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Elizabeth Edna Wangui, PhD Ohio University

Performance Politics and the Spaces of Negotiation: Pastoralist Livelihood Change and New Gender Roles. Elizabeth Edna Wangui, PhD Ohio University. Background. Labor allocation in livestock production. Wangui (2008). Concerns.

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Elizabeth Edna Wangui, PhD Ohio University

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  1. Performance Politics and the Spaces of Negotiation: Pastoralist Livelihood Change and New Gender Roles Elizabeth Edna Wangui, PhD Ohio University

  2. Background Labor allocation in livestock production Wangui (2008)

  3. Concerns • Extend Butler’s theory of performativity (1990) with Arendt’s theory of action (1959) • Examine how gendered inequalities are negotiated in the control of labor • Investigate the role that space plays in the process of negotiation

  4. Methods Household interviews

  5. Theories

  6. Performances available to men • The threat of beating “…The fimbo (cane) is the one that makes masai women respect and obey their husbands completely…” (Peter) “…when he talks to me and sees that I have become submissive and stopped what was making him annoyed then he leaves me alone. But if I try to compete with him, I will not leave that place without being beaten…” (Mary)

  7. Performances available to men • “… my husband sometimes tells me that I must finish the job by a certain time. When this happens I find myself hurrying to complete the job because you know if it is that time and I have not completed the job, there will be problems and I can be beaten or another bad thing…” (Lucy)

  8. Performances available to men • Conversion of individual assets to collective assets • Sell ‘her’ livestock • Sell her crops • Assign her more duties

  9. Performances available to women • Withholding her labor • From a few activities “.. My husband cannot beat me over farming duties because he already knows that farming is hard … but it is easy to be beaten over livestock duties because they are easy… “ (Jane) “… You see a woman like this one, sometimes guests can arrive and I tell her to make tea for the guests, and she tells me that there is no milk, even when I saw her carrying it in …she can say she has given it to the children” (James)

  10. Performances available to women • From most activities for a day • From all activities for an indefinite period of time

  11. Negotiating and gender identity • The role of space • Beatings happen outside in private space (man+woman) • Women strategically expand their negotiation space (man+woman+others) • Women withhold resources associated with their spaces

  12. Conclusions • Complex process of negotiation underlying new gendered aspects of Masai livelihoods • Power and performance • Spaces of negotiation – men and women create increasing “public-ness” of their performances in strategic ways

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