Browsing by Author "Van Houweling, Emily"

Now showing 1 - 11 of 11
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    Diversification and differentiation: The livelihood experience of men and women in Samene
    Van Houweling, Emily (2009)
    In Samene, Mali how do assets and access influence livelihood diversification between genders? Women in Samene are more likely to participate in a diverse range of livelihood activities within the farming sector compared to men who are more likely to be involved in non-farm activities. Men earn substantially more than women in all activities except for farming. Women and men hold their assets differently; women tend to have strong natural assets whereas men have stronger physical and financial assets. Access for men and women to livelihood options depends on different factors; for women one of the main factors is the traditional gender division of labor.
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    Diversification and Differentiation: The Livelihood Experience of Men and Women in Samene
    Van Houweling, Emily (Virginia Tech, 2009-04-20)
    The research for this thesis was conducted in village of Samene, Mali from 2006-2008 where I served as a Peace Corps volunteer. In Samene I became interested in understanding the livelihood experience of men and women and the critical factors that led to positive livelihood outcomes for individuals. The formal research question addressed in this thesis is how assets and access (social rules and norms) influence livelihood diversification options for men and women. The research is based on a mixed method design consisting of extensive individual and household surveying, focus groups, interviews, and participant observation. The Livelihood Approach is utilized to describe the assets, access restrictions and diversification strategies that comprise the livelihoods for men and women in Samene. The findings shows that while diversification activities are important to both men and women, women are unable to access the more attractive high return activities that are dominated by men. Differences in the livelihood experiences between and within gendered groups are explained by looking at an individual's relationship to the critical assets, which are identified as the keys to accessing activities that lead to greater livelihood security. Based on the research findings a new livelihood framework is advanced to show the different pathways men and women take to sustain and improve their livelihoods. This framework incorporates the concepts and processes of social differentiation, social exclusion, historical motion, power and access that were found to be critical in explaining an individual's livelihood experience in Samene.
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    Gender and participatory mapping: Local knowledge and empowerment in development research
    Christie, Maria Elisa; Luebbering, C.; Agriesti, Keri; Byrne, M.; Montgomery, K.; Van Houweling, Emily; Zseleczky, Laura; Harman, Mary (2011)
    Participatory mapping as a research technique is a means for women to express their spaces and resources. This poster explores mapping as both a process and product in field work with smallholder farmers in Latin America, Africa, and Asia. It draws on experiences including women and mapping gendered spaces. Examples include mapping Kitchenspace, mapping the “path of the peanut,” the “path of the pesticide,” and agricultural value chains. It considers the challenges and benefits of using participatory mapping, gendered and non-gendered findings, and the role of the mapping facilitator. The authors conclude that participatory mapping provides opportunities for semi-literate and illiterate women to contribute their knowledge and perspectives to development research projects as well as providing pedagogical opportunities for action research. Discussion with mapping participants and a gender analysis of the resulting maps can contribute to improved understanding of social, cultural, economic, and environmental issues.
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    Gender differences in agricultural production strategies: Variations by village and social network
    Fornito, M.; Moore, Keith M.; Keita, Moussa; Van Houweling, Emily (2014)
    This presentation identifies relationships between farm men, farm women, and non-farm agents and their respective agricultural mindsets using social network analysis and factor analysis.
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    Gender, water and development: The multiple impacts and perceptions of a rural water project in Nampula, Mozambique
    Van Houweling, Emily (Virginia Tech, 2013-05-16)
    Development organizations claim that rural water projects deliver a wide variety of benefits - from poverty reduction to women's empowerment. This research explores these claims in the context of a rural water project (RWP) in Nampula, Mozambique. From August of 2011 to July of 2012, I spent 11 months conducting ethnographic research in five communities where handpumps were installed as part of the RWP. The goal of the research was to describe how the water project unfolds "on the ground" from the perspective of men and women in Nampula and illuminate the social and gender related impacts of the project that are not captured in standard evaluations. In Nampula, water is closely connected to exchange networks, power dynamics, cultural traditions, spiritual practices, and social values. Gender roles are formed in relation to water and negotiated around changes in water access. Women spend most of their day in contact with water in some form, and through water practices women fulfill the societal expectations of a good wife and mother. The meanings and everyday uses of water were not considered in the design of the RWP, and the handpump technology and community management model were not well suited for the socio-cultural context of Nampula. The plans for the RWP were based on a number of incorrect assumptions about "community" local decision making processes, and men's and women's priorities, resulting in a significant gap between what project planners expected to happen and what actually happened in the communities. The impacts of the RWP rippled beyond the narrow range of economic benefits expected by the MCC, reconfiguring the meanings associated with water, disrupting social exchange networks, and aggravating social divisions. People who did use the handpump also describe the impacts in very different terms than those used by development organizations. This research contributes to theoretical debates about the relationship between gender, water, and development, and also offers practical suggestions for designing water projects that are more equitable, culturally sensitive, and sustainable.
