Changing women's roles, changing environmental knowledges: evidence from Upper Egypt

0016-7398/03/0004-0313/$00.20/0 © 2003 The Royal Geographical Society

The Geographical Journal

, Vol.

169

, No. 4, December 2003, pp. 313–325

Blackwell Publishing Ltd

Changing women’s roles, changing environmental knowledges: evidence from Upper Egypt

JOHN BRIGGS*, JOANNE SHARP*, NABILA HAMED† AND HODA YACOUB†

*

Department of Geography & Geomatics, University of Glasgow, Glasgow G12 8QQ E-mails: [email protected]; [email protected]

†

Unit of Environmental Studies and Development, South Valley University, Aswan, EgyptThis paper was accepted for publication in June 2003

The aim of this paper is to investigate the ways in which changing gender roles in aBedouin community in Upper Egypt, brought about by settlement over the last 20 yearson the shores of Lake Nasser, have impacted on the accumulation and developmentof indigenous environmental knowledges by Bedouin women. The research was carriedout among four groups of Ababda Bedouin in the Eastern Desert of Egypt and involvedin-depth monthly conversations carried out over a period of 12 months. The mainconclusions of the study are that the women of the study area have had to develop newknowledges which, in some cases, are now different from those held by men because ofthe different economic circumstances in which many find themselves; that these know-ledges are fluid, dynamic and ever-changing with their own internal dynamism; and thatsocially constructed notions of gender are vital in the development process, notions thatare sensitive to both men’s and women’s interests and their interrelationships.

KEY WORDS:

Egypt; indigenous knowledges, group interviews, gender roles, Bedouin, desert

Introduction

D

espite the recognition for many years of thevital and pro-active economic contributionsof women to household reproduction in

developing countries (see, for example, Boserup1970; Young 1993; Bryceson 1995; and discus-sions in Desai and Potter 2002), there still seemsto be a doubt in some quarters as to the real effect-iveness of such contributions. As Varley (2002)reminds us, there is still a loyalty in parts of the‘development community’ to the concept of thehousehold as the basic unit of production, basedon the assumptions that some sort of decision-making consensus exists within the household,and that we can treat a group decision in muchthe same way as an individual decision. Women,therefore, may be subsumed within the household.The result is that women’s economic contributionsmay be seen to be rather less than they really are,and that women may be seen to have little influ-ence over decisions anyway, and especially so inovertly patriarchal societies. This may be com-pounded, as Chowdhry (1995) warns, where

perceptions exist of rural Third World women beingseen as either traditional barriers to modernizationand development, or as mere victims without agencysubject to decisions taken by husbands, fathers orbrothers. In short, there can emerge from this lineof thinking a view of rural Third World women asreactionary and conservative.

Such understandings have, of course, not beenunchallenged. Women in Development (WID)approaches explicitly acknowledged differencewithin the household and the power relationsthat exist within it. Moreover, the economic con-tributions of women to household reproduction areseen to be both important and separate to those ofmen (see Young (2002) for a good summary discus-sion). As a result of this emphasis on householdreproduction, and importantly the resources whichsustain it, the view has developed among someWID theorists that women might in fact be bettercustodians of the environment than men. Thisgreater empathy with nature might imply, therefore,a different environmental knowledge base frommen, or at least a difference of emphasis within thatknowledge. Hence, the Women’s Environmental

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Changing women’s roles, changing environmental knowledges

Network has argued that ‘[w]omen’s prioritiesare usually oriented towards the good of thecommunity thus placing more emphasis on theprotection of the environment and the resourceswithin it’ (quoted in Jackson 1993, 1950). Thisargument has been taken further by suggestionsthat an increased women’s participation in environ-mentally oriented development projects may assistin promoting both an empowerment of women and,crucially, a solution to environmental problems(see Jewitt’s (2000) critical review). Women arerepresented not as passive figures blocking progress,but as active agents of change with their owneconomic and social interests and strengths, whichmay well be quite independent of those of men.Hence, women become both visible and central inthe development process. Clearly, these argumentsdirect us towards exploring the interrelationshipsbetween women’s economic contributions torural societies and their management of naturalresources.

However, there are difficulties with WIDapproaches. The emphasis on women, as in someway economically separate from men, can causealienation and resentment, and in some culturesmay be interpreted as a challenge to the existing(masculinist) social order. Furthermore, conceptu-ally, such approaches can present a singular,somewhat unchanging view of women, rather thanrecognizing the diversity of daily experiences facedby women. For instance, the idea that women maybe better custodians of the environment is basedupon a stereotype of woman as nurturer (from herrole as mother), rather than through an examina-tion of the material bases of real women’s lives. Inmany cases, this may be true, and women maywell demonstrate a sympathetic stewardship overlocal environmental resources (as may men inother circumstances). But to suggest that this isalways the case assumes that women have accessto a comprehensive environmental knowledge, andthat they are able to practice such knowledgeswithout interference and with undisputed access toland and resources (Jewitt 2000). Thus, as Jacksonargues:

There is a need to unpack the idea that women’s‘responsibilities’ make them environmentally friendly– the responsibility to provide firewood for cookinga meal may lead a woman, when faced with a firewoodshortage, to plant a tree but it may also lead her topull up a wooden fence and burn it, to argue for thepurchase of a fuel efficient stove, to insist on thepurchase of charcoal, to delegate fuelwood collectionto a younger woman in the household or any numberof alternative responses.

