women and agrarian reform: chile, 1964–1973

WOMEN A N D AGRARIAN REFORM: CHILE, 1964-1973*

b PATRICIA GARRETT

Drpartment of RuraI Sociolog)., cmnrll University, lthara, USA

The reform of the Chilean system of land tenure was the cornerstone of agrarian policy during both the Frei (1964-1970) and Allende (1970-1973) administrations. Before the military coup of September 11 1973, the impact of agrarian reform in the countryside had been rofound, not only because of its direct redistributive effects but also

&cause it was accompanied by the organization and politicization of the countryside. Chile, therefore, provides one of the few examples of large scale agrarian reform conducted legally in a non-socialist country.

To say that Chile provides an example of agrarian reform is not to say that it provides a blueprint that other countries should follow. The reform experience was problematic, a fact readily acknowledged by individuals who were intimately involved in policy making and imple- mentation. From very knowledgeable people (Barraclough & Fernin- dez, 1974; Chonchol, 1975, 1976) have come sympathetic critiques of the agwian reform process. These are designed to identify problem areas and draw out the “lessons learned” so that future attempts at agrarian reform may build on the Chilean experience.

These commentaries have not systematically considered the lessons one might learn regarding the integration of women into the reform process. Whether one is interested in making a global appraisal of Chilean reform or whether one is concerned with developing specific programs which benefit women and men, the relative lack of female

The field research on which this papcr is hscd was funded by a grant from the Ford Foundation to thc Land Tcnurc Center of the University of Wisconsin. I would like to thank the projects directors, Marion Brown and J. David Stanfield, and the project staff for all t h q taught me. I am also grateful to the Chilans who worked to extend the benefits of agrarian rcform and popular organization to rural women for sharing their experiences with me.

The continuation of this work has been supported by a grant from the International Agriculture and Rural Dcvclopmcnt program of Corncll Univcnity. The interpretations and opinons exprcsscd hcrin arc my own.

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involvement in the Chilean agrarian reform is an important phenome- non which requires explanation.

The purpose of this paper is to consider the factors which influenced the role of women in the agrarian reform process. The initial section considers the objectives of agrarian reform as they were formulated during the Frei and Allende administrations. The next section identifies specific provisions and interpretations of agrarian reform legislation which excluded women from direct participation. Agrarian reform changed over time, so the next section discusses modifications in the form and substance of participation introduced during the Allende administration. The concluding section attempts to specify what changes were, and were not, possible that would have enhanced the participation of women in the reform process and their roles as agricultural producers.

This paper is based on three years (1970-1973) of field research in Chile. The Land Tenure Center of the University of Wisconsin (Ma- dison) conducted a large scale study of the impact of agrarian reform in the Central Valley. Data concerning agricultural production on the central enterprise was collected on a random sample of farms (N = 216) of the greatest productive potential. This was supplemented by a random sample of workers (N= 1,216) on these farms, who were interviewed on issues ranging from production practices on subsistence plots to attitudes towards agrarian reform. A subsample of wives of these workers (N= 326) was also interviewed, Husbands and wives were asked identical questions regarding participation, especially decision making, in agrarian reform. The marked disparities in male and female opportunities and the context within which they arose are the central concerns of this paper.

OBJECTIVES OF AGRARIAN REFORM

The Chilean land tenure system - characterized by the monopolization of productive resources by the latifundio, extensive patterns of cultiva- tion, low agricultural productivity and limited employment opportunities - has been problematic throughout most of its history. The belief was that agrarian reform was necessary to increase agricultural production and decrease rural poverty, and research both pre- and post-reform generally supported this position (CIDA-Chile, 1966; Crosson, 1970; Smith, 1974; Shaw, 1976).

Agrarian reform, as it was conducted by the Frei administration (1964-1970), was conceptualized within the framework of dual society theory. The assumption was that rural areas were characterized by traditional forms of social organization, which acted as a brake on modernization. Specifically agrarian reform was to stimulate agricultu-

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ral production by eliminating the traditional landowning class and replacing it by peasant producers oriented to market. More generally, agrarian reform would incorporate marginal populations into the national community by extending property rights and social services.

