At the center, life: rural women weaving care and mobilization
Tamara Artacker, Alejandra Santillana Ortiz and Belén Valencia Castro[1]
In this month and a half of forced confinement, the measures taken by most governments around the world highlight the structural crisis we are witnessing. A crisis that is no longer just about care, but about the sustainability of life itself. Before the pandemic, in that normality that those in power defend, life was already threatened by capitalism, patriarchy, and racism. But it is at this moment, when pandemic and brutal capitalism also reveals itself as a historical order that is no longer inevitable, that this is the time that shows us most clearly that a more just life is possible, one not based on accumulation, violence, the interests of elites, and waste. Perhaps if we were to think and decide together what is common and most necessary for the majority of the population, the unpredictability of this time could simultaneously be “the opening of a new possibility against the inevitable” (Bifo, 2020).[2]A new possibility that is, for now, a trial that is not closed, that does not control everything.
It is in uncertainty as the principle of current reality, and in the unfinished as the ethic of transformation, that the experiences and reflections of peasant and Indigenous women living in rural Ecuador take place, informing these reflections written collaboratively. How does social reproduction occur in peasant economies in contexts of global health crises, such as the one we are currently experiencing? What does care tell us in times of relational paralysis? What meanings do the concrete experiences of Indigenous, peasant, and rural women's organizations have had in navigating the health crisis and emergencies during the pandemic?
Speaking, thinking, doing: care sustains the world
Women perform 76% of the world's unpaid work. In Ecuador, we women dedicate an average of 31 hours per week to this work, while men only dedicate 9 hours per week. But among women, those living in rural areas of the country work the most: while women in the city dedicate 17 hours per week, in the countryside, women give 25 hours of their time to reproductive labor. Cleaning; washing dishes, clothes, and bathrooms; cooking at least three times a day; feeding and herding animals; working in the fields; attending to children's needs and participating in parent-teacher meetings at schools; weeding; participating in community workdays and meetings of organizations; listening, advising, and caring for husbands, family, friends, and neighbors; being guardians of seeds and food sovereignty; cultivating water in the high-altitude grasslands; protecting rivers…
Our work is the “invisible heart” (Fraser) that produces value but lacks monetary expression in the capitalist market; it is what fulfills a material or emotional need. This world that generates value, that allows all other work to continue, and that ensures we eat, rest, have clean spaces, clean clothes, etc., is the one that feminist economics illuminates. Feminist economics—says Amaia Pérez Orozco—"is an economic theory and it is also action" because, while questioning the tenets of traditional economic theory that fosters inequalities between men and women by rendering them invisible, it proposes alternatives for "the way of producing, exchanging, consuming, and caring that challenges relations of domination and puts life at the center" (Pérez Orozco 2018). In this sense, feminist economics shows the complexity in which the economy is woven in the capitalist mode of production and at the same time finds in existing experiences other organizational principles that become clues to imagine new relationships, and undoubtedly, another economy.
Feminist anti-capitalist economics contributes several elements to economic theory and emancipatory horizons: the questioning of the quintessential economic man (white, heterosexual, young, rational, and a private property owner); the critique of the idea of scarcity, already put forth by Marxism, and the hegemony of the mathematical model as the sole source of knowledge. Alongside this incisive challenge, it raises the need for a comprehensive view of the social order and the system's complexity, the intersectional approach, the purpose of economics as a means of sustaining life rather than accumulation, the role of power relations and ethics, pluralistic knowledge, the relationships of reciprocity and solidarity also present in the social world, the connection with nature and vital plurality, and the interdependence of human and non-human life, among others.
Many of these principles are shared by other alternative economic systems, but it is perhaps the incorporation of domestic and care work into the economy, its analysis, and the arguments presented within it that distinguish feminist economics from others. That is, the explanation that the world functions based on the constant flow between productive and reproductive labor because it reconnects the different spheres of life without creating a hierarchy among them.
Feminist economics thus engages with peasant economies, where productive and reproductive labor are intertwined. Since reproductive activities are not necessarily wage-based, they converge with peasant agricultural production. Family labor is the foundation of the peasant economy, which is also inextricably linked to the land, not only as a means of production but also as the basis for the reproduction of life. From the experience of this interrelationship arises a more holistic understanding of the living world and the interdependence of human beings.
