Claudia Radel

Male Transnational Migration and its Linkages to Land-Use Change in a Southern Campeche Ejido

This paper describes findings of a case study examining linkages between emerging transnational migration patterns and land-use transformations in an ejido in the southern part of Mexico’s Campeche state. Qualitative data were derived via in-depth interviews of a stratified random sample of 26 households. The ejido’s experience illustrates the linkages between migration and land-use change at an early stage in a community’s migration experience. Prior cash cropping of chili, leading to accumulation of relative wealth for certain households, facilitated the initiation of migration, while recent chili cultivation failures have motivated it. Early migration, in turn, is associated with an increase in investment in certain agricultural inputs and a decrease in the rate of chili cultivation, with implications for deforestation and forest recovery.

Women's Community-Based Organizations, Conservation Projects, and Effective Land Control in Southern Mexico

This paper examines outcomes for womens effective land control from engagement of womens agricultural community-based organizations (CBOs) with conservation projects in southern Mexico. Through ethnography and interviews with one hundred women in three communities, the author assesses whether womens organization, as a response to availability of project resources, has led to increased access to, and control over, land, as well as gender empowerment. A binary logistic regression model predicts CBO participation and suggests that who participates in these groups is defined in part by the varied position of women within community class and power structures. Womens land access has increased through participation in CBOs, but effective land control does not automatically follow. Women differ within and among CBOs in the three crucial aspects of effective land control: participation in control over land-use decision making, over the lands disposition, and over resultant land-based income. The type of CBO and its community position play important roles, with groups functioning outside of ejidal structures leading to greater rates of womens effective control of land and potential. Este estudio examina los resultados del control efectivo de la tierra de mujeres dentro de su empleo en organizaciones comunales agrícolas femininas (OCAs) de proyectos de conservación en el sur mexicano. A través de etnografía y entrevistas con cien mujeres en tres comunidades, la autora evalua si las organizaciones femininas, como respuesta a la disponibilidad de recursos de proyectos, han mejorado el acceso a la tierra y control sobre ella, también de su empoderamiento de género, y si fue así, para cuales de las mujeres. Un modelo binario de regresión logística, prognostica la participación dentro de las OCAs y sugiere que las que participan en estos grupos están definidas por su variada posición dentro de las clases comunitarias y las estructuras del poder. Se nota, que el acceso de mujeres a la tierra ha aumentado a través de su participación en las OCAs, pero el control efectivo no sucede automáticamente. Las mujeres son variadas dentro y entre las OCAs en tres dimensiones: su participación en el control de toma de decisiones respecto a la tierra; su situación relativa a la disposición de la tierra; y en relación a los ingresos obtenidos. El tipo de OCA y su posición dentro de la comunidad son roles importantes, y su relación con grupos que funcionan fuera de la estructura ejidal significa mayor control feminino sobre la tierra y potentialmente mejor empoderamiento de género.

Gendered livelihoods and the politics of socio-environmental identity: Women’s participation in conservation projects in Calakmul, Mexico

A livelihoods approach positions individuals, situated within households, as active agents within processes occurring at various scales. Environmental conservation efforts represent one such process with direct implications for local sustainable livelihoods and the gendered nature of livelihood strategies. In this article, I examine collective processes of socio-environmental identity construction as gendered sustainable livelihood strategies, articulated in and through the activities of womens agricultural organizations in communities bordering the Calakmul Biosphere Reserve in rural southern Mexico. I present group histories and visual evidence from group activities – adapted from participatory rural appraisal (PRA) methodology – to highlight two important concepts. These are: (1) that gendered livelihood strategies are outcomes of negotiations within households and communities, in response to specific gendered opportunities and constraints; and (2) that gendered livelihood strategies consist of linked material and ideological aspects.

Gendered Mobility and Morality in a South-Eastern Mexican Community: Impacts of Male Labour Migration on the Women Left Behind

Abstract Based on research conducted in a migrant-sending community in south-eastern Mexico, we find that male out-migration has forced women to take on labour tasks that are associated with new spatial and mobility patterns. While these patterns have potential for increased empowerment for women, they also call the women’s morality into question, resulting in a policing of the women’s behaviour, and a simultaneous restriction of their mobility, by themselves and others. Therefore, we find male labour out-migration has resulted in contradictory changes in women’s mobility, with ambiguous results for women’s gender empowerment.