Between 1365 and 1970, approximately 1,400 reformed units were created. The pace of reform was slow. By the end of the Frei administration, agrarian reform had affected 13 percent of the cultivated land and benefited approximately 5 to 10 percent of those with insufficient or no land (Chonchol 1976, p. 606).

Agrarian reform, as it was conducted during the Allende administration, was conceptualized as one component in the overall program of initiating a transition to socialism. The basic economic objectives were to increase agricultural productivity, income and employment. A basic political objective was to improve the correlation of forces in the countryside. This meant weakening the economic and political power of large landowners and their allies and increasing the power of the landless, small holders, and family farmers (Barraclough & Ferninda, 1974).

The pace of agrarian reform quickened during the Allende administration. Approximately 3,600 farms were expropriated by March 1973, benefiting approximately 34,000 families. Unofficial estimates suggest that by September 1973, agrarian reform had affected 5,600 farms, reprexnting 60 percent of the irrigated land.

Agrarian reform in Chile had been extensive, but important policy problems remained. One of the most controversial issues concerned the low population densities on reformed units. Barraclough and Ferninda (1974, p. 85) estimated that reformed units had an average of more than 100 hectares per beneficiary. The low levels of population density within the latifundio were repeated within the reformed sector.

AGRARIAN REFORM LEGISLATION

Agrarian reform during both the Frei and Allende administrations was governed by the same legislation. The agrarian reform law (Ley 16.640, 1967) permitted the expropriation of farms on several grounds, including excessive size, underutilization of productive resources and illegal practices. There was to be a three- to five-year transitional stage to give peasants experience in the cooperative exploitation of the land, to intensify production by developing human and technological resources, and to incorporate new families. Thereafter, property rights would be assigned to a cooperative, to individuals, or in a mixed system (ICIRA, 1968).

Since Ley 16.640 was framed in terms of specific characteristics of existing farm enterprises, agrarian reform could not readily proceed on a

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regional level, consolidating contiguous farms of different sizes into a coordinated production unit. Rather, the law channeled reform in a farm-by-farm approach. This created a mosaic of tenure types in regions and generated tensions among aspiring beneficiaries of reform (Chon- chol, 1975).

Agrarian reform favored the permanent, resident work force (znquz- finos) on the farms to be reformed. Many indwiduals could meet general eligibility requirements: to be a capable peasant ofgood character, to be eighteen and married or effective head of house. They were further evaluated on a point system for six additional considerations (FAO/ ICIRA 1967, p. 70-71). It was this point system, in conjunction with the farm-by-farm approach, which favored inquilinos and discriminated against the majority of the agricultural labor force.

The permanent, resident workforce on large farms had become a decided minority of the total agricultural labor force by 1965. Agricul- tural census data from 1935 to 1965 demonstrate an absolute and relative decline in this occupational category. These data also demonstrate that the occupational distribution of the male and female agricultural labor forces became increasingly divergent between 1935 and 1965. Women were disproportionately displaced from employment as permanent, resident workers. Although only 20 percent of this occupational category was female in 1935, women lost 53.7 percent of those jobs eliminated by 1965 (Garrett, 1976, p. 14-18).

These changes in the size and sex composition of the permanent, resident labor force had a direct bearing on agrarian reform. Legislation, specifically the farm-by-farm approach and the point system, favored workers who were relatively privileged in comparison to other rural strata. This generated tensions among agricultural workers. This same legislation also discriminated against women because the evolution of the agricultural labor force had left few women in conditions to qualify as beneficiaries in their own right.

Ley 16.640 identified the head of household as the direct beneficiary of agrarian reform, assuming chat ocher members of the household would be indirect beneficiaries. This is common practice in agrarian reform and rural development programs (Dawood, 1978; Palmer, 1978; Palmer & von Buchwald 1980, p. 9-17; Ritchie, 1978). There are a few cases where membership rights are vested independently with each adult, including China (Palmer 1978, p. 36-40), Ethiopia (Tadesse, 1979), Tanzania (Ritchie 1978, p. 40), and Israel (Nevo & Solomonica, 1980). Common practice, however, is that rights be accorded male head of house.

This had direct implications for the relative participation of men and women. Participation was effectively limited to full members of the reformed unit. This practice seems arbitrary, based on my reading of the

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legislation, which defined forms of potential participation very impre- cisely.