Jackson 1993, 1958

Because of some of these difficulties with WID,emphasis has moved to gender and development(GAD) approaches which focus explicitly on issuesof gender relations, that is, the roles sociallyexpected of both women and men in each circum-stance, rather than only focusing on women. Theyrecognize that gender roles can be very differentin different places and at different times, and areinherently complex, textured and interwoven. Aproblematic, however, is the tension between thestrategic, but politically difficult, aims of empower-ment, to strengthen women’s position within society,on the one hand, and the more immediate aims ofsurvival on the other hand, which may have littleimpact at all on gender relations in society (Moser1989). Certainly, the longer-term strategic gender aimsare more difficult to deliver, and, as such, somefeminists are worried that the political aims ofempowerment may become lost. A key question,then, in the context of this paper is the extentto which the development of new environmentalknowledges by women (and men for that matter)in support of economic production, perhaps evensurvival, is intertwined with women’s empower-ment. Certainly, with increased responsibilities foreconomic output and increased empowerment inhousehold reproduction goes the need to developnew knowledges in support of women’s changingroles in household reproduction. Some of theseknowledges, be they technical, environmental,market or other knowledges, may be indigenousto the community, others may be acquired fromoutside the community, whilst others may havedeveloped as mediated or hybridized knowledges.

Little of the recent interest in indigenous know-ledge, however, has specifically addressed women’senvironmental knowledges. There appears to beat least implicitly a masculinist perspective inmuch of our thinking about indigenous knowledge,an assumption that environmental and technicalknowledges in particular lie in the men’s domainand are of little relevance to women’s everydaylives. This echoes the notion that if skills or know-ledges relate to (domestic) household reproduction,then they are predominantly women’s knowledges;but if they relate to external economic produc-tion, then they are men’s knowledge. But thisdenies women the possibility of managing economicproduction in their own right, as well as ignoringthe fact that women may possess an important setof knowledges from beyond those related to thedomestic arena of the household. Indeed, theproblem of taking women’s indigenous knowledgeseriously is further compounded because of the waysin which there has been a general silencing of theindigenous (male) voice anyway, not least becauseAfricans have been all too often represented as


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unscientific exploiters, or even ‘pirates’, of the naturalresource base (MacKenzie 1995; Hobbs 1998).There still exists the view that too many people areirresponsible and profligate in their use of therangelands, that they have no sense of obligationto others in the community, and that they havelittle or no conception of resource management(see the pervasive and, in many quarters, still influ-ential view of Hardin (1968)). Hence, if indigenousknowledge is not to be taken seriously anyway,then the marginal position of women in manycommunities presumably makes their knowledgeseven less worthy.

Such negative views of indigenous knowledgesystems are supported by important critiques. Alltoo often indigenous knowledges seem to be toonarrowly focused on issues related to technicalknowledges and soil management systems, ratherthan issues related to the broader natural resourcebase. Moreover, such knowledges are seen tobe too place-specific anyway to be of much usegenerally, and especially so in relation to theclaims of ‘universal knowledge’ made by formalscience. Adams

et al

. (1994) particularly recognizethe spatial heterogeneity of indigenous knowledgeand hence warn against overgeneralization. Ifthis is the case, then it is only as a method, not asa body of knowledge, that indigenous knowledgemay be readily transferable over space. Other criticsargue that indigenous knowledge research oftenfails to ground itself in its economic, environmen-tal, political or cultural contexts, almost as thoughit takes place in some timeless, placeless dimen-sion (Bell 1979; Bebbington 1993; McCabe 1990).Indigenous knowledges are frequently chargedwith being static and unchanging, unlike modernscience which is represented as dynamic andever-changing. Indeed, despite the proliferationof academic work in the field (see, for example,Bellon 1995; Briggs

et al

. 1998; Lamers and Feil1995; Maddox

et al

. 1996; Tiffen

et al

. 1994; Reij

et al

. 1996; Sillitoe 1998), there remains a persist-ent reluctance among many in the developmentcommunity to embrace these ideas seriously.Formal science still represents a powerful body ofknowledge; it is still the language of authority anddominance in many development debates. Indeed,Pretty has observed that ‘the trouble with normalscience is that it gives credibility to opinion onlywhen it is defined in scientific language, whichmay be inadequate for describing the complex andchanging experiences of farmers and other actorsin rural development’ (1994, 38). This representsa particularly difficult set of issues, especially forthose advocating the utility of indigenous know-ledge and its wider acceptance into developmentdiscourses, but a set of issues worth challenging.

Against this background, the paper has two mainaims. The first is to explore how women, underconditions of changing resource opportunities, havetaken responsibility for developing new environmentalknowledges, and modifying existing ones, as partof household economic production. The secondis to analyse how such knowledges have beenaffected by, and indeed have contributed to,changing gender roles, and thus, to an extent,gender relations. The empirical context of thiswork relates to a community of Bedouin womenin the Wadi Allaqi area of the Eastern Desert ofsouthern Egypt (Figure 1). Of particular concernfor the community are the challenges created bythe new and changed natural resource opportunitiesproduced by the creation of Lake Nasser formedbehind the Aswan High Dam in the 1970s. TheBedouin have had to adapt to the new circumstances,and to develop new environmental knowledges insupport of their economic activities, and both menand women have been involved. In this context, anunderstanding of changing gender roles within thecommunity becomes important.

Wadi Allaqi: the study area

Wadi Allaqi is located about 180 km south ofAswan in the Eastern Desert of Egypt (Figure 1).It is characterized by a hyperarid environment;rainfall hardly ever falls in the downstream part ofthe wadi, and an annual average of only 50 mm isexperienced in the hill areas to the east and south-east. Hence, Lake Nasser is a crucial source ofreliable water. Small livestock production of sheepand goats comprises a fundamental componentof the Bedouin economy in the Eastern Desert, withthe other components (camel herding, charcoalproduction, small-scale cultivation, medicinal plantcollection, trading, and, increasingly, wage labour)generally being of lesser importance (Briggs

et al.

