Agricultural Land, Gender and Kinship in Rural China and Vietnam: A Comparison of Two Villages |
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Authors: | DANIÈ LE BÉ LANGER, XU LI |
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Affiliation: | Department of Sociology and Population Studies Centre, The University of Western Ontario, London, ON, Canada, N6A 5C2; University of Ottawa, 1650 rue Mullins, Montreal, QC, Canada, H3K 1N4 |
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Abstract: | This study examines the impact of current land policies in China and Vietnam on women's entitlement to land, women's wellbeing and gender power relations. The ethnographic study of one village in each of the two countries contextualizes women's lives in the kinship and marriage system in which power and gender relations are embedded. Current land policies, when implemented in the existing kinship and marriage system, make women's entitlement to land more vulnerable than men's, limit women's choices and weaken their power position. Variations in kinship rules in the two countries lead to different outcomes. In the Chinese village the dominance of patrilocal marriage and exogamous marriages limits women's access to land, whereas in the Vietnamese village the rigid concentration of inheritance to males puts women in a difficult position. The comparison between communities of rural China and Vietnam reveals the importance of considering gender and kinship when studying the implementation and impact of land policies. |
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Keywords: | gender relations land tenure system kinship marriage China Vietnam |
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