Three Utopias of (Absolute) Female Land Ownership. Reflections Based on Peasant Women’s Access to Communal Land in Huancavelica

This paper presents peasant women’s possibilities to access land within their communities in Huancavelica, and the difficulties they face in this context. The paper shows that access to land is possible but limited, and that it depends on a series of factors that go beyond problems concerning property or rights. There are challenges regarding the adaptation of equality laws to the norms of communal institutions and local custom, to the peculiar characteristics both of land and of the mediated nature of communal property, and to a series of limitations imposed by the concrete context and circumstances in which women attempt to access land. I will try to show that (absolute) land ownership is highly utopic, it is an unattainable goal that must nonetheless be pursued. Women’s concrete and real access to land depends on a series of factors that have little to do with territory and ownership, but are rather related to women’s status, to their position within the family structure and the life cycle, to the economic activities on which the subsistence of their families is based, and to their own expectations for their future.

Current legislation in most Latin American countries recognizes the equality of men and women regarding property rights (Deere & León 2000). However, this recognition is often more formal than real, since important inequalities in the distribution of economic resources subsist. In rural peasant areas this inequality persists, resulting from a series of factors such as the disconnect of central norms, and the dynamics and habits of the rules and norms concerning access to rural property (Agarwal 1994). In rural areas, national regulations compete, so to speak, with communal regulations that are usually customary and culturally determined. These communal norms are crystallized in practices and statutes that regulate access to land ownership, usufruct, control, benefit and transfer.

We know very little about women’s access to land usufruct and ownership, be it as members of a family unit or as heads of a household. Additionally, in peasant communities such access is mediated by the distribution norms of collective property subjected to different degrees of family control (Diez 2003). Studies on family intra-communal distribution of land are scarce (Burneo 2007, Bergman & Stroud Kusner 2000). Research on women’s distribution of property and its usufruct are almost non-existent (the few existing references suggest that women have limited access to land). We know that women’s access to land is conditioned by two forms of intermediation: their belonging to a family, and their belonging to a community. What we don’t know is how both factors affect women’s concrete access to land.

Property, access and appropriation are complex concepts. To claim that someone is the owner of something means that this thing is to some degree at their disposal. By its classic definition, the notion of property—particularly land property—implies the authorization of the owner to use their property, transfer it, and benefit from its products. In practice, when we speak of property, we mean that the owner is free—to several degrees—to lease, mortgage, sell, and exploit land, and to bequeath it to their descendants. In actuality, all of these or just a part of them might be available to the owner: an owner is someone who can claim some degree of exclusive rights over some piece of land (Godelier 1990, Diez 2003).

The concept of “access,” i.e., the conditions allowing one to attain some of the faculties foreseen by the notion of property, is somehow more “accessible.” The distinction between property and access is useful since it allows us to distinguish formal norms from the actual occupation or use of land. Thus, I would like to focus on a question regarding women’s actual control over land: How do female community members (comuneras) acquire land? The patterns of inheritance seem to be shifting (De la Cadena 1991). Today women inherit more and in some cases access to land has even been “feminized.” At the same time, land has lost importance as a source of family income and power within the community due to new possibilities offered by the market (Urrutia 2007, Jacobs 2002). In addition, the growing insertion into the market implies better prices for male labor. Therefore, it has become easier for men to access land by this means. Thus, the previous appraisal of the complementarity of female and male tasks within the family economy ought to be newly assessed to the extent that gender relations are changing.

This paper analyses peasant women’s effective access to land ownership in communities of the southern highlands of Perú. It also considers the different degrees of access to land according to women’s position as married women, as heads of their households, or regarding their lack of effective access.

The research is based on two main sources of data: fieldwork, and the analysis of national and communal legislation. It focuses on three communities in Huancavelica—the region with the fourth largest number of peasant communities in Perú, after Puno, Cusco and Ayacucho.¹In 2002 the Special Programme for Land Titling (PETT for its initials in Spanish) registered 565 communities in Huancavelica. More recent surveys estimate 609. Peasant communities are distributed unevenly throughout the territory of Huancavelica. They represent nearly half of Huancavelica’s population and almost 75% of its farmland (Pacheco 2009). Most of these communities are poor (60%) and they suffered loss of life and material resources during the period of political violence. The fieldwork was done mostly in two communities: Nuevo Occoro and Tinyaclla. Additionally, we collected some complementary data in Larmenta. Each of these communities exhibited different forms of land use and, therefore, of land access and appropriation. Nuevo Occoro is dedicated to rainfed agriculture, Tinyaclla to shepherding, and Larmenta to irrigated agriculture. Nuevo Occoro attained official recognition as a community in 1965, Tinyaclla in 1937, and Larmenta in 1993. In 1998 they consisted of 90, 534, and 95 families respectively.²The data is for the year 1998 and is registered in the national directory of peasant communities. There is no comparable updated register of the current peasant population, most likely higher in all three cases due to the development of urban spaces and the consolidation of minor population centres.

Our intensive fieldwork focused on gathering peasant women’s stories of access to land. We concentrated on the concrete access (or lack thereof) and on the expectations of future access. All fieldwork was carried out by the anthropologist (Lic.) Paola Barriga (Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú).

The paper is divided into three sections. First, I discuss the norms regulating women’s (and men’s) access to land and the disconnect between Peruvian national legislation, the communal norms and the local customs. Second, I present what I call the three utopias of absolute ownership, each corresponding to a type of land and mode of production (rainfed, grazing and irrigation). Finally, I sum up the results regarding women’s access to land and control of it in peasant communities, as well as the factors favoring or limiting them.

Three disjointed levels of norms concerning women’s (and men’s) access to land

One of the aims of this paper is to analyze the norms and formal protections concerning peasant women’s access to communal land. My hypothesis is that the actual access to communal land is mediated by more than one single body of norms and, therefore, that any attempt at changing the present situation will have to consider all these norms. Thus, this paper compares national laws, communal norms stipulated in statutes, and cultural norms on actual access to land.