1993). Traditionally, small livestock production hasbeen dominated by men, and women typicallyhave made only limited inputs. For those Bedouincommunities around the shore of Lake Nasser,the success of livestock production is still very dep-endent on transhumance practices. The flocksare moved from areas on the shore of Lake Nasser,where they are grazed during the late spring,summer and early autumn, to higher areas in theRed Sea Hills and elsewhere in the autumnand winter (Briggs 1995). This takes advantage ofgrazing resources in these areas which are stimu-lated by relatively small amounts of winter rain.Although it was common up until about 15–20years ago for the whole household to move withthe flocks, such winter herding of sheep and goatsin the Red Sea Hills is now largely only a male

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activity. For the rest of the year, the water fromLake Nasser supports grazing materials around thelakeshore as well as providing a secure supply ofwater for both humans and animals.

Within the study area, three main Ababda clansare present (Hamedab, Sadenab, and Fashekab),and each is located in a particular geographicalarea within Wadi Allaqi, as agreed between them.This ensures that each group has access to its owngrazing resources and hence prevents any potentialconflict. The Fashekab and Hamedab groupsare somewhat wealthier then the Sadenab. A keyelement in this is camel ownership, as camelsprovide a means of transport for Bedouin resultingin an increase in economic opportunities. Owner-ship of camels permits three to four people (almostexclusively men), along with equipment, food and

water supplies, to travel into the hills with sheepflocks in excess of 100 animals for winter grazing.Not only does this improve the quality of sheep(hence raising lambing percentages), but it alsoreduces some of the grazing pressure in WadiAllaqi. Camels can also be used to transport charcoalmade from dead acacia wood in the hills whilstBedouin are tending the sheep, back to WadiAllaqi and even directly to Aswan for sale. There isa clear production advantage from owning camels.Significantly, both the Fashekab and Hamedab ownlarge numbers of camels; the Sadenab do not.Hence, the Sadenab are denied these importantproduction opportunities, and this shows in termsof relative wealth levels between the clans.

Regardless of the communities’ relative wealthlevels, earlier research in the area has shown that

Figure 1 Location of the study area


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people possess a well-developed local (indigenous)knowledge of natural resources (Briggs

et al.

1998; 1999). This is especially so in relation to theimportance of different vegetation resources forlivestock grazing and other purposes. An importantshortcoming of previous work, however, is that itfocused exclusively on male environmental know-ledges (but see White 1994; Solway and Mekki1999). Until now, the economic contribution ofwomen to the Bedouin household economy in thisarea has been somewhat neglected. This reflectsthe dominant representation of men as the keyeconomic actors in the area (see, for example,Hobbs 1990; 1998), and the very practical difficultyof people from outside the immediate familygaining entry to female spaces.

However, without doubt, women have had totake on greater responsibilities for livestock carein Wadi Allaqi itself. When the flocks are takento winter grazing by men, significant numbers ofsheep and goats are left behind to be cared for bythe women. These include pregnant and lactatinganimals, young animals, as well as those that aresick. This may total 50 or more animals for anindividual woman, and frequently her children, tolook after. Since the creation of Lake Nasser, it hasnow become much more common for at least part,and usually most, of the household to remainpermanently near to the lakeshore, in areas such asWadi Allaqi. As it is the women of the householdswho have become more sedentary, largely due tothe attraction of a reliable water supply from LakeNasser, and now rarely go ‘up-country’ with themen, this has led to inevitable changes, particularlyin relation to small livestock production. Theresponsibility for managing those sheep and goatskept around the Lake Nasser shoreline in the areasof more permanent settlement has mainly, althoughnot exclusively, become a female and child activ-ity, even at those times when men may be present.

The research for this study was carried out asa longitudinal survey over a period of 12 months.Four extended family focus groups of Bedouinwere selected and each was visited at least onceper month by a team of researchers, comprisingat least three people. The meetings comprised in-depth conversations, sometimes lasting over twohours, with each of the groups. Although therewas an agreed checklist of topics to be covered,the emphasis of the discussions was very much oninformality. Hence, we describe these meetings asconversations rather than interviews. Bedouin areuncomfortable with the use of tape-recorders andnote taking, thus records of each meeting had tobe written up after leaving each group. A result ofthis is that it has not been possible to record longpassages of the words of our research participants.

As the meetings took place, the degree of trust andopenness increased, in both directions, and hencethe research team became more confident of thequality of information collected. Within each of theBedouin groups, both men and women participatedin the discussions, but in separate spaces.

The development of women’s local environmental knowledges

Women generally are more strongly supportivethan men towards the process of sedentarization inthe downstream Wadi Allaqi area, and few womenstill accompany men into the hills for winter sheepgrazing and/or charcoal-making. This has been adecision made largely by the women themselves,by choosing to engage in new household reproduc-tion activities in the vicinity of the lakeshore,taking advantage of a reliable water supply, as wellas improved grazing and soil resources associatedwith the relatively new resource of the lake. Aconsequence is that many men are absent fromdownstream Wadi Allaqi for periods of severalweeks at a time whilst they are upstream, or whilstthey are visiting Aswan to the north for business orfamily reasons. Hence, the responsibility for smalllivestock production in Wadi Allaqi itself increas-ingly rests with women. For them, however, theattraction of a secure water supply in Wadi Allaqieasily outweighs the burden of greater responsibili-ties they take on with the livestock. Consequently,women’s lives have increasingly become moreoriented by necessity towards those areas andenvironments in the immediate vicinity of thesettlements within Wadi Allaqi. As a result, women’senvironmental knowledges are becoming morespatially restricted than those which many menpossess. Men’s knowledges are constantly beingmediated by experiences and wider contacts withpeople elsewhere in the desert, as well as withcontacts and experiences in the urban environ-ments of Aswan and other Nile Valley towns to thenorth. Even within Wadi Allaqi itself, it is the menwho are more likely to meet and talk to travellersand visitors to the area. Hence, a combination oflong-standing social practices, restricting women’saccess to information in a wider world, andthe much more recent, more restrictive personalgeographies experienced by women as they havebecome sedentarized in Wadi Allaqi has meantthat their environmental knowledges have becomeby necessity much more localized.