Outcomes of Conservation Alliances with Women's Community-Based Organizations in Southern Mexico

Through alliances with local community-based organizations, including groups of women, conservationists have used integrated conservation and development projects as a strategy to integrate conservation and poverty alleviation goals; yet an antiessentialist critique of ecofeminism suggests little grounds for alliances between women and conservationists. This study questions that premise through a presentation of analysis results from interviews with women in three communities surrounding Mexicos Calakmul Biosphere Reserve. I compare the households of conservation-allied women with other households, on (1) the use of various farming practices on womens group parcels and on other land managed by households (conservation-related outcomes) and (2) womens access to and control of land and project income (womens livelihood-related outcomes). I find that alliances were partially successful in meeting conservation interests, contributed to the production of livelihoods for the women, and increased their relative position within households and communities through changes in the gendered control of resource decision making.

Migration and Gender: The Case of a Farming Ejido in Calakmul, Mexico

As one of Mexico’s last agricultural frontiers, southern Mexico’s rural farming municipality of Calakmul has long been marked by rural in-migration. In the last few years this process has given place to an explosive growth of primarily male labor out-migration, particularly to the United States. The authors trace the outlines of the migration process from the perspective of one rural Calakmul community, to explore effects of men’s transnational migration on the household and community status of the women remaining behind. Analysis is based on quantitative data collected in 2004 from 25 households, and on in-depth qualitative interviews in 2005 with women whose husbands engage in transnational migration. The authors find preliminary evidence for changes in gender roles and responsibilities, as these adjust to accommodate men’s absences. The evidence for women’s increased participation in household decision-making is much less clear. This, combined with the words of the women, suggests that gender ideology is defended even as gender responsibilities flex. Women’s spatial mobility also appears to improve, but this must be weighed against greater gains in migrating men’s mobility, as well as some women’s unhappiness with the lack of livelihood improvements.

Extending a Geographic Lens Towards Climate Justice, Part 2: Climate Action

There has been a recent increase of interest within the academic literature on the justice issues posed by climate change and the human responses to its present and forecasted effects. In two parts (here and in a previous article), we review and synthesize the recent literature by asking what climate justice concerns have been identified within three related realms: (i) the characterization of climate change itself and the assignment of responsibility for that change; (ii) the differential or uneven impacts of climate change; and (iii) the actions taken to address the problems associated with climate change, including both mitigation and adaptation. Here in Part 2, we focus on the justice concerns of climate action, examining the scholarship on climate change mitigation mechanisms formulated at the international level (i.e., REDD , CDM) and climate change adaptation projects and finance. We argue that geographers are well-positioned to conduct (and already well engaged in) research on the local climate justice paradoxes emerging from the currently uncritical focus of climate action policy on justice at the level of the national state.

Labour Migration and Gendered Agricultural Asset Shifts in Southeastern Mexico: Two Stories of Farming Wives and Daughters

In this chapter, we present evidence of two gendered agricultural asset shifts associated with labour out-migration in the municipality of Calakmul, Campeche. The first is a shift in land rights from men to women (wives), which occurred as men’s labour out-migration, largely to the U.S., coincided with the process of land privatisation and the reform of the ejidal system in Mexico. Ejidos are collective land tenure institutions dating back to the Mexican Revolution and the redistribution of land in the previous century. The second is a more recent shift—one that entails the labour migration of younger single women (daughters) from ejidal villages to nearby cities, the generation of cash earnings, and the subsequent household acquisition of land and cattle back in their home villages. Although Mexico initiated a process of ejidal land parcelisation and privatisation in the mid-1990s (De Janvry and Sadoulet, Mexico’s second agrarian reform: Household and community responses, 1997), the ejido remains the most important institution of community organisation and smallholder land tenure in Calakmul (Haenn, Land Use Policy 23:136–146, 2006). Therefore, we focus on the ejidal sector to understand the dynamics of gendered changes in agricultural assets and labour out-migration for smallholder, semi-subsistence households in southeastern Mexico. Through two stories, we illustrate and assess the sudden and unexpected shifts that can occur in women’s productive asset control (in this case, land and cattle) with different patterns of gendered labour migration. In rural Calakmul, agricultural assets remain central to generating viable livelihoods in the area, even as smallholder agriculture wanes under difficult economic and environmental conditions.

Developing, Implementing, and Evaluating a No-Child-Left-Inside Pilot Program

We describe experience with a pilot week-long, No-Child-Left-Inside (NCLI), outdoor program implemented in Cache Valley, Utah, in 2012. Through response analysis of a “pre-then-post” childrens survey and a parent-completed demographic survey, we assess program effectiveness in raising childrens enthusiasm for nature-related behaviors and in reaching a target audience of all local families. The program reached many families with low participation in other conservation programs but failed to reach families from the growing Latino population. Participating children experienced increased excitement to spend more time outdoors exploring and learning, accomplishing NCLI goals of laying a groundwork for childrens enhanced environmental literacy.