Women, land and power in Bangladesh: Jhagrapur revisited

Khadija, a rich peasant widow, was clearly upset: I inherited 9 bigha (3 acres) of land from my maternal uncle who brought me up, but my sons have registered my land in their names, they took my fingerprint. I have to listen to my husband. If he talks bad I have to listen, if he talks good I have to listen, whatever he talks I have to listen. Otherwise there is no peace. (Anselma, a middle peasant woman in Jhagrapur). These quotes from women in Jhagrapur, a village in Bangladesh, illustrate the position of a large number of women with regard to land ownership and unequal power relations. Jenneke Arens investigated the complex relation between women’s land ownership and their position in the household, the family and society. She also analysed the role that women’s land ownership could play in their empowerment and in challenging and changing structural gender and class inequalities, in particular from the point of view of poor peasant women. This empirical study is a follow-up of the 1970s village study Jhagrapur: Poor Peasant and Women in a Village in Bangladesh (Jenneke Arens & Jos van Beurden, 1977). It also covers changes in gender and class relations since 1975.