Flintan, Fiona

Within discussions of land and resource rights, feminist scholarship and advocacy, along with numerous empirical studies, have drawn attention to the importance of women’s land rights. However, this work focuses primarily on household and individual rights to private property. This leaves unanswered questions about whether and how women’s land rights can be secured under collective tenure. Because billions of people worldwide depend on the commons and resources under collective tenure, understanding women’s rights within this context requires new conceptual tools, empirical understanding, and policy recommendations. To lay the foundations for a sound body of empirical studies and appropriate policies, we develop a conceptual framework to improve understanding of women’s land rights under collective tenure, based on the Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) framework. We discuss what secure tenure for women on collective lands would entail, then present our framework for factors that would affect women’s tenure security. We give attention to particularities of rangelands, forests, and other types of collective lands as well as commonalities across types. A key theme that emerges is that for women to have secure tenure under collective tenure, the collective (group) itself must have tenure security and the women must have secure rights within this group. The latter requires us to consider the governance structures, how men and women access and control land, and the extent to which women have voice and power within the collective. More consistent analyses of collective tenure systems using the conceptual framework presented in this paper can help to identify which action resources are important for groups to secure rights to collective lands, and for women to advocate for their rights within the group.