatives were delegitimised. This was typical of the health committees that had been established on a voluntary basis.

Additionally, the management of collective economic resources by women, such as rice fields in Senegal, did not appear to be included in development planning within the local administration. A female president was responsible for a rehabilitation programme for rice fields funded by external cooperation. However, there were at least two “competing” women representing “the women” in the village or district town. These kinds of (very important) efforts were not included in the village development plan. The plan also did not include such features as grain mills and cereal banks, because private economic endeavours were not accounted for. Additionally, these women’s groups are not politically represented in the local council where they could participate in the consideration of new regulations. There is no arena where women’s movements and groups can enter into a serious debate concerning transformation within the framework of decentralisation (case study, Lachenmann 2006).

While it might be interesting for women to not be forced into male roles, communal and state control, groups and cooperatives primarily made up of male members tend to be formal(ised) as economic, whereas women’s groups tend to be informal(ised) as social or developmental (Rosander 1997). The latter are influenced by traditional experiences, community development and home economics coming from the established channels. These channels are dependent on ministries of social affairs (and not of agriculture), and lost their support after a democratic change of government. In any case, their economic level of activity is being suppressed by this “small trade” and “sharing approach” of credit. Not many of these female savings and credit groups are yet integrated in the formalising schemes of Mutual Saving and Credit Banks.

6 Producing Knowledge and Negotiating Development in Translocal Gendered Spaces

Regarding development knowledge, women are excluded or not encouraged by extension services to participate in activities dealing with new modes of access and the management of natural resources, increasing agricultural productivity, and new economic opportunities in the local economy (such as upgrading transformation of agricultural products). However, state entities are introduced at the national level to promote (formal) female entrepreneurs. This is also true in the spheres of activities where women are normally active, usually within a complex structure of gender cooperation and exchange. This is also the case when it comes to women’s social and political activities. As a counterforce, women establish transnational networks for knowledge exchange (Mueller 2005).

This is clearly shown in the form of the innovations. As described in a study from Northern Ghana (Padmanabhan 2002), an absolute gender-blindness prevails. The type of innovations that are adopted are ignored, as women have to contribute labour for men when innovations for cash crops are being introduced. In certain circumstances, however, they introduce innovations in their own fields, thereby enlarging their room for manoeuvring and entering market production. The study clearly shows that there is a female line of learning, such as transmitting information and knowledge about new seeds.

There is little gender-specialised knowledge that is applied by state organisations and bureaucracies, despite the fact that much information has been accumulated in many spheres and organisations (Goetz 1995; Lachenmann 2009, in (agricultural) policies and new forms of resource management schemes (social forestry, irrigation etc.)). The relational approach should be valid for rural and agricultural activities and the market integration of the informal sector but also with regard to formal employment. The translocality of economic relations has been shown (Dannecker 2002), because textile workers, the typical globalised feminised workers, are acting between social conditions including family, migration and societal gender images; they are also creating room for manoeuvring within the factory in Bangladesh.

In general, the analysis of multiple economic fields of activity illustrates their complex character in the areas located between reproduction and transnational trade. There are networks that move agricultural and other products to the capital and abroad (Batana 2007). There are new and multiple forms of gendered and ethnic trading arrangements, including the well-established transcontinental trade carried out by Ghanaian female traders (Amponsem 1996). Women are normally less conspicuous as they can marry and move from the rural areas into urban settings and other ethnic communities (Cameroon, van Santen 1993; Kenya, Achieng’ 2012), and thus, they are much less likely to be distrusted as strangers. However, they often complain about being strangers in patriarchal settings in regard to (formal) entitlements.

A transnational study (Lachenmann and Dannecker 2008) has shown that knowledge negotiated in gendered spaces leads to the restructuring of the public sphere. As a result, global (development and) human rights concepts are used through local and global networking through international women’s movements. The meaning of these concepts is locally negotiated by activists in the crosscutting spheres of scientific research, political action and everyday life.

The Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) has often been referred to as valid argumentation in “shadow reports” by women’s groups (Malaysia, Spiegel 2010), even more so in combination with the “Beijing process” which was widely followed in Africa in the form of regional debates. This led to the Platform of Action of the Beijing Conference for Women in 1995, as well as its (less well) established “post-Beijing” process (Molyneux and Razavi 2005).