National norms

Peruvian legislation on the matter of peasant communities and their members’ access to land builds a body of laws that is not thoroughly ordered and that is even conflicting on some issues (Castillo 2007, Del Castillo & Castillo 2010). Peasant communities are recognized as legal persons by articles 88 and 89 of the 1993 National Constitution, and by articles 134 through 139 of the Civil Code. As such, they hold rights and obligations before the State and their functions include the protection and development of communal property. In principle, their functioning is still regulated by Peasant Communities Law 24656 and Delimitation and Titling Law 24657, both issued in 1987.

It must be noted that the right to transfer or exploit property is not considered or regulated at all by legislation on communal property. On this matter, the tendency is to assume that these rights are internal issues that depend on use and custom, within the context of the right to self-government granted by law to these communities. However, use and custom stand in conflict with citizens’ rights as stipulated in the National Constitution and the Civil Code. These codes state a series of provisions concerning equal rights, which are not always observed by peasant communities. The aforementioned provisions are important for gender equality, particularly regarding the following issues: equality between men and women in the exercise of civil rights (article 4), equality within a household regarding the duty and right to participate in its government (article 290), the joint exercise of representation of the marital unit by both spouses (article 292), and equality of inheritance rights of children (article 818).

The existing legal framework on communal property is not fully coherent and is even contradictory from a legal point of view. It is necessary to update the secondary legislation and the regulations. From the perspective of members of peasant communities, existing regulation and laws ought to be preserved while general laws should be modified. There is a problem of indeterminacy of law affecting all levels of legislation: constitutional norms, regulations and legislation on land, as well as international legislation. This indeterminacy frequently leads to conflicts of ownership and usufruct of land in Peru. National law on communal property does not determine the internal norms of ownership and usufruct of land. Therefore, within the context of the self-government of peasant communities granted by law, norms of ownership and usufruct of land fall under the jurisdiction of communal norms.

Communal norms

The analysis of the communities in Huancavelica throws up some surprising results, namely the existence of statutes and the general belief in the need to use and update these statutes. In general, communal regulations show some patterns: they have been written using the legal language and format used for national legislation (including titles, chapters, sections and subsequent divisions). Even though the three statutes of Nuevo Occoro exhibit some peculiarities, these do not modify either the format or the content of the regulations in any significant way: despite some small differences, the three documents are virtually identical. Since, though being different, the regulations of the three communities are very similar, one might assume that they were all based on a more or less standardized model, or that they were produced under the guidance of one single consultancy. In many areas of the southern highlands of Peru, some NGOs have been working with communities for a long time: some examples of this joint work are the legal aid offered by the Casa Campesina del Cusco, and the legal consultation program of the Centro Peruano de Estudios Sociales in Huancavelica. The documents we examined have been endorsed by most members of the community. In Nuevo Occoro, the statutes of 2000 were signed by 163 members of the community, and in 2002 by 151. However, it’s possible to observe differences regarding the gender of the signatories. In 2000, there were 70 female signatories, and in 2002 only 29—in both cases, the women signed the documents after the men had already signed them. Three issues stand out: land ownership and access regimes, membership in the community and members’ categories, and articles (or absence thereof) acknowledging gender difference.

Concerning land ownership, all the statutes and regulations we analyzed stipulate three fundamental claims: the ownership of the occupied land, the definition of community members as usufructuaries, and the conformity with national laws and regulations from which the former rights emanate.

Now, regarding communal property, there are very few regulations concerning forms of usufruct by members of the community. In general, all of them have access to the different types of communal land. However, the nature of this access is not clearly stipulated nor are any specific regulations given on this matter.

The community of Tinyaclla also recognizes the “respect of possession:” “the possessions of farming members will be respected according to the ancestrals [sic] they possess” (article 17). This community also distinguishes family appropriation from communal appropriation: “The community recognizes a mixed regime of land use including a) the family form, which implies possession and management of family farming and grazing plots; and b) the communal form, which implies communal enterprises or production units managed communally” (article 73). The statues also clarify that “it is forbidden to enter any purchase contracts for natural grazing land and others within the community. Those who do, will be punished with a fine, and the contract will be void” (article 17).

The status of a community member is acquired by inheritance or admission (through marriage or by request after some given years of residency, demanding previous resignation from any other community). The minimal requirements are practically the same in Nuevo Occoro and Tinyaclla: to be of legal age or have the proper legal capacity, residency, to not belong to another community, and registration in the communal roll (Nuevo Occoro, article 13; Tinyaclla, article 8). The communal roll is updated every two years. It registers the personal information of the community member and their dependents. In Tinyaclla, having fulfilled one’s duties and paid one’s instalments is a requisite to being included in the roll’s update.

It is necessary to be a community member in order to access communal land of any kind (rainfed or grazing). The statute of Nuevo Occoro establishes the following rights of community members: “g) to enjoy respect and access to the family plot and to the use of natural grassland according to current legal dispositions; h) to participate in the business activities that are part of the community’s development; i) to have access to communal irrigated land” (article 19). The statute of Tinyaclla mentions the following as a right of qualified community members: “g) to have access to the family plot and farms, and to the use of natural grassland” (article 10). It also adds as a duty: “e) to work directly on the family plot assigned to them according to their position and to exploit the grazing areas according to legal dispositions, the present statutes, and the agreements of the general assembly” (article 11).

Although it might follow from reading the statutes that women have the same rights as any other member of the community to access land, as we will see, the “custom laws” establish differences.

Cultural norms: uses and custom

Local norms regarding access to land and grazing areas in the communities are directly linked to their main use: in Nuevo Occoro, rainfed agriculture, and in Tinyaclla, shepherding. In each community, land access and use relate to different groups of rights (Burneo 2008) concerning various aspects of people’s conditions, their relationships, and their position within the community, as well as the respective contexts. As we will see, there are significant differences between both communities regarding access norms. To begin with, it’s necessary to notice what one may call the fluid character of all these norms. Most of them are unwritten norms that are “put into effect” to the extent that they can be applied. In normal conditions, they imply a relatively wide margin for interpretation.

