Sustainability and Social Justice

Men's Crops and Women's Crops: The Importance of Gender to the Understanding of Agricultural and Development Outcomes in Ghana's Central Region

Document Type

Article

Abstract

The study of gender and development is an area of inquiry fraught with tension between "theoretical" and "practical" concerns. This article seeks to intervene in the standoff between these concerns by examining the mismatch between the conclusions one can draw about gendered patterns of agriculture in Ghana if one adopts either a "mainstream" or a feminist post-structuralist approach to gender. By illustrating the ways in which mainstream approaches to gender and development conceal important variability in the vulnerabilities experienced by those often lumped into the categories of "woman" and "man," this examination shows how contemporary writing on gender and development might inform "practical" development efforts in a manner that results in measurably improved project outcomes. © 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Publication Title

World Development

Publication Date

5-1-2008

Volume

36

Issue

5

First Page

900

Last Page

915

ISSN

0305-750X

DOI

10.1016/j.worlddev.2007.05.009

Keywords

agriculture, gender, Ghana, vulnerability

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