On the Struggle to Understand and then Communicate Gender Issues in Forests

I sit at my desk, piles of books on gender and forests surrounding me, more articles and books stored more tidily in my EndNotes files, even more scattered here and there, less tidily, on my computer.  I have spent the last month pulling together a rough draft of a conceptual framework that strives to capture simply the central nuggets from what I’ve read over the past two years and from my own experience.  I’ve plopped the complexity of the gender world into three simple categories (macro, meso and micro).  Within each of these levels, I’ve identified issues (two, four and five, respectively) that we need to address if we want to understand (and then presumably influence) what prompts or yields women’s—and to a lesser extent, men’s—involvement in forest management (writ large).  It has been a challenge, most of which I’ve enjoyed.

But today I am plagued by old doubts and uncertainties.  I am convinced of the importance of the topics I have identified for local people’s involvement in forest management.  Yet I also recognize the incredible complexity inherent in each of these 11 topics.  I know that understanding any one of them fully can easily be the work of many scientific/artistic lives and, in fact, is never fully achievable, given the dynamism of social and cultural process. 

I am troubled because I recognize the seductiveness—the ‘comparative advantage’—that a straightforward, economic interpretation of people’s lives allows; I recognize its resulting popularity in development and conservation circles.  Assumptions that many economists accept and use in their models—that there is ‘equal access to market information’ or that ‘the invisible hand of the market’ ensures equity—strike me as absurd.  How can they not?  Market information is so patently not equally accessible  to all; the functioning of the market results in obviously inequitable situations.  And of course there are more such assumptions.  Another that particularly strikes me as I think of my economist friends, is the idea that we are all driven primarily by economic considerations.  This is the assumption I find most harmfully wrong, because it has been so successful in influencing global policies. I don’t doubt for a second that economic considerations are relevant and important.  But that they are so all-encompassing and powerful simply flies in the face of what I see in both forest villages and in my colleagues’ own demonstrated values.  I simply do not believe that economists themselves—human beings, like the objects of their study—are truly driven solely by economic considerations any more than villagers are.  I see my colleagues’ commitments to improving the world, their concerns for their colleagues’ good opinion, their love and caring for their families, even their appreciation of their own cultural systems (including gender); and I see similar notions among the men and women who live in the world’s forest villages.  Such motivations can be as powerful as economic ones—sometimes even more powerful.

Given my own life’s observations and study, I see no alternative to viewing gender holistically, if we are truly to understand its functioning in forests.   A difficult corollary of this conclusion is that we have somehow to deal with this incredible complexity.  The ideas that different parts of local systems interact, that there is feedback within subsystems, that emergence exists/happens—these complicate understanding in ways that a unilinear view of cause and effect do not.  Yet I find it impossible to deny the existence of systemic elements in human lives and in forests.

I imagine economists complaining about my draft framework:  ‘She’s including very peripheral issues that we can easily ignore’ (and I can equally imagine gender specialists complaining indignantly: ‘How can she reduce this complexity to three levels and eleven topics!?’).  Emphasis on finance and income—far more available in forests to men than to women—lead researchers and practitioners further away from many women’s lives, rather than strengthening our understanding of life in forests or how to manage forests better.  Accepting economic considerations as the be-all and end-all of life allows one to make much more confident projections (even if often wrong, always partial); but it does so at the risk of ignoring truly potent constraints to and impacts of one’s planned course of action.    

In my framework, I want to speak to foresters, more than to those from other disciplines, but I would also like it to be useful to anyone concerned about natural resources and gender.  I want it to be simple enough to implement in the field, to actually help researchers and practitioners do a better job of first understanding women’s and men’s roles, goals, fears, and capabilities in forests; and then, based on such knowledge, incorporate each gender appropriately, benignly. 

When we get to this stage, we encounter yet another enduring dilemma:  I am concerned about global gender inequities.  I believe we as human beings need to ‘progress’ in such a way that both men and women can achieve their potential, can live life to the fullest (however they define that).  This is a value not necessarily shared by many of those in forests; or the abstract idea may be shared, but based on gender-related assumptions that, like those of some researchers, fail to acknowledge the downsides of existing practice for one or the other gender. 

On the other hand, I also recognize the importance and interconnectedness of culture.  Culture (or patterned behaviours and beliefs, for those who have decided ‘culture’ is no longer a useful term) is a central source of the meaning in people’s lives.  And gender notions are often particularly central.  We know that messing with culture carelessly can have adverse unintended effects.  Even messing with it carefully can have such effects.  Yet doing nothing also has adverse effects.  I have long struggled, and continue to struggle, to find the interstices between my own value system and the ones I study—-where are there openings to enhance gender equity without adversely affecting valued cultural elements?  How do gender equity and local livelihood considerations link up with or mutually support global and local environmental concerns?  The answers are never easy.

Like my decision that I must somehow address cultural and social complexity, I have also long ago decided that I must try to contribute to our efforts to ‘mess with cultures’—in the hopes of making such messing more constructive (environmentally and socially).  So today, as I contemplate how to beautify and fine-tune my draft framework, I know that in the coming weeks I also must struggle with how to convey the importance of

  • going the ‘extra mile’ to examine gender holistically (despite the complexity); and
  • being sensitive to cultural issues, willing to seek creative compromise, to go slowly.

Wish me luck—I know I’m working my way across a tilted field, in this world where a linear, economic perspective so dominates.

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