The Cry for Land: Agrarian Reform, Gender and Land Rights in Uzbekistan

Agrarian reform in Uzbekistan has been informed by contradictory objectives and priorities. Legislation has oscillated between measures to increase private access to land, in line with populist pressures and the structural reform agenda of international agencies, and counter–measures to tighten and restrict such access in response to the Government imperative of retaining control over the production and export earnings of cotton. Drawing on fieldwork carried out in the provinces of Andijan and Khorezm in 2000–1, this article analyses the role of gendered divisions of labour in the maintenance of a commercial cotton sector alongside a smallholder economy that has become the mainstay of rural livelihoods since the post–Soviet collapse of public sector employment and wages. It also discusses the outcomes of different types of farm restructuring and highlights the gender differentiated outcomes of a reform process that forces a growing number of women out of the recorded labour force into casual, unremunerated and informal work.