It is important to note that there is no single form of peasant economy, as it is in a constant process of change due to capitalist conditions and pressures. However, its historical persistence and relative autonomy stand out, due to its capacity for self-sufficiency and the community relations in which it is rooted, which becomes even more visible in times of crisis and uncertainty like these. If there is one thing that defines the lives of peasants, it is the unpredictable nature of their circumstances and, consequently, their constant yearning for security and certainty.[3].
In times of pandemic, where quarantine drags on with no clear end in sight, and the Ecuadorian state favors large commercial chains and food companies while cutting the budget, implementing IMF-style measures, and paying off the external debt, how are farmers navigating the uncertainty of these weeks? What strategies are they employing as their search for stability and certainty is put to the test?
In the State of Abandonment: Community Organization
The absence of a peasant, popular, and plurinational project in Ecuador has been a historical constant; the State has never been a guarantor of anything, it has been the organizations and the people who have managed life in the countryside. In the midst of a pandemic, this historical condition has not changed; it is the families, neighbors, leaders, organizations, and communities who have taken sovereignty over their territories to mitigate these moments of crisis with multiple strategies.
The women interviewed shared three strategies: 1) controlling the entry of people into the communities; 2) producing for the reproduction of material and spiritual life organized under principles of solidarity; and 3) strengthening solidarity and community networks, primarily led by women, through bartering between communities and gardens, facilitating the supply of varied food for families, understood as a central part of health.
On one hand, they control the entry of people coming from the city[4]This decision stems not from fear of the other, but from a concern for the people to whom the State guarantees nothing—neither a dignified life nor a dignified death. Here, community boundaries and controls are not meant to denigrate, devalue, or segregate, but rather are presented as measures to address the precariousness of the public health system; the State's lack of a strategy to implement quarantine education that includes the realities of rural life; and the State's abandonment of the production and marketing of family farming products.
“…the communities have every right to shut themselves off. They have dedicated so many years of their production to the city and have every right to protect themselves. There are farmers who have decided not to leave and their products are no longer arriving. These kinds of measures are becoming increasingly common.” (Interview with Ximena Porras, artisan from “AYA Orgánica”, April 6, 2020)
After controlling the flow of goods and preventing the harm that a lack of control could cause, the rural population creates strategies to ensure that their urban counterparts don't go hungry, thus helping the urban population strengthen their immune systems through the consumption of healthy, fresh food. They also send antiseptic medicinal plants that provide some protection, knowing that many lack access to hygiene and antiseptic supplies.
The mandatory lockdown and quarantine measures have led to restrictions on social, commercial, and cultural life, opening the possibility of changes in organizational structures and the hierarchy of priorities we perceive in life. Consequently, this period of enforced disconnection in some areas is paving the way for new reconnections and highlighting the true foundations of life. Rural women, for example, report the strengthening of solidarity networks during times of crisis. Fear of the spread of the disease and contagion leads them not to isolate themselves, but to intensify their care for loved ones, family, neighbors, and the community.
“What we have done as an organization, and will continue to do, is take advantage of this difficult time to strengthen the value of the land, the territory, and the power of planting. We have always planted 80% for the market; now it's about turning the tables and saying, 'Let's plant to feed ourselves.' We have said, 'Let's take advantage of this time that classes are suspended because the children and young people are going to the farms with their parents to plant.'” (Interview with Nancy Bedón, president of the Union of Peasant Organizations of Esmeraldas, April 7, 2020)
Faced with the impossibility of selling their produce in other regions, they practice bartering among themselves: what they lack in their own gardens they receive from others, and they in turn share what other families lack, thus facilitating a diverse supply of food within the communities. This exchange is not based on economic values dictated by the market, nor on the value printed on a banknote; it is an exchange governed by use value, needs, and the bond of solidarity established among people.
“Now, solidarity fairs are being held in the communities. Money isn't the only important thing. You can exchange. We call it bartering. That is, exchanging products: if I have onions and others have potatoes, we can exchange them. In the community, these values of solidarity still exist, where things work differently. It's not that I have a dollar's worth of onions and then you have to give me a dollar's worth of potatoes, no. It's not the amount, but the gesture that both sides make.” (Interview with Diocelinda Iza of the Luna Creciente Popular Women's Movement, April 1, 2020).
One of these needs is health, which rural women seek to strengthen through good nutrition and the practice of ancestral knowledge. Both health and nutrition have traditionally been in the hands of rural women and are part of their care work. This moment of COVID-19 expansion highlights the holistic way in which rural women understand production, food, and health; these are three interconnected pillars that stem from their relationship with the land.
