The Hidden Side of Group Behaviour: A Gender Analysis of Community Forestry in South Asia

Abstract

Abstract Community forestry groups, managing State or community-owned forest resources, represent one of the most rapidly growing forms of collective action in the developing world. They thus provide an especially useful study in how groups function. This chapter focuses on South Asian experience to illuminate how such groups, ostensibly set-up to operate on principles of cooperation, and meant to involve and benefit all members of the rural community, often effectively exclude significant sections, such as women. While seemingly participatory, equitable and efficient, they cloak substantial gender-related inequities and inefficiencies. The chapter also analyses what underlies such unfavourable outcomes and how the outcomes could be improved.