Paper short abstract:

This paper presents a study on the effects of the increasing commercialization of African indigenous vegetables in Kenya. We analyze commercialization’s effects of former subsistence crops grown by women on gender relations in labor and decision-making power and highlight women’s agency.

Paper long abstract:

This study investigates the increased commercialization of African indigenous vegetables (AIV)—former subsistence crops grown by women—from a feminist economics perspective. We analyze commercialization’s effects on gender relations in labor and decision-making power and also highlight women’s agency.

Analyzing household-level panel data and qualitative focus groups from Kenya, we observe an economic empowerment of women that we relate to women’s individual and collective strategies as well as their retention of control over AIV selling and profits. Yet AIV commercialization does not contribute to a redistribution of land rights or labor; instead, it increases women’s labor burden. The results indicate that more attention should be paid not only to which tasks are redistributed among men and women but also to those tasks’ inherent characteristics, including working conditions, their effects on health, and control over income and land use. To conclude, while we see the economic empowerment of women through commercialization—how they broaden their scope of action and are empowered by generating revenue—that process does not contribute to a redistribution of labor or land rights, which are key for gender equality. In contrast, women’s labor burden has increased. Moreover, with the commodification of subsistence work and previously subsistence crops as common goods, social practices (selling instead of gifting or sharing, for example) may be entirely replaced by market-based forms of interaction.