Passion and Profession.
Women Pioneers in the Field of Organic Agriculture – Gender and Science

Background: The significant role women have played - and continue to play - in the progress made in farming has been underexposed to date, although women who work on farms are among those who have received the greatest attention from researchers interested in professionally active women. The notion still prevails today that it was "great men," and not women, who were responsible for the success of the scientific developments in agriculture. This is also true with respect to alternative approaches in farming as recent publications on the history of organic farming prove. However, the initial impulses for the organic farming movement were triggered by two publications written by women in the 1960s (Carson 1962; Harrison 1964) that shocked the broad public with their criticism of the destruction of the environment caused by industrialized methods of farming. The reasons why the role women played in the progress of agriculture has been ignored are numerous. The first factor that should be mentioned is the general lack of interest on the part of agricultural science in the sociology of knowledge and the history of knowledge. Furthermore, agricultural science comprises a conglomerate of diverse disciplines - the natural sciences, economics, applied sciences, sociology - that is hard to define and classify. Thus, agricultural science, along with its specific cultural and historical background, has also seldom been reflected in the feministic criticism of the natural sciences. Another reason for the lack of recognition of women in organic farming is their double role as outsiders: on the one hand, they contribute to the development of alternative farming while, at the same time, they carry out research and teach and work in a domain dominated by men.
Objectives: The research project deals with the contributions made by women to the history of progress in organic farming. Perspectives and issues respecting gender and science as well as individual biographies and achievements will be studied against the background of various research concepts and placed in relationship to the development of the state of knowledge as well as the institutionalisation and professionalization processes. In a final step, 'collective biographies' will be reconstructed of three women 'pioneer cohorts' pertaining to the three main directions in organic farming.
Research Methods: Qualitative, empirical methods and biography-oriented social research. Research will be carried out in archives or episodic interviews made in accordance with the 'cohort' to which the women belong. The data collection and evaluation will be supported by EDP using the grounded theory methods according to Glaser/Strauss.
Disciplinary orientation: Rural Gender Studies, Gender and Science, Rural Sociology, Agricultural Science, Agricultural History, Sociology of Knowledge
Project leader: Prof. Dr. Heide Inhetveen
Other researcher(s): Dr. Mathilde Schmitt, Dr. Ira Spieker
Related research program: Women Pioneers in Agriculture
Funding institutions: Niedersächsisches Ministerium für Wissenschaft und Kultur, Hannover

Timetable:

 Begin: Spring 2002
Expected completion: Autumn 2004
Output:

Inhetveen, Heide/Schmitt, Mathilde (Hg.) (2000) Pionierinnen des Landbaus. Uetersen: Heydorn.

Heide Inhetveen/Mathilde Schmitt/Ira Spieker (2002): Wegbereiterinnen und Wegbegleiterinnen. Frauen im Ökologischen Landbau. In: Lebendige Erde (6), S. 12-16.

Inhetveen, Heide/Schmitt, Mathilde/Spieker, Ira (2002) Die Gärten der Frauen. Biodiversität aus Sicht der ruralen Geschlechterforschung. In: Georgia Augusta 1, S. 73-78

Heide Inhetveen/Mathilde Schmitt/Ira Spieker (2003): Pionierinnen des Ökologischen Landbaus. Herausforderungen für Geschichte und Wissenschaft. In: Bernhard Freyer (Hg.): Ökologischer Landbau der Zukunft. Beiträge zur 7. Wissenschaftstagung zum Ökologischen Landbau. Wien, pp. 427-430.

Schmitt, Mathilde/Inhetveen, Heide/ Spieker, Ira (2003) Agrarpionierinnen. Herausforderungen für die Wissenschaftsentwicklung des Ökologischen Landbaus. In: Ursula Paravicini, Maren Zempel-Gino (Hg.): Wissenschaftliche Kolloquien 1999 - 2002. Niedersächsischer Forschungsverbund für Frauen-/Geschlechterforschung in Naturwissenschaften, Technik und Medizin. Hannover: NFFG, 2003. (Wissenschaftliche Reihe NFFG; Bd. 2) S. 167-180

Inhetveen, Heide/Schmitt, Mathilde/Spieker, Ira (2003) Women Pioneers in the Field of Organic Agriculture. Challenges for History and Science, Göttingen [http://www.ruralhistory.at, 27.8.2003]

Spieker, Ira (2004) Erfühlen - Beobachten - Erkennen. Mina Hofstetter: Aneignung und Vermittlung von Wissen in der Frühphase des biologischen Landbaus. In: Ursula Paravicini, Maren Zempel-Gino (Hg.) Niedersächsischer Forschungsverbund für Frauen-/Geschlechterforschung in Naturwissenschaften, Technik und Medizin. Hannover: NFFG (Wissenschaftliche Reihe NFFG; Bd. 4) S. 141-159

Heide Inhetveen/Ira Spieker/Mathilde Schmitt/Ursula Schlude: Hat Agrarwissen ein Geschlecht? Göttinger Studien zur Agrarwissenschaftsgeschichte aus einer Gender and Science-Perspektive. In: Zeitschrift für Agrargeschichte und Agrarsoziologie 52 (2004) 2, S. 98-103.

Heide Inhetveen/Mathilde Schmitt/Ira Spieker: Loheland ­ eine lebensreformerische Fraueninitiative und ökologische Forschungsstätte. In: Jürgen Heß u. Gerold Rahmann (Hg.): Ende der Nische. Beitrag zur 8. Wissenschaftstagung Ökologischer Landbau. Kassel 2005, S. 427-428. (Posterbeitrag).

Last updated: Mai 11, 2005