HORTINLEA PhD Workshop: Gender in Agricultural Value Chains

The Division of Gender and Globalisation and the Center for Transdisciplinary Gender Studies (ZtG) (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin) is pleased to invite you to the HORTINLEA-PhD-Workshop "Gender in Agricultural Value Chains. African Indigenous Vegetables in Kenya".

With:

• Rhiannon Pyburn (Royal Tropical Institute - KIT, Netherlands)
• Anke Niehof (Wageningen University & Research, Netherlands)

Even though AIVs (African Indigenous Vegetables) are an integral part of Kenyan meal cultures, their potential for food sovereignty and sustainable livelihoods has not been fully explored. Lacking agricultural policies for indigenous crops and the stigmatization as ‘weed’ and ‘poor people’s food’ stemming from the introduction of exotic vegetables by colonial rulers are at the root of low consumption. Much of the labour and knowledge in producing and consuming AIVs is provided by women. However, on the production side, there is evidence that women lack access and control over necessary resources and may not benefit from the current upgrading of the crop as men take greater control in production and marketing. On the consumption side, the preparation of AIVs is time-consuming and clashes with other productive and reproductive duties. Although a slight change takes place in urban contexts, care work is still being understood as women’s work.

The workshop will address the power relations and the social embeddedness of AIV value chains in Kenya by presenting and discussing the final results of the HORTINLEA PhD projects “Gender Order in AIV value chains” and “Meal Cultures”, which investigate the AIV value chain from a critical gender perspective.

For more information, please see the program flyer here.

Date: November 24, 2017, 9:00 am - 5:30 pm

Event Location: Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
Invalidenstr. 42, Room 1231, 10099 Berlin