Gendered Political Ecology of Coffee and Maize Agro-Ecosystems in the Southern Ecuadorian Andes

Abstract: This thesis is about how these small farmers in two socio-ecological systems in southern Ecuador accommodate their agro-ecologies and gender systems to national and international forces and networks, and how it relates to processes of ecological appropriation conflictive with their possibilities of wellbeing. Loja, in the Southern Ecuadorian Andes, maize growers embrace industrial production, with a stricter gendered division of labor, which is offered as a solution to low income by state agents, meat-complex agribusiness, and banks at the cost of environmental degradation. Coffee farmers, adapt and increase their labor to join alliances with NGOs and farmer organizations in order to comply with fair trade and organic coffee market demands of high quality and moderate income improvements.