Bio-Social Roles in Peasant Small Ruminant Production: The Importance of Childrenand Women in Secondary Economic Activities

摘要

Previous research has concluded that women have primary responsibility for smallruminant production in Indonesia. This research, however, has suffered from the lack of an appropriate methodology and theoretical base. We address both of these issues in this paper. We find, using participant observation techniques versus surveys for data collection that women in general, and especially adult women, play a minor role in small ruminant production. Conversely, we find that young males have the primary responsibility for small ruminant care. This is a theoretically sound finding as a large body of literature on peasant household production predicts secondary economic activities--like small ruminant production--will be the domain of the children in the peasant household, not adults whose time is spent in primary economic activities.