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§ Jurnal “original” disertakan di bawah resume ini.

Relevansi Teoretis dan Tantangan dalam Studi Gender di Pedesaan Eropa

Oleh:

Wahyu Budi Nugroho

           

Pada tahun 1980-an terjadi peningkatan daya tarik atas studi pedesaan Eropa, terutama mengenai posisi wanita dalam keluarga pertanian. Hal ini penting mengingat selama ini kajian gender dalam pedesaan Eropa mengalami isoloasi sedemikian rupa dalam lapangan pengkajian atau penelitian (Whatmore 1988 : 239).

            Riset mengenai situasi dan kondisi gender di pedesaan Eropa mengalami stagnasi selama lima tahun akibat perbenturannya dengan konsep pembangunan yang mempengaruhi banyak bagian dari teori sosial, dan terlebih, pada restrukturasi, diversifikasi agrikultur dan hubungan “normatif” yang melandasi relasi antargender, dan terutama partisipasi wanita pedesaan terhadap dinamika sosial-ekonomi di sana. Harus diakui memang, terjadi kompleksitas hubungan antara produksi pangan dengan konsumsi, dan di saat yang sama terjadi peningkatan diversifikasi interrelasi dalam bidang sosial, ekonomi dan lingkungan.

            Di tengah penulisan paper ini, tak dapat dipungkiri tengah terjadi pula perdebatan mengenai regulasi agrikultur antara rezim lawas dengan rezim baru. Proses tersebut harus diandaikan tak sekedar menjadi subyek permasalahan politik Eropa melainkan pula dunia di mana menyangkut perdagangan makanan, teknologi berikut ketertarikan institusional. Di satu sisi, pengkajian tersebut secara tak langsung terkait erat dengan relasi antargender; pemberdayaaan dan dis-Pemberdayaan wanita (dan pria) dalam cara dan lokasi yang berbeda. Lebih jauh, proses ini bersentuhan pula dengan aspek interseksi kekuasaan sosial, kelas tak berdaya, ras dan etnis.

            Satu dekade lalu wanita tak dianggap dan dimasukkan dalam riset dan pertimbangan kebijakan industri pertanian Eropa. Konsep “kerja” dari “keluarga” mereduksi partisipasi dan kontribusi wanita dalam proses tersebut. Hal ini, disadari atau tidak, disebabkan oleh standar baku pengukuran produktivitas berdasarkan ukuran pekerja pria. Sejauh ini, penelitian membuktikan bahwa kerap terjadi penyederhanaan keluarga petani sebagai pria yang bertindak selaku kepala keluarga semata, sedangkan divisi sosial, hubungan kekuasaan dan ketidaksetaraan dalam arti luas tak dikenal di dalamnya.

            Riset mengenai wanita pedesaan harus dimulai dengan konstruksi rumusan perempuan sebagai salah satu tolak ukur yang terkandung dalam konsep kerja yang antara lain mencakup jam kerja, jenis pekerjaan dan partisipasinya dalam pengambilan keputusan. Namun demikian, pada dasarnya hal tersebut memang telah menjadi bagian dari pengembangan konsep gender itu sendiri di mana sejauh ini pelabelan gender secara biologis lebih kental atau tampak ketimbang eksistensinya sebagai konstruksi sosial. Dalam hal ini, kita perlu memperhatikan pernyataan Simon De Beauvoir yang menegaskan bahwa perempuan tidaklah “dilahirkan” melainkan “dibentuk”.

            Pengembangan teori gender dalam perspektif pedesaan Eropa begitu kental terkait dengan pemikiran feminis. Teori gender, pada umumnya meyakini pemisahan antara wanita dan pria, namun, dengan penelitian lapangan (grounded) secara mendalam di mana berbagai dimensi dan ekspresi kehidupan pedesaan tergali, mencakup aspek institusional, profesionalitas berikut arena masyarakat akar rumput kiranya memberikan celah bagi terbentuknya rumusan atau konsep baru atas gender sehingga memberi sumbangsih pula bagi perkembangan teori feminis.

