Environment, transnational labor migration, and gender: case studies from southern Yucatán, Mexico and Vermont, USA

Abstract

Gender shapes the migration-environment association in both origin and destination communities. Using quantitative and qualitative data, we juxtapose these gender dimensions for a labor migrant-sending location of Mexico's southern Yucatán with those for a labor migrant-receiving location in Vermont (USA). We illustrate how in the southern Yucatán, circular transnational migration alters pasture, maize and chili production in a peasant field-forest system. Gender norms condition the land-use decisions of migratory households to keep women out of agricultural fields, but in turn may be modified in unexpected ways. With men's migration, more women assume aspects of land management, including in decisionmaking and supervision of hired farm labor. In comparison, in Vermont a largely male migrant labor force helps maintain an idealized, pastoral landscape with gender deeply embedded in how that labor is constructed and managed.

Toward the Integrated Framework Analysis of Linkages among Agrobiodiversity, Livelihood Diversification, Ecological Systems, and Sustainability amid Global Change

“…Third, the role of migration remittances is complex and may be either detrimental or beneficial with regard to environmental impacts in sending communities [89,90], which has seemed to motivate the growing number of case studies of livelihood diversification and environmental impacts in development. Gendered social relations and their role in agriculture and land use are an increasingly important focus of these studies [112,[172][173][174][175][176][177][178]. Yet research has not focused as systematically as we do here across the geographic and interdisciplinary integration of multiple forms of livelihood diversification (e.g., migration, on-farm diversification), environmental resource-and environment-specific systems (e.g., agrobiodiversity, soil, water, uncultivated biodiversity), and related gender relations.…”

“…This research emphasis owes to the immediate impacts of soil and water management on human well-being as well as the potential reverse causation, namely, that soil or water degradation, or "agro-ecological drivers" more generally, contribute to the migration decisions of individuals and households [93,[176][177][178][179]. The importance of soil degradation in smallholder land use, for example, can be symptomatic of resource-poverty traps associated with livelihood diversification that is detrimental to both the environment and human well-being [61,173,174]. Water resources and management show a discernible trend toward increased quality (60%) under changes associated with on-farm livelihood diversification in contrast to migration, since the former often incorporates small-scale irrigation systems (Table 3.3b).…”

Linking Remote Sensing, Census and Interview Data to Understand Forest Transitions in the Southern Cone of the State of Yucatán, México

“…Oxkutzcab was the only place that was experiencing any in-migration, but none of it was related to agriculture. Out-migration was also linked to a reduction in area under cultivation in the Calakmul region (Busch & Geoghegan 2010, Radel, et al 2010, Schmook & Radel 2008. The 2000 census data showed that the service sector is the most important source of employment in Oxkutzcab whereas agriculture continued to provide the main source of livelihood for people in Peto and especially Tzucacab.…”

“…For example based on survey data from 1986-1997, Programa de Apoyos Directos al Campo (PRO-CAMPO), an agricultural program implemented in 1994 with the goal of integrating agricultural markets and intensifying production, revealed only modest increases in market production, but an increase in deforestation occurred through the conversion of land to commercial chili production and pastures (Klepeis & Vance 2003). A study based on household surveys carried out in 1997 and 2003 found that similar land use choices were being made by some, although others were choosing to withdraw from agriculture all together and those who converted their land to pasture or commercial agriculture were using less land than previously devoted to extensive agricultural practices, resulting in a decrease in deforestation (Busch & Geoghegan 2010, Radel et al 2010, Schmook & Radel 2008. The increase in global environmentalism over the last 25 years has also led to the development of community-based conservation programs in the region, such as the Parks in Peril program and Empleo Temporal, which along with the enforcement of rules associated with the reserve seem to be contributing to a decline in deforestation (Rueda 2010).…”

“…An important contributor to the decline in deforestation is a reduction in family labor due to out-migration and the resulting decrease of land in production (Busch & Geoghegan 2010, Radel, et al 2010, Schmook & Radel 2008. The relationship that people have with the land and their land use choices also depends on their length of residence in the area, with long-time residents typically practicing diversified subsistence strategies that have less of an adverse environmental impact than the commercial agriculture typically practiced by immigrants from central and northern México who moved to the region during the agrarian reform of 1994 (Chowdhury 2010, Gurri 2010 (Bray et al 2004).…”