A different interpretation of the law might have been forthcoming had the content of decision making on reformed farms been different. Actually, the scope of effective decision making was narrow. Workers developed overall plans for the farm, established working committees for specific commodities, and made decisions democratically on issues ranging from the purchase of machinery to the entrance of new families into the reformed unit. Nevertheless, they had no mandate to consider wider issues of agricultural policy or planning, which were effectively monopolized by the bureaucracy. All of the major inputs into the production process - from seeds and tractors to educational programs and the overall planing of the agricultural sector - originated independently of producers in the reformed sector.

Since decision making was limited to questions of individual farm management, it was consistent that participation be limited to those resident and permanently employed on reformed farms. Indeed, Land Tenure Center research documented the relative participation of men and the exclusion of women. Most women (fully 76.3 percent) reported that they could not participate in decision making in any area studied (Garrett 1778, p. 234). Men and women who were not resident and not permanently employed on the farm were also excluded.

It appears that the non-participation of two categories of people - female residents and male and female non-residents - was not a consequence of their membership or non-membershippet se. Rather, it was a consequence of a broader political issue, namely the scope of decision making. The narrow scope of effective decision making made the participation of those resident and permanently employed appropriate; likewise, it made the participation of others inappropriate. A broader decision making mandate, by contrast, would probably have made the participation of those not resident and not permanently employed appropriate, indeed indispensable.

MODIFICATIONS IN THE PARTICIPATION OF WOMEN DURING THE ALLENDE ADMINISTRATION

During the Allende administration, the debate over agricultural policy was intense. The central issue was: what kind of transitional program in agriculture should the government pursue? Strategies and tactics for the organization of agriculture were discussed. There was considerable controversy within the left and consensus, when it emerged at all, was the product of an intense ideological debate. A question which went unasked and unanswered throughout was: What should happen to the wives and daughters of men involved in agrarian reform?

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The Popular Unity government eventually adopted as policy a new organization for the reformed units, the Centers of Agrarian Reform or CERAs. The CERAs were an attempt to redress imbalances in the agricultural sector. The reformed sector occupied 36 to 40 percent of the land and employed only 10 percent of the population active in agriculture in mid-1972 (Barraclough & Fernhdez 1974, p. 44). The economic objective of the CERAs was to extend the benefits of reform more widely by moderating incomes and linking individual income to communal production; by increasing production and thereby genera- ting employment; and by socializing profits and allocating some resources to community services and to regional and national funds for compensation and capitalization. These measures would reduce the privileges that reform beneficiaries enjoyed relative to other social strata. The overall political objective might, thereby, be achieved, namely to build peasant solidarity by reducing the contradictions between workers on large, reformed farms and those who had limited or no access to land (Chonchol, 1975).

The CERAs were to be rrfundamentally democratic organizations, without dwinctions of sex or civil status’’ (Chonchol 1975, p. 10). Unmarried males and all females had been effectively excluded from participation in other reformed units. In the new CERAs all those over eighteen were explicitly included.

The incorporation of women into the CERAs was not a victory for Chilean feminists. It was an accidental by-product of a policy to incorporate, a t least theoretically, ncw social strata into the reform process. There was no systematic program which suggested how women could participate.

Within the CERAs women had a voice in the General Assembly. They could elect and be elected to different working committees. One working committee on CERAs, which had no counterpart on other reformed units, was the Social Welfare Committee. It was responsible for promoting community development by resolving community problems and by encouraging investments in community infrastructure, e.g. multiple-use community buildings. The Social Welfare Committee was considered the principal one through which women might be organized to participate in the reform process.

The Social Welfare Committee was problematic. Most male agri- culturalists were hostile to the involvement of women in any official capacity within the reformed units. Indeed, one of the most frequently heard criticisms of the CERAs was precisely that they permitted female participation. Pubiic opinion, female and especially male, ran counter to government policy.

