Brent M. Simpson
In southwestern Mali rural producers possess heterogenous sets of local knowledge which
differ from one another in terms of both quantity and quality. A number of social factors contribute to
the differentiation in individual knowledge, by defining the range of personal experiences, access to
resources, and opportunities for observation in the acquisition of knowledge and the exchange of
information and materials. Of these social factors, which include kinship, age, ethnicity, religious
affiliation, and wealth, gender is one of the most influential.
The study
In 1992 an analysis of the service delivery systems offered to farmers and village
associations was conducted in the Office de la Haute Vallée du Niger
(OHVN) Mali (Bingen et al., 1994). A series of rapid rural appraisals were conducted in twelve
villages. During the two and three day visits to each village, over 300 men and women farmers
participated in group and individual interviews, constructed village resource and activity maps, and
led extensive field tours. The major objectives of the research were:
Organization of household production systems
In Bambara-Malinké culture, as throughout much of sub-Saharan Africa, the
organization of household and agricultural activities takes place largely along gender lines. For
example, in most locations of the OHVN zone, rice production is an activity carried out
predominantly by women. Yet in at least one village in the southern part of the zone, the cultivation
of rice has evolved into an exclusively male-dominated activity. In this village, farmers said that the
growing scarcity of land, aggravated by the decrease in rainfall during recent decades, had led to
women being denied access to the remaining rice lands by the village males. In contrast, in
neighbouring villages as close as 15 km away, which had suffered equally from the shrinking land
base, the cultivation of rice was still exclusively a women's activity. The explanation given in these
other villages was that the decline in suitable rice producing areas had led men to abandon rice-
production as unprofitable. In areas further to the south, where rice cultivation has always played a
more significant role in the overall household production systems, and where rice land is more
abundant, both men and women continue to be actively engaged in rice production. Not surprisingly,
discussions in each of these different locations revealed that the depth of knowledge held by men and
women farmers regarding such things as the characteristics of different rice varieties and the
importance of different weed and pest species varied according to their degree of involvement in rice
production.
In most areas, young women are prohibited by the household head from cultivating personal fields. However, once women gain access to personal fields (around the time of menopause), they are able to exercise complete autonomy in their planting decisions, varietal selection, minor land concessions and field management. Yet in some of the southern areas increasing land pressure has led to eligible women being denied ownership of individual land. In these areas, women are only able to secure annual usufruct rights to their husband's fields during the peanut rotation in the cropping cycle. Thus confined in their choice of crops and the degree of control they have over the land, women's opportunities to experiment and implement alternative management practices have been severely limited, while their knowledge and expertise in implementing a single-season peanut production strategy has increased.
The process of individual knowledge differentiation is visible throughout all aspects of the household production systems, where the cultivation of specific food and cash crops, the collection of wild fruits and leaves, and activities such as the processing and preparation of food are assigned to different age and gender groups. One common feature in these divisions is that women are generally involved in the more labour-intensive, low-prestige agricultural activities, and nearly all of the non-remunerative activities associated with cooking and domestic chores.
Communication channels and the exchange of information
In addition to influencing what people know, and how they know it, gender also serves as
an important determinant of the different communication channels to which individuals have access.
Various channels can be distinguished: those within the household; those maintained through extended
family and kinship ties; those of the various work groups and local social organizations; and those
associated with religious affiliations and contacts with village elders. Each of these different channels
can serve as an important conduit in the exchange of information and materials (Simpson, 1994).
After the age of 8-10, the instruction of children within the household takes place almost exclusively along gender lines, as children begin to accompany their parents into the fields--boys with fathers, daughters with mothers (Cross and Baker, 1991). As they gain the necessary skills, children become increasingly involved in a number of gender-specific activities and work groups. Their increased inclusion in the performance of daily tasks brings with it a growing participation in a broader range of communication channels. Women, for example, exchange information and personal experiences in the course of performing many of their regular domestic and agricultural tasks, such as fetching water, gathering fire-wood, and preparing food, and during journeys to and from fields, local markets, and other destinations.
