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Contested Ecologies: Gender, Genies, and Agricultural Knowledge in Z anzibar
Author(s) -
Dean Erin
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
culture, agriculture, food and environment
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.308
H-Index - 12
eISSN - 2153-9561
pISSN - 2153-9553
DOI - 10.1111/cuag.12014
Subject(s) - goodwill , archipelago , agriculture , agricultural extension , extension (predicate logic) , sociology , dual (grammatical number) , geography , business , archaeology , philosophy , finance , computer science , programming language , linguistics
Abstract In the village of Jongowe in the Z anzibar archipelago, women are the guardians of extensive agricultural knowledge. Yet male authority circumscribes this feminine sphere in the form of ritual and scientific “experts.” Annual planting is dependent on the advice and goodwill of genies, spiritual beings who are ritually summoned, celebrated in song and dance ( ngoma ), and formally consulted by elder male ritual leaders. At the same time, a male government extension agent has introduced agricultural extension programs that bring new planting calendars, farming techniques, and seed varieties to the village. Through these male ritual and scientific authority figures, ecological knowledge in the village is controlled, classified, and contested. However, recent challenges to local land use have cast new light on the ordering of agricultural knowledge. I suggest that although the control of knowledge and resources in Jongowe may be most obviously understood through an idiom of gender, the most important epistemological distinctions in this community may lie elsewhere.