The Social Welfare Committee was supposed to be funded out of the collective’s profits. This rarely happened because most reformed units,

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especially the newly constituted ones, operated at a loss rather than a profit. Had they operated at a profit, however, there would still have been competition for scarce resources. The Social Welfare Committee would solicit funds which could otherwise be reinvested in the productive infrastructure of the farm. Given government emphasis on increasing productivity in the reformed sector and given the production-oriented structure of decision making within the reformed units, the likelihood was slim that the Social Welfare Committee would be adequately funded at the farm level. There was no requirement to support the Social Welfare Committee either by a guaranteed budget from the national level or a specified percentage of operating expenses at the farm level. Community development activities within agricultural improvement programs often have untenable financial bases, and the Social Welfare Committee of the CERAs provides a specific illus- tration of this general problem.

Finally, there is a question about which concerns could be adequately addressed at the farm level. On the large farms studied, we posed an open ended question to the women interviewed concerning the most serious problems in the countryside. The problems they identified, in rank order, were: general living conditions, including the low standard of living; inadequate housing, potable water, and electricity; agricultural unemployment; inadequate medical services; and the nature of housework, including its social isolation (Garrett 1978, p. 229).

i t is true that the reformed units were very large farms, some of which had populations the size of small villages. Most were not, however, self-contained communities. They shared many social services like roads, schools and clinics, with other residents of the region. Although improvements could be made on the farm, especially in water supply and public buildings, major improvements in physical and social infrastructure required action at the regional and national levels.

It became possible during the Allende administration to organize women through the Social Welfare Committee and thereby to expand effective decision making within the reformed sector. O n some farms, these committees became protagonists in the process of agrarian reform. On most farms, however, they never became effective organizations.

LESSONS LEARNED: ENHANCING T H E ROLE OF WOMEN AS AGRICULTURAL PRODUCERS

Agrarian reform in Chile was characterized by a rather diffuse concern with the productive activities of women. The orientation of the Chris- tian Democrats towards women was as wives and mothers. Women’s economic contributions were regarded as secondary, and there was no expectation that developing agricultural programs for women would

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substantially improve the standard of living in the countryside. The orientation of the Popular Unity coalition towards women was

as members of particular social classes or strata. There was active opposition to targeting rural or urban women, because feminism was defined as a petit bourgeois ideology inconsistent with class analysis. Given this orientation, programs directed at women had to have a specific class content, i.e. to reach women in disadvantaged groups, to improve the standard of living in those households, and to have a potential for growth from subsistence towards commodity production, which would increase food availability and therefore benefit the poorer strata in urban areas.

Both the Christian Democratic and Popular Unity governments assumed that enhancing the role of women as agricultural producers was problematic. This reflects the legacy of history, specifically the tendency to equate production with commodity production and economic activity with wage labor. In the Chilean case, there was no realistic possibility over the short or medium term that male and female employment in agriculture would become comparable. The stagnation of agricultural production and employment, the high levels of unemployment and underemployment in the countryside, with the associated poverty, all meant that increasing productive employment among available males was a major goal. High rates of economic growth and the attendant expansion of productive capacity in agriculture were necessary to provide gainful employment for the male population, which was historically preeminent in agriculture.

Agrarian reform disproportionately benefited men who had lived and worked full time on large farms prior to reform. This occupational category was a minority and privileged in comparison to the large numbers of landless and near landless workers. The CERAs were organized to address this problem by vesting rights more broadly and by incorporating new members as the capacity of the farm to support them increased. Concern was, over time, to incorporate disadvantaged households. This policy, however, was not informed by the knowledge that female headed households are disproportionately concentrated among the poorest strata of rural populations (Buvinic & von Elm, 1978). Neither sensitivity to the special needs of female headed households nor documentation on their concentration by social strata was readily accessible during the Frei or Allende administrations. Today, however, one has a simple demographic rule-of-thumb. To target the most disadvantaged rural strata is, in effect, to target many female headed households. To target, as agrarian reform in Chile did, relatively privileged strata is, in effect, to target male headed households. Monitoring any development program in the future with particular attention to the gender/strata interface in that community may

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improve program development (Palmer & von Buchwald, 1780). Historically, the agricultural and agriculturally-relevant activities of

Chilean women have not been limited to wage labor. Women have traditionally been central in raising barnyard animals, cultivating and processing food for home consumption. Women’s agricultural roles were complementary to, but not competitive with, those of males. These traditional activities could, therefore, be expanded without en- countering stiff ideological opposition. This approach is still recommended in programming for rural women (UNDP 1980, p.

