Exploiting norms: gender, local elites and farm individualization in Tajikistan

ABSTRACT

This article advances a straightforward argument: a complete analysis of land reform processes in Central Asia needs to account for gender dynamics. More explicitly, it argues that alongside the feminization of agriculture, customary gender norms restricting female economic opportunities and property acquisition represent a structural advantage for local elites interested in hindering or delaying the process of farm individualization in Tajikistan. After overviewing the gap between female legal rights to agricultural land and the actualization of these rights in four Central Asian states (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan Tajikistan and Uzbekistan) the article narrows its focus to Tajikistan. After regression analyses reveal that gendered information gaps are insufficient to account for gaps in the registration of farmland, the study presents qualitative data examining the relationship between female-headed households and the slow pace of agrarian change in Tajikistan.

KEYWORDS:

• farm individualization
• gender norms
• elite capture
• feminization of agriculture
• Tajikistan

Acknowledgements

The authors thank Vera Heuer, Edward Lemon and Sean Parramore for helpful comments on early versions of this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 Previous studies have found that the patterns of farm individualization varied across space (Hierman and Nekbakhtshoev 2018; Hofman and Visser 2014; Robinson et al. 2008). We do not have data to determine whether there is similar spatial variation in establishment of female-headed dehqon farms.

2 Collective Dehqon Farm, the successor of Soviet-era collective and state farms.

3 Interview on 14 June 2012.

4 Interview on 21 June 2012.

5 As stated below in note 6, we also ran our analyses on the full sample including those which were working on individualized farms.

6 The specific show was entitled ‘Your rights to land’.

7 To check the robustness of these findings, regression analyses were also run on a pooled sample which included farmers working in family dehqon farms. In each model using the pooled sample, female remained negative and significant. For the results for these analyses, see Appendix A.

8 Of course, the local elites’ preferences do not exist in a vacuum. Rather, the preservation of collective organizations may be implicitly preferred by other actors in the value chain because it ensures production profitable commodities such as raw cotton.

9 Interview on 27 May 2012.

10 Interview on 21 June 2012.

11 Interview on 30 May 2012.

12 Interview on 20 June 2012.

13 Interview on 27 May 2012.

14 Interview on 30 May 2012.

Additional information

Funding

Brent Hierman’s fieldwork was funded with the assistance of a VMI grant-in-aid of research award.