While negotiating development concepts, women are seeking alternative approaches to women and gender issues based on agency instead of victimisation, and on rights instead of vulnerability (Senegal, Sieveking 2008a, b). Therefore, global concepts of rights have become increasingly differentiated according to the multiple experiences coming from the local level (for other countries, see Elson 2002; Grosz-Ngaté and Kolole 1997; Molyneux and Razavi 2002).

The concept of the “vulnerability” of women underlying the construction of women as weak subjects is found everywhere: global development discourse regarding women in development policies and in poverty alleviation and good governance, as well as in Islamic and culturalist discourses where women are constructed as requiring protection. As a result, women are denied agency with regard to actively influencing their life-world and are instrumentalised as inferior human beings, even if the complementarity of genders is claimed.

Changes in discourse and policy concepts show the social transformation occurring through the active involvement of women’s organisations in development policies and the gender order of society.

The “rights approach” can be analytically combined with the concepts of entitlement, gender order and gender justice and, in development policy, with the appropriation and negotiation of global concepts based mainly on CEDAW.

7 Conclusion: From Women’s Roles to Engendering Development

The argument conveyed in this article about conceptualisations developed following the suggestions and perspectives introduced by Ester Boserup, mainly regarding societal expansion through gender relations and livelihoods, led us to suggest several fields that need further attention in analysis and policy, based on the methodological concepts of informalisation, intersecting gendered spaces and embeddedness.

Approaches to subsistence production should be further developed with regard to the security of livelihoods, the regionalisation of the economy, and the formalisation of new forms of shadow economy. This can be accomplished by bringing these aspects together with the new ideas of “domestic economy“, “caring economy“, taking into account the interface of reproductive and productive sectors and natural resource management. The consequences of modernisation in general, structural adjustments and policies of poverty reduction, food aid and the introduction of new forms of security systems need to be analysed, not only regarding the immediate impact but also broader and long lasting dynamics.

When doing so, relevant fields to study are how these fields overlap through the different flows of resources, e.g., urban/rural and subsistence/markets, and different combinations with resource usage.

The original highly flexible gendered organisation of work needs to be maintained, and at the same time, the concrete risks of market integration must be considered. The gendered translocal access to resources and their allocation in different sectors must be maintained in programmes and projects in the sphere of agriculture, where women are often excluded but where they find hidden strategies enabling them to participate and obtain access to new economic opportunities. Collective forms of formalised land tenure and collateral when taking credit should be possible, as in the case involving modes of finance that are established for labour-saving devices and appropriate technology.

This would mean engendering appropriate forms of social banking, because social security is achieved by developing soft forms of formalising, including contributions by migrants and connecting to experiences of self-help, women’s groups, associative sector, food security, and cereal banks, to name a few.

The level of supporting community/self-help through the care economy or community management should be considered and included in development plans and budgets of local government.

The logic of sharing, solidarity, reciprocity, and moral economy according to gendered social relations should enter the economic sector, so that confrontations with the modern economy (household, farming system, enterprise) take place. Existing alternative modes of accumulation and accommodating formal and informal distribution (sometimes corruption) must be legalised.

With regard to enhancing (social) security, typical female solidarity can be formalised as an alternative to individual interest, which often leads to a lack of accumulation or hiding wealth. Women are addressed by economic policy either as groups, doing work “collectively”, such as on fields of the second best quality without permanent title deeds. Or they are seen as independent entrepreneurs, sometimes considered to be rich by illegal means (like Mama Benz in West Africa), but often discriminated against because of a lack of formal credentials and forced to enter the shadow economy of corruption and even sexual dependency.

There are already transnational networks developing approaches to social economy/économie solidaire that elaborate new forms of saving and credit, new forms of collective social security, and new formalised group/collective forms of women engaging economic activities, thereby regularising institutions of access to land, irrigation and the production of handicrafts.

Regarding engendering social and economic policies, appropriate forms of formal solidarity are to be negotiated in the public sphere at the state level, the third sector, or the family/individual. As a result, the common good will be newly negotiated and defined in a gendered manner, including public policies and social services. Responsibility and burden sharing (cost recovery) must be reformed. Not only should state or private suppliers of services be considered, but the third sector (NGO) should also be consolidated. Engendering economic and social dynamic transformation means supporting new creative approaches that may already exist, including the pluralism of solutions and intermediary structures. The question is whether we want to formalise all fields or if we can safeguard a strong communal and translocal care economy, which would be based on gender relations and justice.