The community of Nuevo Occoro has three types of land: rainfed areas favorable for agriculture; grazing land in the Orccopampa adjoining area, where some farms are found; and unproductive land currently not being used. Production is mostly orientated to the community’s self-supply. Only a small remaining portion is commercialized.

Rainfed land:

In principle, the community employs a yearly crop rotation system, whereby some sectors of land are cultivated while others remain fallow (laymi). However, community members point out that in recent years those sectors closer to the village have been used continuously, without fallowing. On the other hand, the local government has put into place a sprinkler irrigation project over the Tacsana field. The project has since been completed and the community is getting organized to start using the irrigation system. This will certainly alter the land use regime from temporal to permanent, thus reducing or eliminating the traditional fallow periods, thereby affecting the entire laymi system.

In order to subsist within this system, always having cultivable land, each community member seeks to have pieces of land in as many laymi sectors as possible (or even in all of them). The plots are usually small, for the fields have been increasingly divided over time due to the hereditary system. Therefore, some community members acquire or manage land in neighboring communities. Land shortage, land dispersion, and marriages among members of neighboring communities have forced to “expand” the system. Thus, the community of Nuevo Occoro has agreements with the communities of Occoro Viejo, Tambopata and Río de la Virgen. These agreements allow community members to administrate land in other communities. These are formal agreements: they have been confirmed by communal assemblies and registered in official proceedings.

Regarding general land access norms for women in Nuevo Occoro, there are two types of “inheritance:” the handing over of a part of family land to children when they marry, and the bequest of land to children after their parents’ death. In both cases, male children benefit more from the distribution of land, be it because they receive larger portions of the inheritance, or because they are the only ones to inherit. Further ways of accessing land are buying pieces of land or sharing them in the form of a “loan” or “shared” labor.

Grazing land:

The community of Tinyaclla only possesses grazing land. Up until a conflict with the Miraflores community, each nuclear family had access to plots in laymi agricultural sectors. This access was regulated by norms similar to those of Nuevo Occoro, i.e., through gender differentiated inheritance or purchase. The whole of the communal land is divided into large grazing areas, over which groups of families enjoy privileged access rights. Thus, each area “belongs” to one extended family (or more) and is known by the surnames of the families occupying them (the areas of “the Garcias,” “the Oyolas,” and others). Belonging to the community is a necessary condition to access grazing lands, since only registered families are allowed to have a farm to graze their cattle.

Within these areas, each expanded nuclear family has its own farm. Thus, neighbors are siblings, uncles, and other relatives. Within these spaces, each family grazes its animals. Inheritance of family land and access to it are determined patrilineally. Male children establish their farms in the plots of their father’s family. Women access their father’s farms if they remain single. Alternatively, they access the farms of their husband’s family by marriage.

Pieces of land are thus already distributed among families. Therefore, there is no proper inheritance from parents to children, but rather smaller or larger extensions of land are made available for use, and this is determined patrilineally. This form of land distribution allows for use, but gives no further ownership rights over the land: each landholder is not an individual occupant, but rather a “family” and “collective” occupant.

Access to the usufruct of grazing land depends firstly on one’s belonging to the community, and secondly on one’s patrilineal family line, since there is no individual access to land. Marriage is virilocal, so that wives become part of their husbands’ families, thereby accessing their lands. Belonging to the community is a sort of requisite for attaining the local rights to have a farm, to raise cattle, to a share of communal labor agreed to with mining companies, among others.

Irrigated land:

The community of Larmenta possesses irrigated land, rainfed land and grazing land. Access to the local highway has deeply impacted the land access mechanisms of the community. A large portion of the population emigrates to work in nearby cities. Irrigated lands are preferred over other types of land. Both these factors have led to, on the one hand, the abandonment or neglect of rainfed land and, on the other hand, the increase and intensification of family appropriation rights over irrigated land.

Therefore, the titling process of the community, carried out in 2009, only included a small portion of communal land. Most of the land has been distributed in individual plots through a mechanism of the Agency for the Formalization of Informal Property (COFOPRI for its initials in Spanish) which facilitates “collective individual titling.” Thus, most community members of Larmenta have an individual property title. Since the peasant community does not own most of the land, its functions are limited to organizing some collective needs, rather than regulating land access or defending it.

Three utopias of absolute female access to land ownership

Rainfed land in Nuevo Occoro: access as a community member

Our analysis of forms of land access for women in the Nuevo Occoro community is based on stories by 16 women. Ten of them have access to land (six through marriage and four as heads of their households). Most stories deal with access to laymi sectors of cultivable rainfed land alternately used as grazing land in fallow periods. The other six are stories of women with no access to land or with limited access.

One group of stories exemplifies what one might call the “usual pathway:” the expected land acquisition process that ought to take place throughout a woman’s life. One might call this the more or less “ideal” pathway.