During both the Christian Democratic and Popular Unity governments, ideas about agricultural programs for women gradually evolved. This occurred in the absence of currently available documentation about the successful and unsuccessful experiences in other countries (DAI 1974; UNDP, 1980). Nevertheless, the programs developed, piloted, or in the planning stages were very similar to those in other countries.

The government agency primarily responsible for reaching rural women was the Instituto de Desarrollo Agropecuario (INDAP), a subdivision with a mandate to serve smallholders and landless workers. Its activities with women began in the mid-1960s through the Mothers’ Centers, and it gradually moved towards explicitly agricultural programs for women. In 1973, INDAP created a team in the central office and designated a responsible person in each region to develop and implement agricultural programs for women. Based on previous experiences, the program planned for 1774 included the encouragement of handicrafts, beekeeping, vegetable gardening, and small scale livestock raising.

These projects were not accorded priority in terms of resources and especially staff. The research and extension capabilities of the Chilean government were geared to large scale commercial producers. The development of small scale programs, which would fundamentally improve subsistence production and incidentally increase the market availability of certain commodities (Harwood 1777, p. 6), were defined as marginal to the basic problems of agricultural production in Chile.

The pre-eminence of commercial agriculture in a food deficit country like Chile can hardly be debated. Commercial agriculture, however, need not provide the model for a subsistence oriented program. This it did in the Chilean case. Several programs were designed to provide food for the women’s family in the first stages of project design and to provide a marketable surplus in later stages of project development. These programs were sized down but not scaled down; they were not designed with sensitivity to technology appropriate to very small enterprises (Tinker, 1979). Specifically, they were too reliant on critical,

13-1 7).

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commercial inputs, especially those required in the carly stages of the production cycle. They ignored inputs which might have been obtained on farms, for example recycling through animals in the subsistence enterprises agricultural by-products from the commodity producing enterprises. A farming systems approach would have identified many possibilities that an implicitly commercial model overlooked. Several projects for which expectations ran high probably would have failed because of project design.

There is more interest today than a decade ago in designing agricultural programs to benefit smallholders in general and female farmers in particular. This interest, however, is not informed by an appreciation of the kinds of access to productive resources that women need to develop agricultural enterprises.

The Chilean case illustrates one problem which can arise. Women were not identified as direct beneficiaries of agrarian reform, so they had no independent and guaranteed access to farm resources. Traditionally, they had access to barnyard animals and the household garden, but they had neither traditional nor legal claims to resources of the collective or central enterprise. These facts posed structural limitations on flexible program development.

Consider a specific rabbit raising project (Garrett, 1777). Project design called for rabbits to be raised in pens in women’s backyards during the earliest stage of project development. As the rabbit population increased, as marketing channels were established, and as women’s managerial skills improved, most rabbits were to be moved to a central location on community property. Women had no guaranteed right to use land in this way.

The project assumed that rabbits would eat concentrated feed, and it was indeed abandoned when adequate supplies of feed could not be guaranteed. Had the project been modified so that rabbits were fed alfalfa or other forage crops, the female cooperative would have had to lay claim to cropland and/or its production. This right was not guaranteed either.

Even in this modest project, female cooperatives would have had to negotiate rights of access to the collective resources of the reformed unit. To do otherwise would restrict women to subsistence production, which was inconsistent with the overall project goal of increasing market production and cash income by women. They would have needed to negotiate with male dominated decision making organizations, concerning activities which would have been a breach of tradition. Whether women would have prevailed in these negotiations is unknown; that there would have been conflict is certain.

Chilean agrarian reform, like most agrarian reform and rural development projects, considered women primarily as members of

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nuclear families and only incidentally as producers of agricultural products. The structural limitation this placed on developing production programs for women is evident in the rabbit raising project. The fact that women were not beneficiaries of reform in their own right gave them no claim to the productive resources of the farm. This, in turn, provided little flexibility for developing programs to increase the productive activities of women.