This has had an important influence on both accessto, and the management of, grazing resources. Theconsequence of these more restricted geographiesis that those animals for which they have responsi-bility are limited only to the grazing resources by

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the lakeshore. Unlike most men, women do not haveaccess to alternative winter grazing in the hills. Forthose livestock dependent all the year round ondownstream Wadi Allaqi grazing resources, thishas led to a dependence on a relatively narrowrange and limited quality of feed types, with impli-cations for both livestock health and productivity.As a consequence, women have had to developnew knowledges about grazing materials availablefor the small livestock under their care in WadiAllaqi. On the face of it, there is a reasonable mixof grazing resources and feeds available, rangingfrom grasses grazed

in situ

, through aquatic vegeta-tion collected from the lake and then dried, togreen material from trees and shrubs such as tamariskand acacia (Table 1). Interestingly, the seven grazingand feed types listed in Table 1 are made up ofboth old and new resources as far as the womenare concerned, in other words a combination of old

and new environmental knowledges. For example,although acacia is well known to Bedouin, bothwomen and men, as a source of feed for livestock,it is not very abundant in downstream Wadi Allaqiand therefore of limited importance here. In anycase, Bedouin generally only use acacia as a feedsource of last resort, as acacia leaves are still usuallyavailable in the severest of droughts long after otherfeed sources have disappeared. Similarly,

handal

was well known to the women before they settledin Wadi Allaqi, but, like acacia, it is not profuse inthe downstream area (although some have chosento cultivate

handal

as a feed, but only on a limitedscale). The presence of these two feed types in therange of resources available raises an interestingquestion as to the extent to which these are resid-ual knowledges still held by women, and know-ledges that are becoming relatively less important. Ifthey become unimportant as feed for small livestock

Table 1 Main livestock feed types/sources used by women in downstream Wadi Allaqi

Name Description Availability

Nageela (in Arabic) (includes Fimbristylis bis-umbellata; Eragirstis aegyptica; Cyperus pygmaeus; Crypsis schoenoides)

Collective name given to four grass and herb types which grow close to the lakeshore after inundation

Between November and May, as the annual lake level recedes

Toroba (in Arabic) (Glinus lotoides)

A ground cover plant growing close tothe lake shore after inundation. It can be grazed on site, or collected, dried and used at a later time

Between November and May, as the annual lake level recedes

Shilbeika (in Arabic) (Najas spp.) Aquatic vegetation which is collected from the lake shallows, dried and stored for later use, especially during the drought season

All the year round from the lake

Tamarisk (abl or tarfa in Arabic) (Tamarix nilotica)

A tree or bush which grows quite profusely in Wadi Allaqi, from which new leaf growth is used for feed as it has not yet become too salty

All the year round, but the recent high levelsof the lake have inundated most of the treesand bushes, either killing them or makingthem unavailable because of deep water

Acacia (generically sant in Arabic) (Acacia raddiana (sayal in Arabic); and Acacia ehrenbergiana (salam in Arabic))

A hardy desert tree from which leaves and sometimes fruits are taken for feed

Very few exist in downstream Wadi Allaqi and therefore not a major source of feed in this area (unlike in upstream areas where it can be locally important)

Handal (in Arabic) (Citrullus colocynthis)

A small prostate plant producing hard melon-like fruits containing seeds which can be dried and fed to livestock

Not very common in downstream Wadi Allaqi, but is cultivated by some Bedouin (and called gawerna in Arabic)

Purchased feed Mainly maize or sorghum grain purchased from Aswan (average price LE1.50 per kilo), but sometimes also sacks of dry or stale bread (variable prices)

All the year, but this represents a large cost input

Note: LE1 (one Egyptian Pound) equalled about US$3.50 at the time of the research.Source: Bedouin interview materials from Wadi Allaqi, April 2000–April 2001.


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production in Wadi Allaqi, then they may indeedeventually become forgotten in the context of thenew physical environment and its new opportunities.

Nageela

(a collective Arabic word for grassesand herbs) is also recognized by women as havingbeen present in upstream areas, growing in responseto winter rain. However, as sheep and goat prod-uction was less important as a female activity atthat time, because men were around more often,women had less reason to be familiar with this asa feed resource. In any case, any such knowledgeneeded to be modified in the context of the down-stream area, because

nageela

responds not toscarce annual rainfall, but to the annual inundationcycle of Lake Nasser. Whereas in the upstreamareas, such as Ungat and Eigat (see Figure 1), theappearance of

nageela

is both temporally andspatially unpredictable, in the downstream area itis highly predictable as the lake level recedes andthe saturated lakeshore emerges. It is, however,only available for part of the year and, in any case,it is grazed off very quickly by livestock, leadingto the complaint that there is never enough of it.Nonetheless,

nageela

is seen to have good nutri-tional qualities for livestock.