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    The Human Right to Water: The Importance of Domestic and Productive Water Rights
    Hall, Ralph P.; Van Koppen, Barbara; Van Houweling, Emily (Springer, 2013-12-12)
    The United Nations (UN) Universal Declaration of Human Rights engenders important state commitments to respect, fulfill, and protect a broad range of socio-economic rights. In 2010, a milestone was reached when the UN General Assembly recognized the human right to safe and clean drinking water and sanitation. However, water plays an important role in realizing other human rights such as the right to food and livelihoods, and in realizing the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. These broader water-related rights have been recognized but have not yet been operationalized. This paper unravels these broader water-related rights in a more holistic interpretation of existing international human rights law. By focusing on an emerging approach to water services provision—known as ‘domestic-plus’ services—the paper argues how this approach operationalizes a comprehensive range of socio-economic rights in rural and peri-urban areas. Domestic-plus services provide water for domestic and productive uses around homesteads, which challenges the widespread practice in the public sector of planning and designing water infrastructure for a single-use. Evidence is presented to show that people in rural communities are already using their water supplies planned for domestic uses to support a wide range of productive activities. Domestic-plus services recognize and plan for these multiple-uses, while respecting the priority for clean and safe drinking water. The paper concludes that domestic-plus services operationalize the obligation to progressively fulfill a comprehensive range of indivisible socio-economic rights in rural and peri-urban areas.
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    Impact Evaluation of the Mozambique Rural Water Supply Activity
    Hall, Ralph P.; Davis, Jenna; Van Houweling, Emily; Vance, Eric A.; Carzolio, Marcos; Seiss, Mark Thomas; Russel, Kory (Virginia Tech. School of Public and International Affairs, 2014-08)
    In 2007, the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) signed a $506.9 million compact designed to reduce poverty in Mozambique by promoting sustainable economic growth. Among the planned investments was the installation of 600 improved water points in rural communities across the provinces of Nampula and Cabo Delgado. In addition to the installation of the water points, the Rural Water Points Installation Program (RWPIP) also mobilized water committees to maintain the infrastructure and provided trainings to water committees and community members. Most of the water points are boreholes equipped with Afridev handpumps, but in Cabo Delgado ten small-scale solar systems (SSSS) were installed where there was sufficient water supply and unmet demand. The Rural Water Supply Activity (RWSA) of the Mozambique Compact is intended to increase sustainable access to improved water supply in some of the country’s poorest districts. This report provides the results from an impact evaluation of the Millennium Challenge Account’s (MCA’s) Rural Water Point Implementation Program (RWPIP) in Nampula. Datasets that accompany this report can be accessed at the following URL: https://data.lib.vt.edu/collections/wd375w28x
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    Mainstreaming Gender in AET: Overcoming challenges through policies and practices
    Van Houweling, Emily; Christie, Maria Elisa; Abdel-Rahim, Asha (Virginia Tech, 2015-09)
    Women’s education has a high positive impact on society and higher education can help empower women to enter social, economic and political roles in their communities and countries. While progress has been made in terms of access to education overall and higher education in particular, women continue to face specific challenges that limit their access to and success in higher education. Case studies from around the world reveal multiple gender issues that keep women out of higher education institutions and prevent them from graduating. This research builds from this existing literature, but looks specifically at gender issues within higher education agricultural programs.
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    Panel One: Power, Positionality, & Intersectionality
    Faria, Caroline; Kato-Wallace, Jane; Van Houweling, Emily (Virginia Tech, 2019-02-28)
    Power, Positionality & Intersectionality - an interactive panel Moderator: Dr. Maria Elisa Christie, Director, Women and Gender in International Development, CIRED, Virginia Tech *Critical feminist reflexivity & the politics of whiteness in the ‘field’ - Dr. Caroline Faria, Assistant Professor, Department of Geography and the Environment, The University of Texas at Austin *Engaging men & transforming masculinities for gender equality: What we know - Jane Kato-Wallace, Director of Programs, Promundo *Misinterpreting women’s empowerment?: How a feminist postcolonial lens can reveal new dimensions of change in women’s lives - Dr. Emily Van Houweling, Assistant Professor, Masters in Development Practice, Regis University.
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    Preliminary Study: Gender, Higher Education and AET
    Zseleczky, Laura; Van Houweling, Emily; Christie, Maria Elisa (Virginia Tech, 2013-09-17)
    Agriculture education and training (AET) is important to increase human capital in agriculture, promote knowledge, raise agricultural productivity, and realize the potential of women in agriculture. This paper focuses on gender in higher education agricultural training programs. Female farmers play a vital role in agriculture around the world, yet they are poorly represented in agricultural programs in higher education. The objectives of the paper are to review global and regional gender data on AET in higher education, outline the major gender issues in AET, and initiate a discussion of good practices for addressing gender disparities in AET higher education programs. Following this introduction, Section 2 presents the background material and summarizes some of the global issues related to gender, higher education, and AET. Section 3 takes a regional look at these issues. Section 4 presents a case study of AET in three universities in Bangladesh and Cambodia to bring to life the experiences of women in AET programs. The paper concludes with a summary of good practices.
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    Water projects and gender goals in Mozambique: How the technocratic culture of international development conflicts with community perspectives
    Van Houweling, Emily (Virginia Tech, 2022-02-09)
    Gender integration and women’s empowerment goals are shaped by a technocratic culture of international development that determines which frameworks, incentives, theories, and methods are valued. Based on 18 months of ethnographic research in northern Mozambique following a rural water project, Van Houweling shows how the perspectives of gender and change shared by the community conflicted with those of the project implementers and donors. The technocratic culture of development created blind spots, contradictions in the project plans, and unanticipated consequences for gender goals. In this presentation, she will draw attention to the negotiated space between the community and various development actors and reflect on how her own identity and multiple roles (as a student, evaluator, Fulbright recipient, and consultant) affected the water project and her relationships with participants. This research is part of her recent book, “Water and Aid in Mozambique: Gendered Perspectives of Change” published by Cambridge University Press.