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RURAL SOCIETY Journal

Theoretical achievements and challenges in European rural gender studies

Sarah Whatmore
Department of Geography, University of Bristol, United Kingdom

Keywords

gender, farming, Europe

Article Text

In the 1980s European rural studies saw growing research interest in rural women and particularly, in their position within family farming. The focus was primarily on women's position in the division of family labour, decision-making and, to a lesser extent, property. Introducing an issue of Sociological Ruralis on 'Farm women in Europe', I argued that while this work marked a significant improvement in the position of women on the rural research agenda, its theoretical approach tended to isolate farm women as a specialist field of research (Whatmore 1988: 239).
It has been an interesting exercise to revisit this research literature five years on. I am struck by important developments, influenced in part by the challenge of social theory but, more markedly, by the consequences of rural restructuring, agricultural diversification and broader normative shifts in the landscape of gender relations. But the danger of marginalisation seems to be undiminished. The significance of gender relations to the social and economic dynamics of rural life remains a segregated specialism in which rural women and 'their' issues can be safely corralled by researchers and policy-makers, while 'mainstream' research and policy concepts and concerns proceed untouched.
This paper outlines some of the theoretical and associated methodological achievements of European research on rural gender relations. While it focuses on women on family farms, part of my argument is that such a focus on farming in isolation is increasingly problematic. Policymaking and research must follow the experiences of people living on the land: there are increased ties between farming and the complex networks of food production and consumption. At the same time, there are increasingly diverse interrelations between farming and the wider rural economy, society and environment.
As this paper is written, the post-war regime of agricultural regulation in Europe has been destabilised and the contours of any new regime are still in the making. This process is the subject of intense political energies not just within Europe, but in relation to a global realignment of food trade, technologies and institutional interests. These developments and realignments build on and, in turn, reshape rural gender relations; empowering and disempowering women (and men) in different ways in particular localities. These processes are further complicated by their intersection with other axes of social power, notably class, race and ethnicity. This paper centres on the unevenness in rural women's experience and position across Europe and some of the consequences for the way research is conducted.

Achievements

A decade ago women were all but invisible in research and policy accounts of the European farming industry. Concepts of 'work' and treatment of 'the family' discounted or silenced women's presence and contribution. The concept of the labour process had conventionally been applied only to agricultural work activities and measured against statistical measures such as the 'standard man day' which took the male worker and work pattern as the norm. The work which sustained the farm household's labouring capacity on a daily basis and the long-term security of its relationship to capital and the land, traditionally performed by women, was simply eclipsed. 'The family', identified in much research as a distinctive feature of the social organisation of farming, had been treated as an organic or unitary entity, accessed through and represented by a single individual - the farmer and head of the household, both masculine-defined terms. The social divisions, power relations and inequalities within the family unit went largely unrecognised.
Research on women in farming began with the important tasks of making women visible within the established categories and measures of labour and economic activity on the farm: hours worked, tasks performed and involvement in farm decision-making (Siiskonen et al 1982; Lagrave 1983; Bauwens & Loeffen 1983; Gasson 1987, 1990; MAPA 1991a&b; Shorthall 1991). But it has been the development of the concept of gender itself, as a social division constructed on cultural rather than biological foundations that marks the most significant theoretical achievement to date in the study of women's position in farming.
Building on Simone de Beauviour's observation that 'women are not born but made' this approach changes the research emphasis in rural studies. The task is no longer to fit women in to a picture of farming defined by men's perspectives and experiences as 'farmers', 'successors' and 'head of households', but a redefinition of the way farming and rural life are described that admit women's experiences and perspectives as constitutive. How have these theoretical developments been achieved?
The development of gender theory in European rural studies is related to broader shifts in feminist thinking. Role theory, which sees people learning ways of behaving which accord with established gender norms, has largely given way to gender identity theories - reflexive or interpretative theories of the unstable and fragmented meanings attached to the categories of 'woman' and 'man' (Connell 1987). This conceptual shift is multi-faceted and in no sense uniform, or have all its dimensions and formulations found expression in rural research. Rural social science research is institutionalised within agricultural policy, professional and grassroots arenas, which has given a practical edge to theoretical projects. This has helped to mark off the rethinking of gender within rural studies from the 'literary turn', so influential in the broader development of feminist theory.