In this way, 1) Production is the fundamental activity for the reproduction of life, both for the family, the extended circle of consumers, and also for the living environment, that is, through the care of the soil, water, animals, and seeds; 2) food as a connection between production, health, and care, and not only as the capitalist agri-food system sells it, as a “consumption” good; and 3) health, understood in its interdependent dimension, what we consume and the balance and well-being of the environment[5]This means even more during a pandemic, caring for others and for nature. Rural women show us that caring for each other is the best way to care for themselves, and that a healthy environment is the foundation for collective and individual health. This holistic vision of our relationship with the land is based on understanding ourselves as interdependent beings: we are our social environment and we are also our natural environment.
“We must continue cultivating the land; it is so important to remain in contact with the four elements of life. It is key for us to have that respect for nature, and also solidarity with other human beings, family, and community, because we are not alone on this planet; we are only a grain of sand in this great world.” (Interview with Rosa Murillo, agroecological producer from Imbabura, April 6, 2020).
Perhaps one element we see more clearly in these weeks is that within this interplay of production, health, and food, there is room for other ways of transmitting knowledge and wisdom. Families in rural areas, and especially in Indigenous communities, are building their own forms of resistance and revaluing life. Children and young people, unable to receive formal education because they lack internet access, are working alongside their families, tilling, sowing, and cultivating, giving value to the land and water, while learning about injustices and the history of the movement. By sharing, a space opens up to reactivate knowledge that, in the "normality" of acceleration and standardized education, no longer finds the time or place. Likewise, elders are a source of wisdom and teaching; they continue to research and share their knowledge to confront these crises. The value of what the pandemic can leave us is the value of what we can share to resist.
“Sowing, sows you,” says a colleague who cultivates to produce medicinal oil, and it is that “nature is usually reciprocal, you give to it and it gives back to you, that is why the old folks, even though what they sell doesn’t represent much economically, don’t stop sowing, because there is something indescribable when you sow, and it is the hope that everything can still turn out well.”[6].
While traditional economics views life as an externality of the economic system, feminist economics and peasant family farming see life as the very foundation of social, economic, and biological networks and relationships. Therefore, peasant experiences during quarantine demonstrate a desire to avoid infecting others, both themselves and the community, while simultaneously cultivating connections with one another. It is about doing what the state fails to do: providing support. Through this support and solidarity, the concrete meaning of a dignified life, as conceived by peasant economies, emerges: caring for others and oneself, addressing immediate needs as well as essential ones.
Care is therefore “a vital need and the foundation of the economic system, (…) it is at the center of social reproduction and places women as the sustainers of the entire social and economic fabric; ultimately, of life itself”[7].
As Rosa Murillo, an agroecological producer in the province of Imbabura, shared with us: “I think it’s very important that there’s more affection and love now, that we’re together more. It also leads us to see the meaning of life itself, that life isn’t guaranteed, that life can be taken from you at any moment. So, it’s time to ask ourselves more consciously: what kind of life are we looking for? Often, because we’re so busy, we don’t reflect on this.”
In this context, care also means communalizing the risk that uncertainty presents, in order to determine what is necessary and the collective path to build it. This time of questioning amidst the unpredictable reveals the depth of reflection offered by the women who are part of peasant organizations. Pausing to consider the kind of life they want opens the door for care to be not just work that sustains the world, but a place from which care becomes the first step toward imagining and creating, in community, lives that are neither capitalist, nor sexist, nor racist. Here, the condition of interdependence is ambivalent: our lives depend on others, and this need is inseparable from the creative power to solve common problems.
In countries like Ecuador, with dependent, rentier, and primary-exporting economies where capitalism is based on relations of servitude, the historical role of the state in rural areas and family farming economies has been one of abandonment and subjugation. Few peasant families have access to sufficient land, water, seeds, and technology for production. The best lands in the country are dedicated to the production of export monocultures (bananas, flowers, shrimp). In the midst of the pandemic and mandatory lockdowns, the thousands of families integrated into the export-oriented agribusiness cannot market their products, and the thousands of agribusiness workers, dependent on these territories, face increased exploitation, precariousness, and abandonment. The peasants, who care for the land, water, and seeds; Those who till, sow, and cultivate the land perform this unrecognized, invisible, and undervalued work under conditions of a lack of rights and basic labor guarantees and access. Despite acknowledging their importance in providing food, the conditions of injustice remain unchanged: “If the doctors are on the front lines, the peasants are in the rear guard, sustaining the country's food supply.”[8]As we have seen, without their work caring for the land and without their hands that produce, the world would not be possible. Caring, then, also means fighting against all the powers that threaten human and non-human life, and against everything that denies us dignity.