The stories of Sebastiana, Susana and Gloria illustrate this pathway. As single women they were part of their parents’ family units, working their lands with them. During this period, they usually had little knowledge of and influence on issues concerning production or sowing. They don’t remember the number of plots managed by their parents. At the time of their marriage (by coincidence, all three of them got married at age 22³In all the stories we gathered, women established new family units either through cohabitation or marriage between the ages of 20 and 23. In just one case this happened at the age of 18, this was in the case of the eldest interviewee (52 years old).) they “inherited” part of their parents’ plots (Sebastiana and Susana received three plots each, Gloria six). In all cases, they were small portions of land in different laymi sectors. Marriage implied land contributions on the side of their husbands, who also received land in the form of “inheritance” from their parents. In all three cases, the husbands contributed larger amounts of land to the marriage than their wives. After consolidating the family plot, built out of the inherited land of both parties, the couples started a process of gradual accumulation of land through the purchase of laymi plots.⁴However, some cases refer to the access to land in neighbouring communities such as Occoro Viejo (Susana). Susana’s case is exceptional. Her husband gained control over the land owned by his brother (who emigrated) and, unlike Sebastiana and Gloria, Susana and her husband didn’t acquire new land. Normally, ownership certificates of occupied land can only be attained by purchase operations. Therefore, families usually don’t have any documents attesting their ownership of the land they have inherited. In the case of Sebastiana and Susana, they increased their amount of land through leases or by shared labor with other members of the community. At the time of our study, the families held control over 30 to 40 plots of land (a total of 2 to 3 hectares) distributed among the six laymi sectors of the community. Although all three families have adult children, those in marriage age lived and usually studied outside the community. Those still living with the families were minors or single, so that none of these women had given land over to their children.

The cases of Graciela and Primitiva, heads of their households at the time of the study, are variations of the three cases just described. Graciela married at age 20 and inherited some plots from her father, to which she added the plots of her husband (more than her own). However, since her husband (from whom she was recently separated) works most of the time outside the community, they have not purchased new land. They have maintained their marital property without increasing it. Graciela has not given land to her children, but she has “loaned” a portion to one of her daughters. Primitiva, originally from the Miraflores community, received some land at the time of her marriage, which was added to that of her husband in Nuevo Occoro. The couple did not acquire new land. On the contrary, their patrimony was reduced. Her husband died in the period of political violence and, due to conflicts with the Miraflores community, she lost the land she had inherited. When her sons got married, she handed over part of her marital land to them. She didn’t hand over any land to her married daughters, since she didn’t have much land left herself and because she thinks “their husbands will provide.”

Being excluded from family inheritance is relatively frequent for women in Nuevo Occoro. This represents an important factor in the ideal pathways described above.

Isidora, Lucía and Marina were part of the same family unit. But when they got married and started their own families, none of them received land. Family inheritance in their case was destined solely for the male offspring. Thus, their family plots were formed exclusively out of the land contributed by the husbands. From this point onwards, each of these three cases developed differently. Even though Isidora didn’t inherit any land, her father “loaned” her land every year (one or two plots, depending on the year). Meanwhile, her husband inherited land, and also uses the land of his four absent brothers and manages all the land that previously belonged to his parents (two to four plots in each laymi sector). At the time of the study, they had enough land and had therefore not purchased any additional land. They even loaned some of their land for shared labor. Lucía didn’t inherit any land, but her husband received more than twenty plots. The couple increased their patrimony through purchase, accumulating a total of approximately 2 hectares (in addition, they have access to some extra land through shared labor). Lucía has little knowledge of the agricultural activities and decisions, her husband deals with these issues. She is dedicated to looking after the family’s ovine cattle. Marina comes from a family who didn’t have much land. Therefore, she didn’t inherit any land from her parents. Through marriage she gained access to a total of 18 plots (her husband’s inheritance). Her husband died in the period of political violence. Since then, she has been managing the land as family patrimony without increasing it. However, her brother-in-law has gradually taken control over the inherited plots. Therefore, at the time of the study, she had access to a smaller amount of land than at the time of her husband’s death. All three women manage different amounts of land and none of them had bequeathed their children any land at the time of the study, although one of them (Marina) already had a married daughter.⁵In the Nuevo Occoro community, there is one exceptional case of land access that illustrates peculiar circumstances. At the time of her father’s death, Romualda didn’t receive any land because her mother lived in Huancayo and one of her brothers hoarded most of the family patrimony. Therefore, she dedicated herself to other non-agricultural activities within the community. This enabled her, while still being single, to purchase four plots in two different laymi sectors. She married someone from the Hualaspampa community, who inherited land in his own community. They only profited from this land for some years before settling definitively in Nuevo Occoro. Besides agriculture, Romualda dedicated herself to cattle commerce and worked with the feminist NGO Manuela Ramos. After her marriage, she and her husband bought some additional plots adding up to twelve plots and a total of one hectare (additionally they have access to some extra land by lease). They have also bought other plots to hand over to their single daughters “because they should have their own plots.” Romualda claims she will distribute land equally among all her children as they marry.

Surveying the cases in Nuevo Occoro reveals three possible starting points in the process to access land ownership, and two possible development scenarios.

The first starting point corresponds to the “ideal” model: both husband and wife “inherit” land at the time of their marriage, normally in unequal amount and quality, as male children are favored over female with respect to inheritance. The second starting point is when wives don’t inherit any land, but their husbands do. Therefore, the family plot is constituted mainly through the husband’s patrimony. Finally, a third starting point is when, due to varying circumstances, women don’t inherit any land (neither from their parents nor from their husbands) and must find a different way to build their patrimony.

From the first two starting points—the “ideal” model and some cases of patrilineal inheritance—women increase their access to land within the marital unit mainly through purchase, but also by occupation and usufruct of the land of absent relatives (mostly fathers and brothers), and even through labor on leased land or by shared labor. It is not infrequent—particularly when inheritance is limited because of the death, absence or separation of the husband—that women become heads of their households, holding on to the acquired patrimony without having the capacity to increase it. In some cases, the patrimony even diminishes: these women find themselves in a sort of survival mode rather than in a process of growth or increasing access to production resources.

The hereditary practices of rainfed land benefit male children, who inherit more land than female siblings. The access to grazing land in shepherds’ communities benefits male lines over female because of the rule of virilocal residence. Young women, in their roles as daughters, accept their parents’ decisions and dispositions (usually their fathers’ but sometimes also their mothers’). The stories of female land access are determined by marriage, by the change in “marital status,” or by the “marital” situation. In rainfed agriculture communities, the increase in land stock begins with marriage, but stagnates when the marital unit is dissolved by death or separation (see figure 1).

