The 'Good Wife': Struggles over Resources in the Kenyan Horticultural Sector

Abstract

This paper examines how the contracting of French beans has engendered conflict over rights, obligations and resources in Meru District, Kenya. In response to pressure for agricultural diversification and the expanding European market for "gourmet" vegetables, horticulture, the historical domain of women, has been rapidly intensified, commoditized and in many cases, appropriated by men. Women have responded to the erosion of their rights in ways that appear paradoxical -- some undergoing Christian conversion while others poison their husbands -- practices that simultaneously affirm and contest the prevailing norms of the "good wife". In Meru, gender relations are key to the negotiation of household resources and the potential for capital accumulation in the export horticultural sector.