Because in this area marriages are traditionally between individuals from different villages, with the wife taking up residence in her husband's natal village, visits by married women to their village of origin bridge the gap between different social groups, and represent another important source of information transfer. Both women and men farmers in the zone reported a number of exchanges, mainly of genetic material, that occur through this channel of extended family ties. As in Mali, studies conducted in the Sudan (Coughenour and Nazhat, 1985; Nazhat and Coughenour, 1987) noted that both close and distant relatives are one of the most important initial sources of information about new varieties, particularly for women, and constitute the most important source of information for both sexes in making planting decisions involving new varieties.
Women's association meetings and the performance of group labour were reported by women to be among the most important occasions for information exchange. Men, in contrast, reported almost no exchanges of information or materials with other members of their extension groups, but cited a large number of such exchanges with individuals outside these groups. Unlike the all-male extension groups, which are formed through the encouragement of the OHVN extension service, women's groups are indigenous social organizations, founded upon mutual need and personal ties.
Most of a woman's close friends are members of one or more of her different group associations, where the group activities provide the context in which much of their interaction takes place. Friends not only serve as one of the major sources of new information but, along with family members, are one of the most influential factors in farmer' decisions to adopt new technologies. In the OHVN zone, both men and women farmers reported that their greatest number of 'successful' transfers of technology had originated from friends.
In addition to the male extension groups and women's associations, gender-based organization at the village level takes a number of other forms. After the harvest, women often form temporary multi- household winnowing groups. During winnowing the presence of males beyond the age of infancy is strictly forbidden (Lewis, 1979), providing women a period in which they can freely discuss events and activities that would otherwise be constrained by the male-dominated social hierarchy. The male age-set tons represents another form of gender-based organization. In hiring themselves out for field labour, tons members are exposed to a number of different production styles, and gain valuable information from their peers and the farmers in whose fields they are working. In his study, McConnell (1993) reported that the farmers' payment to group labourers often consists at least in part of advice or expertise relating to agriculture. While conducting research on traditional apiculture practices, Gnägi (1992 and personal communication) found that when honey gatherers (all male) congregate and return to the village at the end of the day, they engage in discussions that range from experiences with their hives to commentaries on the state of the fields through which they pass, as well as personal problems. Women's comments on the value of the communication which takes place on the way to for example the market or the fields underlines the importance of such opportunities for gender-based discussion.
Both men and women farmers throughout the OHVN zone cited village elders as among their most important sources of information and advice. Some of the more experienced male farmers, 'retired' from active cultivation in the family fields, reported giving advice to young farmers who were not part of their immediate kinship group, a relationship which at times approached that of an apprenticeship. Older women perform the same role in their relations with younger female assistants in their personal fields.
Religious affiliation is another area where gender plays an active role in delimiting personal knowledge and experience. The traditional religious system of ancestor worship is centred around a series of initiation groups, one of which, the Tyiwara, focuses on agriculture performance. Zahan (1974) notes that while women are excluded from all of the other initiation groups, they are allowed to participate in nearly every aspect of the Tyiwara, except for discussions concerning agricultural implements. In this regard, the growing influence of Islam, while beneficial to men in providing them with another network of associations, has had a negative impact on women, as they are unable to participate in any broad, cross-gender exchanges of information.
Conclusion
'Traditional knowledge is not generated or acquired equally throughout rural society, and this stock of
existing knowledge is not distributed' (Swift, 1979:40). Gender clearly plays a major role in the
process of knowledge differentiation. The evidence from southwestern Mali shows that women and
men not only possess knowledge about different things, they also possess different knowledge about
similar things (Norem et. al., 1989), and use different communication channels to transfer
information. Any intervention or development effort aimed at engaging the local knowledge systems
must give particular attention to 'whose knowledge' is being included. Just as with popular
participation, the inclusion or exclusion of different sets of knowledge will determine to a large part
who ultimately benefits.
Brent M. Simpson
Department of Resource Development
323 Natural Resources Bld.
Michigan State University
East Lansing
MI 48824-1222
USA
References
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Niger.' Department of Resource Development Occasional Report. East Lansing: Michigan
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Zahan, D. (1974) The Bambara. Leiden: E.J. Brill.