The degree of land availability is also deeply linked to women’s life cycle and status. As daughters they depend on their parents, as wives they are co-owners and make decisions within the framework of the marital unit. Only as widows or if they are separated from their husbands, do they get the chance to make autonomous decisions on the land they use. However, in these cases their capacities to accumulate land virtually vanish, and they are forced to hire labor to work their plots.

_{Figure 1. Access to land in the female life cycle: rainfed agriculture community (by Paola Barriga and Alejandro Diez)}

_{Table 1. Access to land in the female life cycle: rainfed agriculture community (by Paola Barriga)}

Grazing land in Tinyaclla: access as member of an extended patrilineal system

In the case of Tinyaclla we also gathered 16 stories. Nine of them involve varying degrees of access to grazing land—five of which refer to women of Tinyaclla, and four to “daughters-in-law” (women from other communities who married members of the local community). The remaining seven cases are those of women with limited access to land. As we shall see, access to land in these communities is linked to migration, to the ownership of animals, and to the acquisition of housing. The access to agricultural land inside or outside the community is also an important factor.

I have grouped the cases of access to grazing land in Tinyaclla according to certain similarities in two groups of model pathways. The first one is a transition from the family cattle farm to the husband’s cattle farm—these cases are further subdivided according to the partial or permanent availability of agricultural land. The second group of pathways is the adoption of grazing activities after some years of migration or of developing other activities.

The usual pathway for women from shepherds’ families to access land is tightly linked to virilocal marriage and the process of accumulating animals. In most of the cases we studied, women initially engaged in cohabitation for a short period of time. Later they married, between the ages of 19 and 20 (there were two exceptions: one at the age of 15 and another at the age of 26). Before this, the young women were part of their parents’ family unit and helped with shepherding and some agricultural tasks. Two of the women born in Tinyaclla—Máxima and Erlinda—and three of the daughters-in-law—Luisa, Antonia and Gregoria—were part of family units that owned both agricultural and grazing land.

Women who inherited agricultural land through marriage form a group sharing a particular pathway. This is the case for two of the “daughters-in-law” in Tinyaclla: Luisa and Gregoria (originally from communities with agricultural land). This was also the case of Máxima of Tinyaclla and Antonia, “daughters-in-law” who by inheritance and marriage gained access to land in Miraflores (the community had access to this land until 2000), but lost it because of a dispute with the new community of the same name. Luisa, from Pachachaca, and Máxima, from Tinyaclla, inherited land at the time of their marriage from their parents and added to this the land inherited by their husbands. From this point onward, they dedicated themselves to small-scale agricultural production, but mostly to stockbreeding in the farms of their in-laws. In this context, they increased the number of alpacas owned by the family (Luisa managed to have up to 40 alpacas) and bred them together with the cattle of their husbands’ families. In both cases, as for many others in Tinyaclla, they lost access to their agricultural land in Miraflores after 2000.

Antonia and Gregoria share similar pathways, albeit with some nuances. First of all, only one of the members of the marriage contributed land to the marital patrimony. Gregoria inherited land from her parents in Palca, while Antonia received land inherited by her husband in Tinyaclla. Both Antonia and Gregoria dedicated themselves to the breeding of alpacas and to agricultural activity. Gregoria and her husband acquired three alpacas, with time they would accumulate 20 animals, combining agricultural activities with stockbreeding. Antonia managed to accumulate 50 animals and combined their breeding with the management of the agricultural land she inherited from her husband and maintained immediately after his death. However, a few years later, she lost this land—as did everyone in Tinyaclla—together with her animals (at the time of the study she only had 15 animals).

Erlinda and Teodora didn’t inherit any land. In the first case, because Erlinda’s family didn’t own any land, they worked on leased agricultural land. After her marriage, Erlinda and her husband kept on leasing land. This constituted, together with the livestock in the farm of the husband’s family, the marital patrimony. They managed to accumulate up to 50 alpacas. Teodora, however, comes from a family of alpaca breeders, and she had some personal cattle while still being single. She added her cattle to that of her husband after marriage. This way, they kept the profile of a family exclusively dedicated to stockbreeding.

A further group of pathways is that of women who originally pursued some other economic activity, and who later decided to take up stockbreeding or agriculture. In order to do so, they had to gain access to land through different means. This is the case of Inidina, Paulina and Clarissa. The pathways of Inidina and Paulina imply a “return.” Inidina got engaged as a young woman and left the community with her husband to settle in Lima. There she worked for some years as a street vendor. Later, they decided to return to their community. At first, they lived in the house of Inidina’s mother. After some years, they acquired a house and started breeding stock in the farm of her husband’s family. Paulina, originally from Huanta, worked together with her husband in a mine until they both retired. Afterwards, they decided to return to Tinyaclla. They bought a house in the village and acquired 20 alpacas in order to dedicate themselves exclusively to breeding stock on the farm of the husband’s family. The pathway of Clarissa also implies a return, but in another manner. She was born in a mining community. Her parents were mineworkers, not peasant community members, they owned neither land nor cattle. After getting married, she began stockbreeding on the farm of her husband’s family. Additionally, she leased some land to develop small-scale agricultural production. Meanwhile, her husband worked as a miner. After accumulating some cattle, they lost most of it due to health issues. At the time of the study, they sustained themselves by working in the mine and small-scale agricultural and livestock production.

The pathways of the women of Tinyaclla exhibit a series of peculiarities that I wish to highlight:

Ownership of land is never personal nor exclusive, neither to the wife nor to the husband. However, access to land is effectively gained almost exclusively over land (farms) owned by patrilineal male lines. Women only access grazing land as part of a marital unit, i.e., as daughters-in-law (whether they come originally from the community or not). Both cases of the widows we analyzed show that women do not lose their access to land after the husband’s death.

