Trading out? A Study of Farming Women's and Men's Access to Resources in Rural Ethiopia

Women are over-representated among the rural poor in developing countries, and face greter difficulties to raise themselves out of poverty than men. Why is it so? In this PhD dissertation, Åsa Torkelsson studies how the assets of the rural poor can become capital with participation in the wider economy, mainly through local trade and local forms of sociability, and how gender affects this process. The book adds a gender dimension to the field of economic sociology, and presents new knowledge regarding the constraints that women encounter in their attempts to be active agents both in local economies and in local forms of sociabiliy, and illustrates how gender inequalities are reproduced. Future attempts to strengthen local markets and institutions must therefore acknowledge the different constraints and opportunities of women and men in these arenas, and reflect this in their interventions. Women's room for maneuver could then translate into real empowerment.