Panel Abstracts
Presenter abstracter abstracts will be updated closer to the conference dates in February 2021
Food systems crisis: Strengthening gender equality and resiliency
Panelist - Dr. Hazel Malapit, Senior Research Coordinator at the Poverty, Health and Nutrition Division at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI)
Panelist - Dr. Mary Peabody, Community economic development specialist with University of Vermont Extension, and founding director of Women's Ag Network (WAgN) and the UVM Extension New Farmer project
Moderator - Cristina Manfre, M.Sc, Global Gender Director, TechnoServe
This theme will explore the gender dynamics that are the foundation of our global food systems. Current food systems are built on inequalities that maximize profits for global corporations while leaving many rural households vulnerable to and dependent on low paid and low skilled, often seasonal, employment. Global food chains rely on the unpaid or low-paid work of women and other actors who have only limited voice and agency to seek alternative income-earning opportunities or improve the conditions in which they work. While gains have been made since the 2007/08 food price crisis to strengthen food systems, the global pandemic of 2020 revealed the women and men who grow, process, and market food crops remain highly vulnerable to shocks and changes. It has also been a stark reminder of the underlying inequalities between women and men that limits women’s ability to benefit from their participation in these food systems. This panel will explore the scholarship and development interventions emerging from the COVID-19 pandemic that seek to strengthen global food systems by reducing inequalities and power imbalances, especially those related to gender.
Masculinities and engaging men in conversations on gender equality and women’s empowerment
Panelist - Dr. Gary Barker, President and CEO, Promundo U.S.
Panelist - Laxman Belbase, M.Sc, Global Co-Director, MenEngage
Moderator - Daniel Sumner, Assistant Director, Women and Gender in International Development at the Center for International Research, Education and Development, Virginia Tech
In the past decade, there has been increasing recognition of the importance of recognizing men and boys as gendered beings and constructively engaging them in development program and policies in order to transform harmful gender norms and unequal power dynamics. Likewise, the ongoing research has highlighted the connections between farming, rural livelihoods, and masculinity, demonstrating the ways conventional farming masculinities marginalize recognition of women’s active involvement in rural livelihoods as well as undermine men’s positive stress coping behaviors in times of increasing unpredictability and economic shocks. This panel will discuss opportunities for and implications of development programs focusing primarily on engaging men and boys to support women’s economic empowerment, reducing violence against women and girls, and promoting men’s involvement in caregiving.
Women, land, and power: How does gender intersect with agricultural decision-making in the U.S.?
Panelist - Dr. Angie Carter, Assistant Professor, Environmental/Energy Justice, Michigan Tech
Panelist - Dr. Gabrielle McNally, Women for the Land Initiative Director, American Farmland Trust
Moderator - Kaitlyn Spangler, M.Sc, Presidential Doctoral Research Fellow, Environment and Society Dept., Utah State University
This panel will present current research and foster discussion around the intersections of gender and agricultural landownership and decision-making in the United States. Panelists will discuss how women non-operating landowners (WNOLs) enact power over their rented land and the barriers they face navigating relationships with their tenants and practices on their land, such as crop choice, conservation, and other investments. Further, we will explore, through discussion, how processes of gendered land ownership and decision-making intersect with race, class, and sexuality to re-enforce and/or contest white supremacy in U.S. agriculture.
The colonial development experiment nexus and its gender, race and class impacts in the Caribbean
Panelist - Dr. Tami Navarro, Associate Director Barnard Center for Research on Women
Panelist - Dr. Halimah Deshong, Deputy Permanent Representative of the Permanent Mission of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG) to the United Nations and Head of the Institute for Gender & Development Studies: Nita Barrow Unit, at The University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus
Moderator - Dr. Andrea Baldwin, Assistant Professor, Women's and Gender Studies and Africana Studies programs, Department of Sociology Virginia Tech
This is a conversation-styled panel where panelists will address the ways in which the current development paradigms in the Caribbean are tied to a legacy of colonialism that continue to have devastating impacts on Caribbean people, environments and economies. The panelists will draw from their specific areas of research and specialization to discuss how developmental policies in the region have historically and contemporarily disproportionately impacted negatively, women, the poor and populations of color in the region. The panelists will also address how they have been able to apply their research on the ground in these countries of focus.
