EVENTS

Abstract

Women’s claims on land are based against two major related factors: an insidious state-backed policy to keep women materially dependent on men as the head of the household; and a combination of social norms and legal restrictions that shut most women from being listed on land and property ownership deeds. There is a need to differentiate between women’s claims that are considered legitimate within the legal framework and a negation of the legally constituted rights which find legitimacy within social norms and cultural practices that define women’s identity and exist within a legal-social framework of dependency within the household. This presentation explores recent policy changes and women’s claims-making to legal rights to land in China and India, within the diverse cultural and social context of Asia. The presentation aims to understand how the women enable themselves and/or are enabled by the state policies to claim their right to land. It also looks at the impact, the struggle for land ownership has had on the economic agency of women and how this has influenced other aspects of their lives. This presentation would explore how women acquire land, their aspirations for economic security and enhanced terms of social recognition with land tenure, their knowledge of legal and customary practices, and the extent to which they expect to gain family land through inheritance and transactions about conveyance deeds from the community leaders and local officers of land and revenue administration.

About the Speaker

Dr. Govind Kelkar is the Senior Adviser, Landesa/Rural Development Institute and Senior Fellow at International Center for Research on Women, New Delhi, India. Earlier, April 2004 to March 2012, she worked as “Senior Advisor: Programme and Research ,Economic Empowerment Unit, UN Women, South Asia Office, New Delhi, India. She has previously taught at Delhi University, the Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai, and the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT), Bangkok, Thailand. At AIT, Dr Kelkar founded the graduate program in Gender Development Studies and also the Gender, Technology and Development Journal, published by SAGE, India.She has extensively worked on gender and energy transition in rural Asia. She has contributed numerous articles to scholarly journals with a focus on gender relations in Asia and has been in close touch with women’s movements in the region. Dr. Kelkar has authored/co-authored and co-edited books on gender relations, indigenous peoples and civil society.