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Silvia Sarapura is a PhD Candidate in the Rural Studies Interdisciplinary Program at the University of Guelph, Canada.
Silvia's research focuses on Peruvian potato growers. She is analyzing market opportunities for the potato crop from a female-feminist perspective.
In the Peruvian Andes, farmers grow thousands of native potato varieties. Despite adversities like climate change, globalization and food scarcity, farmers have been able to preserve the potato's genetic biodiversity. In her study, Silvia argues for the visibility of peasant men and women in the Peruvian agriculture.
Rural Peru has often been considered a homogenous space. Governments and institutions have ignored women and men’s traditional knowledge, forms of community organization, customary laws, and the dynamics that sustain poverty and inequality. The presence of women in agriculture at the macro level is still weak. Women have suffered discrimination as a result of their gender, peasant and indigenous identities. Silvia's study recognizes diversity not only in men and women’s local lives but also in relation to their Andean Cosmo vision and worldviews which include particular ideas and practices of “buen vivir”, reciprocity, collectivity, complementarity and duality.
Silvia strongly believes in participatory research. Her study, therefore, includes the perspectives and discussions of two hundred and twenty female and male producers. As part of the project, six participants (four women and two men) were trained in the use of video camera and interviewing.
Some of Silvia's papers include "Ensuring gender equality in capacity development –opportunities for rural employment and sustainable development" and "Innovative Agriculture through Gender Lenses".
For more information, Silvia can be contacted at [email protected]
The following video was produce by Silvia and her husband Guillermo Yupanqui and it describes women's relationship and context of potato growing.