Geoscience Reference
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our village - those who benefit from these organizations are always the same
few educated people.' His comment was supported by several other informants,
who stressed the importance of having an education and a good social network
in order to obtain benefits from external interventions.
Most food-insecure households mentioned the lack of schooling, in particular
among women and Dalits, as a key barrier to their active participation in village
political life. Among Dalits in Khankhe, only three people (of the 16 households
interviewed) had more than six years of schooling. By comparison, at least
twice as many children from Thakuri households and better-off households
in Syaandaa and Khaagaalgaon had completed between six and ten years of
schooling, in some cases more.
We also noted a pronounced gender dimension to the power dynamics that
contributed to food insecurity. Education is much less common for girls. No
Dalit girls in Khankhe had more than six years of schooling, and only a few
families in the three villages - most of them better-off - prioritize girls' education.
Women, especially in Syaandaa and Khankhe, pointed out that they were often
excluded from decision-making processes and were overloaded with work. This
prevented them from taking proper care of the children (such as breast feeding),
and created important health problems. Women rarely participate in meetings
on the village and regional level where local development issues are discussed;
it was widely held that they did not have to go, since they were represented by
their husbands. These gender dimensions to the local power dynamics act as a
contributing factor to vulnerability in the villages, a point supported by other
studies, such as Thomas-Slayter and Bhatt (1994), Nelson and Stathers (2009)
and Nightingale (2011).
Entrenched inequities and dependencies
An important aspect of the dynamics of vulnerability is the tendency for
highly unequal social and power relations, in combination with chronic food
insecurity, to reinforce dependencies and inequities. Focus group discussions
and individual informal interviews reveal how fewer livelihood options and
unequal power relations aggravate existing vulnerabilities, whereas some of
the better-off may even improve their position through a crisis situation. As
one interviewee in Khankhe put it, 'those who had food before also have food
now, but those who did not have enough food before have even more problems
now that the rains have stopped'. This statement is supported by household
interviews findings that most of the very poor consider that their wellbeing
has remained the same or worsened over the past ten years. By contrast, most
of the relatively prosperous households feel that their wellbeing has improved
over the last decade - due mainly to the increase in small trade - indicating
that differential access to livelihood options is leading to increasing inequities.
These findings are supported by other studies that have highlighted the linkages
between vulnerability, power and social inequities (Chambers and Conway
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