Access to grazing land is directly associated with cattle ownership, mainly sheep and alpacas. The observed family units show that the formation of a stable couple usually leads to a gradual increase in the number of animals kept—the generation of a family herd, which frequently remains undivided in the husband’s family. Some limited practices of cattle inheritance for single women contribute to the formation of a small amount of capital, which is later fused with marital property. There were two cases of initial accumulation followed by loss of cattle. Apparently, the “normal” case scenario is the increase in stock until reaching a certain ceiling, which varies from family to family.

Stockbreeding is associated, in most cases, with the access to agricultural land, usually rainfed. The rights over agricultural land are similar to those observed in the case of Nuevo Occoro: unequal land inheritance benefits male children over female children, and the management of agricultural land constitutes a strategy complementary to stockbreeding. Unfortunately, the loss of plots in Miraflores experienced by the Tinyaclla community made it impossible to analyze current land succession and its distribution among male and female children.

Access pathways and stories are also linked to housing access. Housing is usually located in Tinyaclla’s Minor Hamlet. Acquiring housing usually implies purchasing a lot as part of the marital unit.

Finally, the pathways leading to access to grazing land do not vary significantly among the interviewed women in Tinyaclla. Salient differences pertain to the processes of cattle (not land) accumulation, which reach ceilings apparently determined by the availability of grazing areas within the farmlands belonging to the husbands’ families.

In shepherds’ communities, young women usually occupy and eventually exploit pieces of land under the control of the extended paternal family. Through marriage they gain the status of community member and become dependent on the land owned by the husband’s extended family. Inheritance in the strict sense involves animals rather than land. As a marital unit, the couple establishes a common house and eventually begins accumulating cattle. After the husband’s death, the wife and children usually continue to profit from the access to the husband’s land, although in most cases this is accompanied by a process of reduction of livestock (see figure 2).

_{Figure 2. Access to land in the female life cycle: shepherds’ community (by Paola Barriga and Alejandro Diez)}

The issue of availability pertains to cattle and family housing rather than to the pieces of land. Strictly speaking, these are exploited by large family groups. Women, being invariably “daughters-in-law” on the land owned by their husbands’ families, experience a process of inclusion into the group throughout their marital life. Thus, with time, their influence and decision capacity increases within the nucleus of the family they married into.

_{Table 2. Access to land in the female life cycle: shepherds’ community (by Paola Barriga)}

Irrigated land in Larmenta: the illusion of the property title

The picture I have sketched thus far can be complemented by four further cases of land access: one separated woman who is head of her household—Maximina, and three married women—Rosa, Haydée and Haydée. We also have an additional case of no effective access to property of any kind. Even if these are just a few cases, they are enough to sketch the way transmission of property and land access function in areas of irrigated agriculture.

Rosa’s case can be used to establish the typical pattern: after being under the tutelage of her family, she gained access to five small farms by inheriting them from her mother at the time of her marriage. There are differences regarding land access depending on the type of land: it seems that rainfed land is inherited at the time of marriage, as in Nuevo Occoro, while irrigated land is inherited only after the owners pass away. Later, Rosa and her husband bought some additional land, which was added to some land inherited by her husband (nine small farms, two of them irrigated).

The case of Maximina varies from this pattern. She didn’t inherit land from her mother, but bought her first plot some years after getting married. Later, she received as an inheritance from her grandmother two additional plots, which were previously being exploited by her mother (three small farms, two irrigated).

The cases of both Haydées exhibit significant variations regarding land access in Larmenta. The emigration of large parts of the population to Huancavelica and Huancayo made great portions of land available. Haydée de la Cruz married at 22 and continued working her mother’s land without any form of inheritance taking place. Some years later, her extended family left the community, whereby she gained control over all the land owned by her mother and her uncles (five irrigated plots, of one jugerum each). The other Haydée is also the only remaining member of her family in Larmenta, and she manages the entirety of family land (approximately one hectare of irrigated land). Although both women completely control their land, they consider the land to be the property of their respective extended families. Haydée de la Cruz and one of her brothers hold the title to the property of the pieces of land she occupies, but she doesn’t consider herself the owner, since “everyone profits” from the land and she’s “only in charge.” Holding an individual title, therefore, does not guarantee exclusive access to property.

The Larmenta cases exhibit two additional features of access to land in irrigated areas. First, rainfed and grazing plots are abandoned, focusing on the occupation and management solely of irrigated plots whose production is mainly aimed at self-supply (and partly at commerce). Maximina and Rosa explicitly claimed to have abandoned their rainfed land due to the great distance, the uncertainty linked to their cultivation, and rain shortage. The Haydées barely even mention these plots. The second salient feature is the fact that agricultural activities are not enough to provide family sustenance. In all the cases studied, the women had additional income from other activities: small-scale commerce, a small shop or the husband’s temporary jobs.

Access and control: usufruct and property in shepherds’ and rainfed communities

Considering the concepts and questions proposed at the start of this paper and the analyzed data, it’s possible to draw two large sets of partial conclusions. The first set of conclusions refers to the concrete ways of accessing the exploited or owned land. The second set refers to the factors influencing women’s greater or lesser access to land.

Access: usufruct, intermediation and degrees of possession

The first issue to be considered is the direct access women have to the “product” of the land and the degree to which this product is available to them. In most cases involving rainfed agriculture communities, production is mainly aimed at self-supply. In these cases, the product is largely available to the women (whether they are married or heads of their households). On the contrary, as daughters dependent on their father’s family unit they have no power of decision. Shepherd women enjoy a similar power of decision over their cattle. This power of decision remains in those cases in which there is a small surplus of production available for sale. Women are always in charge of this. We do not have sufficient evidence to claim that this is also the case when the bulk of production is aimed at sale.

A second aspect I would like to call attention to are the intermediaries in access to land and the way these vary according to the type of production favored by a community. Belonging to a community necessarily implies that one’s access to property is mediated. For this reason, members of the community, both male and female, only access usufruct according to at least three different levels of appropriation that depend on the production preferences of the community.