The other four feed types represent new feedsabout which women have had to develop newknowledges. Like

nageela

,

toroba

only becomesavailable when the lake level drops, thus enablingsuch plants to grow on the exposed lakeshore.However, it is only available for grazing fromabout November until May/June at the most. Givengrazing pressures in the area, much of this vegeta-tion has little opportunity to establish itself andhence to produce any significant biomass. ByApril/May, temperatures are such that scorchingof young growth becomes a serious problem. Thereare, however, serious difficulties in using

toroba

asfeed material. Although it can be grazed

in

situ

onthe immediate lake shore immediately after thelake has retreated, women prefer to collect and dryit, as it has a somewhat bitter taste for animalswhen wet. It is always new

toroba

that is grazedor collected, because, as it matures, it becomesincreasingly bitter and poisonous for sheep dueto the higher content of toxic components in theplant’s mature stage. Even fresh

toroba

can beproblematic when wet, as it can cause diarrhoea.When

toroba

is cut or dies and is exposed to thesun the toxic components decompose. Sheep andgoats will eat mature

toroba

if they are hungry as alast resort, but this can cause excessive thirst. Theresult can be that animals will drink too much andthis in turn can cause respiratory problems. Wewere told that one Fashekab man lost around 100sheep a few years ago after they ate mature

toroba

.It should be noted that the availability of

toroba

is

not consistent throughout Wadi Allaqi. Although

toroba

grows profusely in Wadi Um Ashira andalso in the Sadenab area, it is far less common inWadi Quleib.

Shilbeika

is another feed resource previouslycompletely unknown to Bedouin, but about whichthey have developed a thorough practical knowledge.This aquatic vegetation is plentiful and, importantly,is available throughout the year. However, itscollection is difficult and tiring work, especiallyin winter when the water is cold, and large amountsof wet vegetation provide only relatively smallamounts of dry feed matter. After being harvestedfrom the lake, it is dried, because if not, it cancause diarrhoea, and therefore loss of condition,among sheep. Bedouin women are well aware ofthis problem. Nonetheless, they sometimes feedsheep with small amounts of

shilbeika

in a wetcondition if they have no dry material available asan alternative, a clear indication of feed pressuresin the area. This is an especially important issuefor the Sadenab, the poorest of the communities,who are particularly dependent upon

shilbeika

asa grazing resource.

Shilbeika

is collected all yearround, even when plenty of alternative grazing isavailable, and it is dried before being stored. It isparticularly used in the drought season. It is impor-tant that the

shilbeika

is grazed or cut becausewhen the lake retreats, exposed

shilbeika

rots andcan prevent new

nageela

from coming through,thus reducing available grazing areas.

Likewise, tamarisk is another new feed, but onlythe young shoots of this tree are collected, as theolder, more mature material is too salty and there-fore unpalatable for livestock. However, even thisresource has come under pressure since 1999 withthe unprecedented high lake levels completelyinundating all the tamarisk stock and thereforenot being accessible to small stock for severalmonths at a time. It is only those trees that remainemergent above the water near to the lakeshorethat are currently available, and it is only fromthese that fodder can be collected. In any case,tamarisk is not a particularly favoured feed asit gives milk a poor taste and leads to a steady lossof livestock condition. An additional problemof tamarisk, when it is growing away from the lakewater, is that its canopy creates shade and soreduces the amount and quality of undergrowththat could be used for grazing. Even more impor-tantly, decayed leaf drop from tamarisk increasesthe salt content of the area immediately surround-ing the tree or bush, with inevitable consequencesfor other vegetation types.

The difficulties with these feeds are varied, andrelate to availability, quantity and quality. It is clear,therefore, that reliance on locally available and

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accessible vegetation for grazing and collected feedis problematic. One solution to this is to buy infeed from Aswan, either grain or unused dry bread.This is an expensive solution, as the prices arerelatively high and there is the added problem oftransporting these feeds the 180 km back to WadiAllaqi. For women there is the added complicationthat they rarely visit Aswan themselves and so arevery reliant on men to bring this back for them. Forthese reasons, in reality, this source is seldom usedby Bedouin women.

It is clear that, in support of their new and addedresponsibilities for small livestock production inWadi Allaqi, women have had to develop andmodify their environmental knowledge base. Farfrom being reactionary, they have been proactive,in many cases using trial and error experimenta-tion. Women have not relied on men forenvironmental knowledge acquisition, but havedeveloped such knowledges themselves in thecontext of their changing economic roles sincebecoming increasingly sedentarized in WadiAllaqi. This has especially been the case withregard to the use of the aquatic

shilbeika

, forexample. Indeed, there are grounds for supposingthat, because of the daily demands for animal feed,some women may now have developed a betterknowledge and understanding of these resourcesthan some men.

The socio-economic contextualization of women’s indigenous environmental knowledges

Developing and possessing such environmentalknowledges, and the opportunity to use them totheir fullest extent, may however be two ratherdifferent things. It is apparent that such know-ledges, to make any sense, must be contextualizedand grounded in the wider socio-economicenvironment, as other factors and constraints mayserve to reduce such opportunities. For example,women already have a full workload, such thatlooking after sheep and goats constitutes only oneof many livelihood activities. Such responsibilitiesinclude caring for children and ill and very elderlyrelatives, cooking, cleaning, water and firewoodcollection, and even the relocation of tents withinWadi Allaqi in response to lakeshore movements.The relative importance of all these activities variesbetween households, and between different timeperiods in the same household. Small livestocktending may therefore not always be given consist-ently top priority. Importantly, girls help out withthese various household activities when they areold enough; indeed, evidence from this studysuggests that one of the main areas in which bothgirls and boys help out with household reproduc-

tion is in looking after sheep and goats on a dailybasis. For boys, this is part of the growing-upprocess in terms of learning how to care for smallanimals in anticipation of them joining adult menin taking sheep to the hills for winter grazing, oncethey themselves reach the age of about 14–15 yearsor so. However, children are not always as carefulas they might be in their care of sheep. In particular,little management of shoreline grazing is demon-strated, and some Bedouin suggest that the grazingpressures around the lakeshore are exacerbated bythe relative lack of regular adult supervision.