During the historical period considered here (1964-1970), the issue of women’s access to the productive resources of the reformed farms did not present itself. The agricultural activities of women remained basically unchanged by agrarian reform. Men continued to work for wages on the centrally managed enterprise and to cultivate crops on the subsistence enterprise. Depending on the demand for their labor, women also worked for wages on the central enterprise or cultivated subsistence crops. Harvesting subsistence crops might bc either male or female assigned, but women’s harvesting crops for meal preparation, processing and/or storage was considered a domestic rather than an agricultural activity.’ The care of barnyard animals, primary food processing, and on-farm storage were sex-assigned female. The overall pattern was, therefore, male responsibility for most field work, joint responsibility for harvesting subsistence crops, and female responsibility for all aspects of the barnyard enterprises, primary food processing, and on-farm storage.

To change this pattern of division of labor in agricultural production would have required changes in women’s access to productive resources. This is true men in programs oriented to increase subsistence or petty commodity production. In Chile, this change was not forthcoming.

In other countries, however, programs to increase national self sufficiency in the production of basic foodstuffs might be targeted at goods traditionally produced by women. In order to design and implement these programs, attention would need to be given not only to the technical aspects of increasing production but also to the practical implications of traditional land tenure. The existing literature provides little guidance on how to plan women’s access to the resources they need, especially if their needs will likely increase as a consequence of agricultural production programs. The Chilean case suggests that this is an area in which much more research is needed.

NOTES

1. The question which asked spccifially about the “agricultural activities” of the respon- dent and other women on the firm identified this problem. Only agricultural wage labor was defined as an “agricultural activity”; other productive activities of women WCK

defined as homemaking tasks. Researchers should bc alcncd to rhis possibility and daign data collection instruments accordingly.

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BUVINIC, M. & B. von Elm (1978), Womcn-Hadcd Houxholds: The Ignored Factor in

CHONCHOL, J. (1976), La Rcforma Agraria cn Chile: 1364-1973, EI Tn'mestrr k o n h r c o ,

CHONCHOL, J. (1975), Social and Economic Organization of the Reformed Scctor During thc Popular Unity Government, 1971-Scptcmbcr, 1973 (Unpublished Paper prcsentcd at the Group Farming Confercncc, Madison, WI. Junc)

C O M I T ~ INTERAMERICANO DE DESARROLLO AGRICOLA (CIDA-CHILE) (1966), Chilc: Tenencia dc la Ticrra y Dcsarrollo Socioccon6mico dcl Sector Agricola, Scgunda Edici6n (Santiago: Tallcrcs Grificos Hispano Suiza Ltda)

CROSSON, P. (1970), Agricultural Dcvclopmcnt and Productivity: Lessons from the Chilean Expcricnce (Balrimorc: Johns Hopluns Prcss)

DAWOOD, H. (1978), lnrcgrarion of Women in Rural Dcvclopment in rhc Ncar East Region (Unpublished Paper Commissioncd for the World Confcrencc on Agrarian Rcform and Rural Dmelopmcnr, Rome, F A 0 Acccss No. 38319)

DEVELOPMENT ALTERNATIVES INc. (Dar) (1974), A &vcn Country Survey on chc Roles of Womcn in Rural Development, AID/CM/ta-C-734

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FOOD AND AGRICULTURE ORGANIZATION OF THE UNITED N A T I O N S ~ ~ N ~ ~ I T U T O DE CAPACITACI6N E 1NVESTIGAClbN DE LA REFORMA ACRARIA ( F A O ~ I R A ) (1976), Evaluci6n Prcliminar dc 10s Ascntamicntos dc la Rcforma Agriria dc Chile (San- tiago: ICIRA)

GARRETT, P. (1978), Growing Apart: The Expcricnccs of Rural Men and Womcn in the Central Vallcy of Chilc (Unpublishcd Ph.D. Dissertation, Univcnity of Wisconsin, Madison)

GARREIT, P. (1977), Programs to Bcncfit Worlung Women: Chile During rhc Popular Unity Govcrnmcnr, Manpaw and Unrmploymr Ruearch, 10:63-86

GARRFTT, P. (1976), Some Structural Constraints on thc Agricultural Activirics of Women: Thc Hacienda, Research Paper No. 70 (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin. Land Tcnurc Ccntcr)

