Clans, gender and kilns: examples from a fisheries development project in Sota village, Tanzania
Gerrard, S.
Gender and change in developing countries: 223-246
1991
Document Number: 500945
Sota is a multi-ethnic village on the shores of Lake Victoria in the Mara Region of Tanzania. The chapter deals with cooperative ventures between female fish traders and representatives from the local and external fisheries bureaucracy and training institutions in Sota during 1987-89. The ventures aimed to improve the traditional fish smoking technology as well as women's ways of organizing the processing and distribution of fish. In the chapter, special emphasis is put on women, men and their cooperative relations through the small fisheries development project and the ensuing discussions and activities. In particular, the focus is on the way the local men and women and non-local men and women of the fisheries bureaucracy relate to such principles of social differentiation as gender, ethnicity, clanship or kin in defining goals, in forming groups and in distributing resources. Findings can be summarized as follows. First, the individual female fishmongers in the project perceived and employed clanship and kinship identities as main criteria when planning and implementing project activities. Second, the agents of change attached to the women's fisheries project placed great importance on women's production and trade as an activity through which women could become mobilized for development. Third, women who normally work within a household context can, when well organized and provided with external recognition and support, become a source of inspiration for development, recognized by both men and women in the village.