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Paper short abstract:

This paper investigates how the complex social justice mechanisms in rural settings of developing countries shape women’s care work and contributions. By taking Atakora as a case study in West Africa, I question the boundaries of ‘female work’ not captured in existing social reproductive theory.

Paper long abstract:

Rural women, who work in local agricultural value chains in Atakora, Benin, narrate their experiences of their care burden. By taking Atakora as a case study in West Africa, I question the boundaries of ‘female work’, who draws them, and how they shape women’s experiences and opportunities of domestic and ‘productive’ labour? In this presentation, I will consider how the complex social justice mechanisms in rural settings of developing countries may shape women’s care work and contributions. The findings of this paper call into question the applicability of existing iterations of social reproductive theory (SRT) which model a western dyadic relationship between man and woman, husband and wife, through a western lens of analysis. Based on data collected during multi-year fieldwork (2017-2019) in rural Atakora, I argue for the expansion of existing understandings of SRT and care work to include the reality of women’s social world where women care what others think. Specifically, qualitative data of this research brings forth a novel form of care burden that includes ‘reputational cover’ or covering for economically inactive husbands in public. I argue this is additional unpaid labour is a form of social injustice that denies women credit for their own contributions and creates a situation where women’s work becomes even more invisible. As such, it may lead to the undervaluing of the amount and weight of women’s overall care burden in both the social and economic realms of responsibility that could distort policy interventions for poverty alleviation at the household level, and social justice at the community level.