Only if caregiving ceases to be an obligatory responsibility for women can we imagine a society that takes responsibility for its own well-being. And only if we remove caregiving from the private sphere can we explore forms of rebellion. As the October strike reminds us, we must “take care of each other, so that we can be dangerous together.”[9].
[1] The order of the names is alphabetical and does not correspond to any hierarchy regarding contributions to the article. We all wrote in dialogue and as a collaborative effort. Tamara Artacker is a researcher at the Observatory of Rural Change (OCARU). Alejandra Santillana Ortiz is a left-wing feminist and a researcher at the Institute of Ecuadorian Studies (IEE) and the Observatory of Rural Change (OCARU). She is a member of the Plurinational and Popular Parliament of Women and Feminist Organizations of Ecuador, the Feminist Confluence for the World Forum of Transformative Economies, and the CLACSO Working Groups on Critical Studies of Rural Development and on the Network of Gender, Feminisms, and Memories of Latin America and the Caribbean. Belén Valencia Castro is a feminist and cyclist. She is a researcher at the Institute of Ecuadorian Studies (IEE) and a member of the Latin American Women on Bikes Network and the Plurinational and Popular Parliament of Women and Feminist Organizations of Ecuador.
This article is a collaboration between Institute of Ecuadorian Studies (IEE) for Chakana News and is part of the debates that have been raised by Observatory of Rural Change Through its #DesdeLaRaiz (From the Roots) campaign, a strategy that seeks, on the one hand, to highlight the experiences of peasant and Indigenous communities, farming families, and rural workers during the Covid-19 emergency and, on the other hand, to promote reflection on building practices and pathways toward a more resilient and supportive world. The team behind this campaign is made up of Belén Valencia, Tamara Artacker, Alejandra Santillana, Valeria Recalde, Kata Herrera, Anahí Macaroff, Esteban Daza, and Stalin Herrera. This text is a version of the one published in: https://www.chakananews.com/mujeres-rurales-tejiendo-cuidado-y-movilizacion-en-ecuador/?fbclid=IwAR06K-O8u2xD6r4auwBWPvAuJvuFAYF-Go8zt8uaRMCi1FxECHcXf5qwwUk.
[2] Interview with Bifo: “Capitalism is no longer inevitable” // Marcelo Expósito
[3] The conditions of peasants in dependent, rentier countries, where the historical form of capitalism is based on relations of servitude and overexploitation, imply that the collective and internalized experience of survival is shaped by land ownership, monopoly and fertility, access to water, climate variations, access to technology and industrial goods, family size and composition, the nature of work (intensive, low wages or income, limited availability of labor), the market (intermediaries, logics, etc.), and control of the production and marketing chain.
[4] During the COVID-19 pandemic in Ecuador, the vast majority of migrants (from rural areas to cities) have sought to return to their farms and communities. This has alarmed organizations, who recognize that their return is due to the fact that, at least in rural areas, there are guarantees through agricultural production, bartering, and solidarity that allow them to sustain life, unlike in the city, where if you don't work, you don't have money and access to resources.
[5] As Bartra proposes, “it is not the search for profit but the maintenance of a balance between production and consumption for the subsistence of the family unit” in Bartra, Armando 1982. “The economic behavior of peasant production” Mexico City: Autonomous University of Chapingo. p 17
[6] Interview with Alex Manzano, Casa Viva Kitu Tambo Kitu Tambo – Home, April 4, 2020.
[7] Carrasco Bengoa, Cristina; Díaz Corral, Carmen 2017. “Presentation” in Feminist Economics: Challenges, Proposals, Alliances” Barcelona: Entrepueblos.
[8] Intervention by Stalin Herrera, Academic Coordinator of the IEE and researcher at OCARU in the From the Roots Forum Series: the countryside in times of Covid19, Agricultural Policies and Peasant Rights, April 22, 2020
[9] Graffiti collected by Marina Garcés interview Marina Garcés: "We have great experts who are great illiterate people.".
[+] Thinking about the pandemic
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