In communities with irrigated land, communal control is virtually non-existent. In Larmenta there is some sort of indirect influence through one’s belonging to the community. However, it does not constitute “communal” control, since land has been privatized and is therefore accessed and owned exclusively by its owners and occupants.

In communities with rainfed land, like Nuevo Occoro, the community is a real intermediary, since it’s necessary to belong to the community in order to access land. Additionally, the collective regulates the use of the land appropriated by each family.

In shepherds’ communities, a nuclear family’s access to land is only possible through two intermediaries: the community and the extended family. Strictly speaking there’s no control over land, but a right to occupy and/or exploit the land on account of a double membership.

The third issue I would like to consider pertains to the levels of female land possession and ownership. There are three clearly differentiated levels of access and at least two situations of limited or non-existent access. Thus, there are in total five models.

Control by the female head of the household or owner: First, in rainfed land, this control involves land whose usufruct is at women’s absolute disposal within the framework of communal control and ownership. Second, in irrigated land, this control involves women owning land, although usually as representatives of a family branch.

Partial control within the marital unit: This form of control was observed at irrigated and rainfed land, where direct usufruct is both male and female, and decisions are made together or by the head of the household.

Control of a portion of the cattle as an individual person or as part of a marital unit: This takes place in the context of both the husband’s extended family and the community acting as intermediaries for access to grazing land.

Imperfect control over rainfed or irrigated land lent by relatives: In this case, the land is at a women’s disposal, but only for usufruct and not for transfer (inheritance or sale).

Three modes of lack of control due to lack of access: (1) Women lack control over land due to their being in the process of accessing land—they depend on the paternal family economy and have chances of accessing or inheriting land in the future. (2) Women lack access to land due to shortage of land within the family or absence of inheritance, although they wish to possess land. (3) Women lack access to land, since they have no interest in agricultural activities. These women usually wish to migrate and/or carry out urban economic activities.

Factors affecting peasant women’s access to land

Among the multiple factors common to the cases we have studied, I would like to highlight six. In our analysis, these factors account for the different levels of female access to land. Some of these factors have positive effects and some, negative effects. In any case, they influence women’s greater or lesser access to land.

Favoring male children and the male dominance:

One factor affecting women’s access to land is the clear favor shown to male children when distributing inheritance, both in the case of rainfed land and of the assignment of virilocal residence in grazing land. The tendency of families to bequeath male children more than female children, or even not to bequeath the latter anything at all, constitutes a first “cultural” limitation to women’s access to land. Change in residence, moving to land owned by the husband’s family, also limits women’s influence on decision-making process concerning land use. The favor shown for male children is also exhibited in the lack of protection women enjoy in comparison with their brothers or brothers-in-law. In this sense, there are reports of abuses or hoarding of land by male relatives of female widows or heads of households (both rainfed and grazing land). In some cases, daughters-in-law do not stay on the land of the family into which they married after the husband’s death, instead returning to their parents’ land.

Being a female community member:

Being a female community member is a necessary requirement to access land, but it is not sufficient. Most cases of women without access to land are cases of women who are not members of the community or whose participation is reduced to a minimum. Women usually gain the status of “community member” through marriage (especially in the case of daughters-in-law born in different communities to their husbands). However, registration as a community member does not guarantee access to land, though it does guarantee access to a series of services within the community. Larmenta is a particularly extreme case: as an irrigation community, being a community member grants access to the benefits of social programs, but no access to land, which has already been privatized. In shepherds’ communities (like Tinyaclla), being a daughter-in-law can be a limitation on access to land, even if one is registered as a community member. We have observed cases in which there is continuous usufruct of land following the husband’s death, as well as cases in which women return to their father’s family after the death of their husbands.

Tension between subsistence and Chayanovian expansion:

The ideal story of land accumulation depends on the constitution of a marital unit who receives land or cattle as inheritance and thereby begins a process of expansion of their land (rainfed zones) or cattle (shepherds’ communities) assets. These assets are later distributed in the form of inheritance among the children, who build their own new marital units. This process, seemingly reproducing with great precision the logic of the peasant economy described by Chayanov (1974), is visible in many of the cases we have analyzed. However, there are two important alternative pathways directly related to the situation of women. On the one hand, limited inheritance does not allow the same level of accumulation, thus keeping families at the level of subsistence. On the other hand, because most women who are heads of their households do not constitute a marital unit anymore (due to separation or death of the husband), they are unable to further accumulate assets: they are at most able to keep the assets obtained by marriage, and in some cases, they even lose a part of them (particularly in the case of cattle herds).

Male vocation:

The activities of husbands as temporary or permanent workers in urban spaces, or as temporary mineworkers in nearby sites—particularly in rainfed and irrigated communities, not so much in shepherds’ communities—leaves control, use and enjoyment of agricultural plots and cattle herds in the hands of wives. Even without enjoying absolute dominance, most women with absent husbands effectively control land (although the land is not at their disposal, nor are they able to transfer it).

Violence and emigration:

The period of political violence seems to have increased female access to land in two ways. A husband’s death leaves a wife as absolute owner and usufructuary of marital patrimony. Additionally, the increased emigration meant that a woman or a marital unit was often left behind as a sole family “representative,” managing the entirety of plots owned by their extended family (in both rainfed and irrigated areas). These factors produce uncertain usufruct: because absent relatives keep their rights over the land, the occupation and usufruct of the land are legally fragile.

Female vocation:

Many women with limited access to land state their intention to carry out other economic activities outside agriculture or stockbreeding, preferring commerce, emigration or an urban job. They do not expect to occupy or work land. Some of the ones who gain access to land or cattle consider the possibility of handing it over to their families. Another situation is that of women who intend to combine activities such as small-scale agriculture and stockbreeding, and additional forms of income (of family origin or not). In all three communities these women take on tasks of representation and leadership.

_{Table 3. Factors influencing greater or smaller female access to land (by Alejandro Diez)}

Constants and final remarks

Current legislation is insufficient and does not guarantee equality regarding women’s access to land. While the more general laws stipulate the equality between men and women, the vagueness of communal laws and norms on particular and family rights of usufruct does not contribute to clear and equal access to land by members of a community (be they men or women).