HARWOOD, R. (1979), Small Farm Dcvclopmcnt: Understanding and Improving Farming Systems in rhc Humid Tropics (Boulder, CO: Wcstvicw Prcss)

INSTlrVrO DE CAPACITAC16N E bPv"VlGACl6N EN REFORMA A G ~ R I A (ICIRA) (1968), Expsici6n Mct6dica y Coordinada dc la Lcy dc Rcforma Agraria dc Chilc: Iry No. 16.640, Publicada cl 28 de Jtilio dc 1967 (Santiago: Editorial Juridica dc Chile)

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29 SMITH, S. (1974). Changes in Farming Sysrcms, Intcnsity of Opcntion, and Factor Use

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ABSTRACT

Chile (1901-1973) provides onc of thc few examples of large scale agrarian reform conducted legally in a non-socialist country. The litcraturc on this expcricncc is extcnsivc, but no analysis systcmarically considers thc implications of the Chilean case for the integration of women into thc agrarian reform or rural dcvclopmcnt processes.

The purposc of this paper is to consider thc factors which influenced the rolc of Chilean women in agrarian reform. The principal topics considcrcd arc: thc objectives of reform under Frci (1964-1970) and Allcndc (1970-1973); provisions of agrarian reform kgislation; and changes in rcformcd units during chc Allcndc administration. Thc final section considers changcs which were, and were nor, possible that would have cnhanccd the participation of women in the rcformcd units and rhc rolcs of womcn as agricultural producers.

R&UM€

Lc Chili (1364-1973) constituc un dcs quclqucs cxcmpla d’unc riforme agrairc dc grande amplcur. conduitc par dcs voics ligalcs dans un pays non socialisre. Unc lbondantc littiraturc cxistc sur le sujct, mais on nedisposc d’aucuncitude systCmatiquc centric sur Ics implications dc I’cxptricncc chilicnnc quanr i I’inrCgration dcs femmcs dans la riformc agraire ou le proccsus dc diveloppemcnt rural.

L‘obict dc ccr article cst d’cxamincr lcs factcurs qui conditionncnt Ic r61c des fcmmcs dans la riformc agrairc chilicnnc. Les principaux thtmcs trait& sont Ics suivanrs: l a objcctifs dc la rkformc agrairc sous Frci (1964-1970) et Allcndc (1970-1973); Ics apports dc la ligislation dc &forme agraire; k s changcmcnts obxwts sous I’administration Allcndc. La dernitrc panic prCcise Ics changcmcnts, possibles ou non, qui auraicnt pu accrohrc la participation dcs femmcs dans les exploitations concern& par la riformc, ct valoriscr lcur rBlc comme productcurs agricolcs.

KURZFASSUNG

Chilc (1764-1973) stcllr eincs dcr wcnigen kispicle eincr groD angclcgten, lcgal durchgc- fiihrtcn Agrarrcform in cincm nichtsozialistischcn Land dar. Es gibt cine umfangrcichc Litcrarur uber d i e s Experiment, abcr kcinc Analysc unrcrsucht systcmatisch am Rlle Chilc dic Implikationcn fur dic Intcgration dcr Fraucn in dic Agrarrcform odcr dcn Prozcss dcr landlichen Entwicklung.

Das Anlicgcn dicscs Beitrages ist cs, zu untcrsuchcn, wclchc Faktorcn die Rolle dcr Frau in dcr Agrarrcform bccinf luh habcn. Vor alletn werdcn bctrachtcr: dic Ziclc dcr Reform unter Frei (1964-1970) und Allcndc (1970-1973); die Bcstimmungcn in der Gcsctzgebung zur Agrarreform; dic Vcrandcrungn in dcn dutch dic Agrarrcform gachaffcncn Betrieben unter Allendc. Im lctztcn Tcil wcrdcn dic Vcdndcrungcn unrcrsucht, dic moglich wvcn und auch nicht moglich warm, urn der Partizipation dcr Fraucn und ihrcr Rollc a h landwirtschaftlichc Produzcntcn in den neugebildten Bcrricbcn cincn hohcren Stcllcnwcrr zu gcbcn.

women and agrarian reform: chile, 1964–1973

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