The issue is further complicated by the structureof households which influences the extent towhich women value small livestock production aseconomic activities within the context of the wholehousehold economy. This is even the case amongthose women who have developed an effectivelocal environmental knowledge, but the ways inwhich that knowledge may be put to use may beinfluenced and mediated by their social context.An important discriminating factor concerns themarital status of older women. Those women whohave husbands consistently give a lower priority tosheep and goat caring, in comparison to widows,regardless of their depth of environmental know-ledge in relation to livestock feeds. Widows havefar less security and therefore generally see sheepand goat production as a key way of sustainingthemselves. Women with husbands have accessto a greater range of economic activity and income(for example, sheep, goats, camels, charcoal,medicinal herbs etc.). Access to these productionelements is very much dependent on access to thewider desert beyond Wadi Allaqi, the very thingthat has increasingly become much more clearlydefined in recent years as a male geographic space.Widows are generally excluded from this world.Sometimes a widow may have a male relativewho is willing to take some of her sheep with hisown flock to access winter grazing in the hills. Theresult is that widows, through necessity, have to makegreater use of locally produced environmentalknowledges in their daily management of livestock.Widowhood not only creates problems of socialexclusion, but is part of a wider process of economicmarginalization, and, because of only a limitedrange of economic opportunities, this marginalizationnecessitates a keener use of indigenous knowledgesto survive than those women who may have agreater access through a husband to a wider rangeof economic opportunities.

Women are only too aware of the inadequaciesof feed resources in the area, and their consequentimpacts on lambing percentages and quantity andquality of milk, as well as on the general healthand condition of livestock. Naturally available


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grazing is neither profuse nor always present indownstream Wadi Allaqi. However, many womenrecognize the benefits to be gained from diversify-ing feed types for livestock. Because women havebecome geographically constrained to Wadi Allaqi,their environmental knowledges of this area havehad by necessity to become more specialized, andin some instances have become deeper than thoseheld by some men. Many have a firmer grasp ofthe area’s resource opportunities, and particularlyconstraints, for small livestock management andproduction. Once again, marital status is important;even though those women with husbands rarely goto the desert themselves, they do nonetheless haveaccess to the productive capacities of the desertthrough their husbands. Widows do not havethis option, and therefore have to make the best ofthe natural resource base available to them indownstream Wadi Allaqi. Widows are in an ambig-uous position in society as regards gender roles inthat they are forced from necessity to adopt tasksnormally only available to men, and that othermarried women may eschew.

Unsurprisingly, men in the communities aredivided in their views over women’s changing rolesin relation to livestock production and resourcemanagement. All are agreed about the economicimportance of women in the tasks they perform,but not all are wholly comfortable with some ofthe recent changes. Whereas the notion of womencaring for small groups of sheep and goats is gener-ally accepted by men, this is only in the contextof providing milk for household consumption. Allrecognize that the realities of present circum-stances, where sheep are taken for winter grazingaway from Wadi Allaqi, has resulted in manage-ment changes which have necessitated womentaking on greater responsibilities, but this isan empowerment which is not always universallywelcomed. Interestingly, views were expressedsuggesting that some years ago the idea of womentaking greater responsibility for looking after signif-icant numbers of sheep and goats was consideredquite negatively, but changed economic circum-stances have brought about these changes. This ledto speculation that other aspects may also changein the next few years. For example, at the momentit is culturally forbidden for Bedouin women tomilk animals or to sell animals themselves tooutsiders, which clearly includes making visitsto markets. Some men, however, were prepared toconsider the possibility of such changes in thefuture. Others were clearly not as well disposed,suggesting that changing gender roles in terms ofproduction is creating uneven tensions within thecommunities, in that some women were becoming‘too independent for their own good’.

This supposed independence in a sense can beseen in other ways. In general, women in Wadi Allaqiare more interested in cultivation than are men,and widows more than married women. Womenthemselves are perhaps developing a different con-struction, or knowledge, of their immediate envir-onment, a knowledge which sees the cultivation ofsmall farms as an additional way of exploiting localresources, of spreading risk and of trying to improvethe household’s material circumstances. At a practicallevel, because women are now virtually permanentresidents of the downstream area, they are on handto see through the cultivation cycle. But it is morethan this, to the extent that women appear to havea sharper awareness of the consequences of thegrazing limitations of the area. Cultivation thereforeprovides an additional hedge against risk. Cultur-ally, some men perceive cultivation as not ‘workfor a Bedouin [man]’. All this would seem to pointto women, and especially widows, being a groupmore open to cultivating feed crops in supportof livestock, and further developing local environ-mental knowledge through their own experiences.What becomes apparent is that if women’s house-hold roles had not changed in relation to newsettlement patterns and to different economicopportunities, then women would not have devel-oped new environmental knowledges.