Laws on communal property have more of an “exterior” function and not so much an “interior” one. They do not regulate the access mechanisms of different families or members of the community to collective land. Gender difference is scarcely recognized in written communal norms, and it’s unfavorable to women in the concrete and usual practices of access to land. Communal statutes ignore, in general, gender and only acknowledge minimal differences in favor of women. Only shepherds’ communities, like Tinyaclla, permit a reduction in the intensity of labor under certain circumstances, and recognize women’s organizations as part of the institutions of the community. The other two communities acknowledge no difference whatsoever between the rights of men and women. However, in daily communal practice, women occupy a subsidiary position: though registered as community members, they are considered “companions” to the husbands, and they only enjoy self and autonomous representation when they are heads of their households. This is caused by the fact that the base of the peasant community is the family and not the individual. Therefore, the core problem is the representation of the family before the collective. In the concrete practices of access to land, inheritance and belonging to a family unit has a negative effect on female access to land. Most communal legislation and practices seem to favor and support marital access to usufruct in communal land.

As formal owner of the land, the community becomes the intermediary and mediator of the access to land by both men and women. This role as intermediary differs according to the type of land and the main use given to it. It is possible to identify three types of roles of the community as intermediary.

On irrigated land:

The communal role is more institutional than effective. In the extreme case of Larmenta, the community has no say over the irrigated land which has been titled individually.

On rainfed land:

The community has an intermediary role in access to property (guarantying and protecting), and regarding the rights of use over plots (stipulating crops and schedules according to the requirements of a “communally regulated fallow” system applied to the laymi land).

On grazing land:

Access to land requires two intermediaries. First, the community recognizes the possession of land by large groups of families. Second, the extended family grants rights to the marital units and to individuals or, more precisely, to their cattle.

Women’s access to land is only favored within the context of marriage. The pathways to access land both through inheritance and throughout a woman’s lifetime seem to be designed to further the Chayanovian accumulation of land in the context of the nuclear family and marriage. This has severe negative effects on accumulation of assets and increased access to land by female single-parent families (the model probably also has negative effects on male single-parent families, but we do not have any evidence on this matter).

To the extent that women’s life cycles greatly determine their access to land, a series of concurrent factors affect the degree to which land is actually at women’s disposal. Some of these factors limit women’s control over land: for instance, the favoring of male children in land inheritance, the virilocality of shepherds’ communities and, in some cases, male dominance and female lack of interest in land. Other factors have a positive effect on women’s control over land, for example, belonging to a marital unit, the control over subsistence production, and (increasingly) the husband’s absence due to employment outside the community, or the emigration of relatives that leave their assigned pieces of land under the control of women that remain in the community. Additionally, there are exceptional cases of empowerment of some female leaders.

As I have pointed out, women’s recognition by the community and their belonging to it (as a registered member) are necessary but not sufficient conditions to access land. Female recognition and governance possibility within the community is still limited. Women gain access to the status of registered community members and in some communities manage to hold secondary offices. However, they are far from participating in communal government on equal standing with men. Their participation in defining and decision-making spaces, such as assemblies, is increasing, but is still limited and subsidiary.

Finally, individual titling—over irrigated land with greater family control and with formal recognition of male and female rights—does not seem to guarantee women’s rights nor access to land (even within the context of marriage). In the cases we have been privy to, the property title does not grant exclusive property to the main holder of the deed, who is generally considered merely nominal owner of a piece of land on which multiple family rights are acknowledged. Individual or family titling only grants a partial and imperfect property that does not guarantee that the property be actually at the disposal of the deed’s holder, as the law stipulates. Actual access to property is determined by customary access norms and practices rather than by regulations or titles outside local collectives. Any process seeking to guarantee women’s access to land (or the access of community members in general) doesn’t need to guarantee titles or legal procedures, but relies instead on local recognition of exclusive access or property.

Diez, A.A. (2011). “Tres utopías sobre la propiedad femenina (absoluta) de la tierra. Reflexiones a partir del acceso de mujeres campesinas a tierras comunales en Huancavelica.” In: Anderson, J. et al., Mujer rural: Cambios y persistencias en América Latina (Lima: Cepes, Cooperacción, Alop, Manuela Ramos, pp. 85–116.

• 1
  In 2002 the Special Programme for Land Titling (PETT for its initials in Spanish) registered 565 communities in Huancavelica. More recent surveys estimate 609.
• 2
  The data is for the year 1998 and is registered in the national directory of peasant communities. There is no comparable updated register of the current peasant population, most likely higher in all three cases due to the development of urban spaces and the consolidation of minor population centres.
• 3
  In all the stories we gathered, women established new family units either through cohabitation or marriage between the ages of 20 and 23. In just one case this happened at the age of 18, this was in the case of the eldest interviewee (52 years old).
• 4
  However, some cases refer to the access to land in neighbouring communities such as Occoro Viejo (Susana).
• 5
  In the Nuevo Occoro community, there is one exceptional case of land access that illustrates peculiar circumstances. At the time of her father’s death, Romualda didn’t receive any land because her mother lived in Huancayo and one of her brothers hoarded most of the family patrimony. Therefore, she dedicated herself to other non-agricultural activities within the community. This enabled her, while still being single, to purchase four plots in two different laymi sectors. She married someone from the Hualaspampa community, who inherited land in his own community. They only profited from this land for some years before settling definitively in Nuevo Occoro. Besides agriculture, Romualda dedicated herself to cattle commerce and worked with the feminist NGO Manuela Ramos. After her marriage, she and her husband bought some additional plots adding up to twelve plots and a total of one hectare (additionally they have access to some extra land by lease). They have also bought other plots to hand over to their single daughters “because they should have their own plots.” Romualda claims she will distribute land equally among all her children as they marry.