Feminist agroecologies in Guatemala during economic shock

Agroecology offers a holistic and transformative approach to subverting dominant industrial food regimes, yet explicit representation of gendered experiences and agency in agroecology remains limited. Drawing from a larger study on campesino resilience and economic solidarity within farmer organizations during the Covid-19 pandemic, this field report examines women’s agency in two rural Guatemalan grassroots agroecological initiatives that emerged in response to restrictions on markets and transportation. Responding to agroecological feminist frameworks, this paper explores how gendered labor, knowledge, and social networks mediated organizing efforts and food access. The two cases highlight how women’s agricultural and organizing labor, both compensated and uncompensated, offered concrete alternatives for food and income access during an economic shock. Any agroecology initiative that addresses gender inequalities must incorporate an understanding of the connections between gendered labor, knowledge and networks; the ways in which they reflect and can reproduce heteropatriarchal norms; and how the collective actions taken by women and other historically marginalized people in agrarian communities can be both centered and fairly valued.