There is, however, a danger with this argumentin seeing women as an homogenous group andof promoting a gender stereotype of women ascultivators and men as livestock herders. Realityis more complex. It is not only women, but alsothose poor families, more generally, who do nothave access to camels for desert transport, whoare constrained to the immediate environment indownstream Wadi Allaqi and the limited resourcesit offers. In this context, of the three main clans inthe area, the Sadenab, with limited resources,constitute the group which rarely goes to the desertfor winter grazing or charcoal-making. Of all theBedouin in the area, it is families from this clanwho demonstrate the greatest interest in cultivatingsmall farms near to the lakeshore, regardless ofgender or female marital status. This would appearto be because of an awareness of the pressure onthe local environment and the need to utilize localresources in a wider context. Following this line ofargument, a key issue would appear to be house-hold wealth, which, in turn, has an importantinfluence on the gender relations which existwithin particular households and clans. Because ofthe constraints imposed by being less well-off thanother groups, Sadenab people have had to developlocal environmental knowledges which may bedifferent to those of other wealthier groups, andwhich clearly reflect local circumstances.

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Without doubt, women see the cultivation ofanimal feed as only a supplement to existing feedtypes to ensure a longer-term stabilizing of animalquality at least effort for women. Indeed, suchfeed cultivation is rarely at the expense of foodcrop production. Widows in Wadi Allaqi are moreinterested and engaged in cultivation than otherwomen, perhaps due to the necessity of providingeconomic diversification for themselves, somethingthat is available to married women through theirhusbands’ wider geographical access to theresources of the desert and the markets of Aswan.They are certainly more likely to engage in cultiva-tion, although more to supplement their own foodneeds rather than producing feed for livestock. Akey reason for this emphasis on food needs is thatthey argue that not enough animal feed can becultivated to make the labour input worthwhile,that ‘within days sheep have eaten two monthsof crop growth’. A combination of growing suchcrops on small plots of only a few square metres insome cases, and therefore producing only verysmall amounts, and then feeding this material tothe livestock, without mixing with other feed types,explains this. Nonetheless, when feed crops areproduced, however modestly, three favoured feedtypes are likely to be grown. Maize (

zora

in Arabic)and sorghum (

dura

) have the advantage of not onlyproducing a grain, but also green material from thediscarded stalk. Such grains are widely used bysheep producers in the Nile valley to fatten animalsand are generally seen to give a good return.Lucerne (

berseem

) is also widely used in the Nilevalley, although the view is that sheep fed only onlucerne produce less meat than those on a mixedlucerne

and grain diet. The combination of thesecultivated feeds and naturally available grazingat different times of the year in Wadi Allaqi is seenas a way of improving sheep quality. However,the availability of labour to cultivate these cropsconstitutes a major constraint.

There are also other important problems tobe addressed. Firstly, a dependable water supplyis crucial to women committing scarce labourresources to cultivation. There needs to be aguarantee that the water supply will not disappearonce cultivation is underway. At the foot of bothWadi Um Ashira and Wadi Quleib, where eachjoins Wadi Allaqi, a number of hand pumps havebeen installed by Aswan Governorate. However,even after only a few weeks’ service, some becameunusable. They are also physically tiring to use,such that women and older children can only usethem for relatively short periods of time. An alter-native arrangement has been to dig wells fromwhich water is then pumped onto the cultivatedplots through lengths of hosepipe by diesel-driven

pumps. Part of the problem of site selection forcultivation is predicting lakeshore changes. Siteswith flat gradients are inappropriate in thatlakeshore movements in such areas can be exten-sive with the result that plots can be easilyinundated, and then, when the lake retreats againlater in the year, the same plots can be left withdry wells with the lakeshore some 8–10 km distant.The most appropriate sites, therefore, are locatedon steeper gradients at the edge of Wadi Allaqi,preferably at the junctions with side wadis, includ-ing Wadis Um Ashira and Quleib. At suchlocations, water is usually available in wells for upto three months after the plot has been established,hence ensuring that there is a sufficiently longgrowth and maturation period for crops.

Another common complaint among women relatedto the difficulty of keeping sheep and particularlygoats off their growing crops, something theyhave experienced for some time with regard totheir existing cultivation efforts. Some use cuttamarisk tree branches as a fencing material, butthis tends to encourage the use of smaller plotsbecause of the large amount of woody materialneeded to protect successfully a large plot fromanimal incursions. There is the added problem that,once

in situ

, it is very hard and time-consumingwork to move this type of fencing material toa fresh site or plot. A solution devised by someBedouin women is to use old fishing nets supportedby tamarisk posts as fences around cultivated plots.This has the advantage of being light and flexibleto use, and whereas some animals may push theirway through even some of the thickest tamariskfences, they are far less willing to risk becomingentangled in fishing net.

Once again, it is the poorer women, frequentlywidows, who are likely to be more positivetowards embracing changes that may contribute toimproving sheep productivity. Wealthier women,or at least women with access to a greater rangeof economic output through marriage, are lesspositive. Ironically, what may seem to be anempowering move of women taking charge ofresources and of making a positive contributionto household income, may instead be seen to bean unplanned activity of last resort by widows inparticular. At the time of writing, two women (fromthe Sadenab group), both widows, have taken upsome of these ideas and are experimenting withthem. If successful in their cultivation efforts, thiscould have wider implications for the confidencethat Bedouin women in Wadi Allaqi have in theirabilities to contribute to the household economy.However, another interpretation in the communityis that this is an act of desperation undertaken bywidows, an act driven by poverty and not by any


323

particular desire for empowerment. Even if the firstinterpretation prevails, this more ‘strategic genderaim’ (Moser 1989), that other women in thecommunity may follow the lead of the Sadenabwidows, is likely to take longer than might beexpected.

