Gender matters - Climate Change Adaptation and Development: Transforming Paradigms and Practices - page 90

as maintain social activities and rituals, such as loans to pay for weddings and
funerals (Hydén 1983). These personal networks also play a significant role for
local development, through informal loan arrangements to develop small-scale
businesses, expand farming practices or construct houses. The system may also
involve calling on family members and relatives to support schooling for less
fortunate members of an extended family, whether by covering school fees or
by providing free accommodation (ibid.: 14).
In a society where the state is generally weak, such an economy of affection
largely 'works' because for those in need of assistance the transaction costs are low;
moreover, free-riding is not a problem, because patrons take pride in providing
assistance even if others do not contribute, as this gives the patron power. Also
the hazards are low because it is less risky to seek out others informally for
problem solution than relying on formal institutions to do so (Hydén 2007).
The robustness of these informal institutions (as opposed to formal ones) is
thus legitimized by the local (private) realm and driven by the 'trust and sense
of mutual obligation that the face-to-face exchange creates' (Hydén 1983: 11).
In the domestic sphere such reciprocal exchanges can be observed when
women share and take turns looking after each other's children, give food for
emergencies and work on each other's plots, without any monetary transactions
taking place. Similarly, loyalty to one's own kin is a significant element in the
sustainability of local business ventures (Njogu et al. 2010). In the LVB this
can be seen primarily in the kin-based separation of location and/or timing of
market places for vegetables, livestock and consumer goods (Gabrielsson 2012).
The economy of affection also plays a significant role in the national and local
political arena in both Kenya and Tanzania, paving the way for a 'clientelist' form
of politics: some political rulers treat the exercise of power as an extension of
their private realm, thereby giving precedence to their own kinship networks,
rather than the public realm of formal institutions (Hydén 2013). An indication
of this in the LVB may be seen in how politicians, predominately males, have
majority rule in those areas where their kinship ties originate.
In this socio-political reality, where informal exchange is significant and
direct reciprocities are deemed necessary to get things done, who you know
is often more important than what you know. Nor is it unusual for people to
value sharing personal wealth more than investing in economic ventures, or that
people trust that giving a helping hand today will generate returns tomorrow
(Hydén 2013). In such an economy, accumulation of money is therefore not an
end in itself, but rather a means to strengthen social ties - and for politicians to
acquire more votes.
But in patriarchal societies, common in SSA, where women are deemed
subordinate to men and thereby lack access to financial capital, political voice,
social networks and mobility, the economy of affection may be a perilous
system to navigate. While the exchanges made within the economy of affection
are reciprocal, they are certainly not power-neutral. The power relation is
determined by the person who is least dependent on what is being exchanged,