Performance Politics and the Spaces of Negotiation: Pastoralist Livelihood Change and New Gender Roles

Elizabeth Edna Wangui, PhD

Ohio University

Background

0

200

400

600

800

1000

1200

1400

1600

Rain-fed Zone Mixed Zone Irrigated Zone

Hrs

/per

son/

dry

sea

son

Husbands

Wives

Labor allocation in livestock production

Wangui (2008)

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

Methods

Household interviews

Theories

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)

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)

Performances available to men

• Conversion of individual assets to collective assets– Sell ‘her’ livestock– Sell her crops– Assign her more

duties

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)

Performances available to women

– From most activities for a day

– From all activities for an indefinite period of time

• 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

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