| dc.description.abstract | Community and household are often perceived as what Elmhirst (2015) called ‘arenas of
assumed common interest’, which think that the impact of development activities should
be the same for community as a whole, and for all household members. However, this
cannot be the case as the social-economic factors and the access and control over
resources differentiate the households within a community as well as the women and men
within a household. Based on observations from qualitative researches in two rural
communities in Sumatera, this article aims at giving a critical analyses on the impact of
development (income generating) activities to the livelihood strategy of different
households, using gender empowerment and social inclusion (GESI) perspective. Both
communities develop their livelihood strategy in the agriculture frontier landscape. The
income generating activities are cultivation of coffee as cash crop for household income
and growing seedlings in tree nursery for forest farmers’ group. It was observed that both
activities add more work-burden for women than men. Among women, women of betteroff
households perceived the activity as social responsibility whereas to women of poor
households the social responsibility is coupled with real loss of economic opportunity.
In the process, women’s productive activities is put secondary to those of households and
community, although their productive activities bring a small but continual income that
sustain poor households’ subsistence as well as strengthening resiliency. Incorporating
GESI perspective in livelihood analysis, therefore, is crucial not only to reveal the intraand
inter-household dynamics, but also to highlight the important contributions of women
in household economy and in the overall livelihood strategy. In doing so, this GESI
perspective corrects the biased assumption in development program about the
community’s common interest. | id |