A potentially important part of women’s empow-erment is the development of economic productiondirectly for the market to generate a greater cashincome. Although the origin of sheep (whetherthey are from the desert or the Nile valley) is animportant factor in the level of market price, it isclear that the type of feed is at least equally asimportant. Sheep from Wadi Allaqi are thereforepenalized twice. Firstly, desert sheep (

ghanambishari

) consistently attract a lower price thanvalley sheep (

ghanam baladi

), seemingly regardlessof condition; and, secondly, Allaqi sheep tend tobe at the poorer end of condition of desert sheep,reflecting the poor nature of the grazing and feedon which they are raised. Bedouin women are notparticularly aware of the nature and extent of theseprice differentials, reflecting their lack of participa-tion in sheep marketing. However, after discussionsof these differentials, some women accepted thatimproved feed would improve productivity andtherefore price. The problem of how women accessmarkets still remains, however. Although somewomen do trade small animals in the main marketsin Aswan and Daraw, such women are few innumber, and significantly they are Nile Valleyresidents and are not Bedouin. The cultural tabooof Bedouin women selling in the market remains asignificant constraint and is likely to do so for sometime to come. The market is still overwhelmingly amale space and whatever changing gender roleshave occurred in the context of small livestockgrazing and production in areas like Wadi Allaqi,no such changes have occurred in the marketplaces of the Nile Valley for Bedouin women.Although social and cultural attitudes in the marketplace may be changing and women’s roles in thelivestock economy may be broadening, there arestill distinct and important cultural issues whichmilitate against this. Participation by women is stilllimited to those from the Nile Valley, and, amongthis group, largely to those who have few othermeans of survival, especially widows and divor-cees. The prospect of Bedouin women from thedesert selling their own sheep in the markets ofAswan, Daraw or elsewhere cannot be contem-plated at this point in time. Therefore, if Bedouinwomen are to sell sheep, they are going to have tobe wholly reliant on male family to do this.However, this may not be an issue for many, assheep are typically seen as a household asset.Women may be responsible for looking after those

sheep left in Wadi Allaqi, but few, if any, womensee those sheep as exclusively their property. Ifthe quality of those sheep is improved, and theystart to command higher market prices because ofthis, then that will represent a significant contribu-tion by women to the household economy. Theproblem, however, remains for those who arewidowed and may not have such male familysupport.

Conclusions

The economic role of Bedouin women in WadiAllaqi has changed considerably over the last fewyears, and especially so with increased sedentari-zation. The changes have been challenging in thatwomen have had to develop two new sets ofknowledges and skills. One has been to look afterand maintain larger numbers of sheep and goatsthan they had done previously, and the otherhas been to develop knowledges about grazingresources that can be used to support thoselivestock. Without doubt, the changed genderroles associated with such sedentarization havehad an important impact on the accumulation anddevelopment of new environmental knowledgesby women. Moreover, such developments do notsuggest a static, conservative and unchangingapproach to environmental knowledge, indeedquite the opposite. Such knowledges can be seento be fluid, dynamic and ever-changing, almostwith an internal dynamism that is forever capableof being reworked and showing a willingness bywomen to evaluate and accumulate new know-ledges and information for themselves (see Agrawal1995; Bebbington 1993; Briggs

et al

. 1999).A further interesting observation from the results

concerns how gender intersects with both socialand economic status. It tends to be widows, aswell as women from poorer households, who havedeveloped the more acute local environmentalknowledges. This appears to have been done as acoping strategy, perhaps even a survival strategyin some cases. In that sense, the increased empow-erment that might be seen among women in WadiAllaqi, through their greater contribution to thehousehold economy, may be less to do with choiceand may be more to do with necessity.

However, perhaps more importantly have beenthe ways in which gender relations have beenreworked, posing interesting questions. Conceptu-ally, there is a significant difficulty in disentanglingwomen’s gender-driven socio-economic roles fromthat of the wider household. Approaches based onWID strategies are likely to be less successful in anenvironment where work is undertaken in the inter-ests of the household, rather than just specifically

324


for women. In Wadi Allaqi, although some womenpossess their own sheep (as part of a dowry, forexample), these sheep may be taken by men forwinter grazing as part of the total household flock.That is, although women know that they have theirown animals, in practical terms, women’s sheepare not seen as something separate from the overallhousehold resource. In a sense, this reinforces thenecessity of a GAD approach, which is sensitiveto the interests and roles of both men and women.This necessitates a further examination of genderrelations in different environmental conditions tounderstand more fully the roles of women and menin different situations.

It is also necessary to consider the differencesin environmental knowledges between women andmen in a wider sense than just related to smalllivestock production. Such results can inform moreeffective policy formulation, by drawing upon bothwomen and men’s understanding of the environ-ment and resources in order to develop sustainabledevelopment that is owned and directed by variousmembers of the communities involved. The chang-ing role of women in the livestock market-placealso deserves further examination in order to gain asense of future possibilities. Thus, in addition toconsidering gender roles and environmental know-ledges in other rural and desert locations, it will benecessary to examine whether Bedouin women,whose families have relocated to towns and citiesin the Nile Valley, can enter into the livestockeconomy, or if this activity must still be mediatedby men.

Acknowledgements

We wish to thank the Department for InternationalDevelopment for their financial support for thisresearch through their Academic Links and Genderand Development programmes, and the BritishCouncil for their support over a considerablenumber of years for the collaborative link betweenthe University of the South Valley in Aswan insouthern Egypt and the University of Glasgow inthe UK. We also wish to thank Professor AhmedBelal, the Director of the Unit for EnvironmentalStudies and Development, University of the SouthValley, for his support in this project, but, mostimportantly, the Bedouin women and men whopatiently took the time to talk with us. Thanks arealso due to Mike Shand for producing the map.

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Changing women's roles, changing environmental knowledges: evidence from Upper Egypt

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