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Ester Boserup: an Interdisciplinary Visionary Relevant for Sustainability

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Ester Boserup: an Interdisciplinary Visionary Relevant for Sustainability RETROSPECTIVE Ester Boserup: An interdisciplinary visionary relevant for sustainability B. L. Turner IIa,b,1 and Marina Fischer-Kowalskic Schools of aGeographical Sciences and Urban Planning; bSustainability, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85268; and cInstitute for Social Ecology, Alpen Adria Universität, A-1070 Vienna, Austria argely unfettered by disciplinary structures) landscapes, the historical dogma, Ester Boserup observed dimensions on which Boserup elaborated Lhuman–environment relation- in Population and Technological Change: ships through an expansive ana- A Study of Long-Term Trends (6). lytical lens. Her ideas on agricultural The endogeneity of the techno-mana- change, gender, and development shook gerial strategies of agriculture was foun- up research and practice in the mid- dational to her thesis and influenced the 1960s and early 1970s and remain cogent induced innovation thesis explaining half a century later for the development the contemporary pathways of investment dimensions of sustainability. In this in and use of agricultural technology 100th year since her birth, it is worth- at large (7). Despite this, Boserup’s thesis while to take stock of her impact on re- was not well-developed regarding quali- search and practice and how her ideas tative shifts in technology (e.g., to fossil continue to shape and be reshaped by fuels) that fundamentally change land– current research. labor and thus, structural relationships in society (8). She did trace the broad Background strokes of industrial technology on Born in Copenhagen on May 18, 1910, agriculture in sparsely populated and Ester Borgesen graduated as Ester underdeveloped lands (6) and argued that Boserup in 1935 with a Candidatus it was not applicable to some subsistence Politices, a degree she described as mostly farmers because the relative costs of la- theoretical economics plus courses in so- bor- vs. industrial-based foods favored ciology and agricultural policy (1). She nonadoption (p. 120 in ref. 4). These worked for the Danish government – concerns, however, were not explicitly (1935 1947), during which time she gave Ester Boserup. inserted into her base thesis. birth to three children, and the United Second, Boserup’s early work disputed Nations (UN) Economic Commission of assumptions about farming behavior ap- – covered and enthusiastically embraced Europe (1947 1965) on agricultural trade plied in development. Mirroring the ideas policy. In this last capacity, she and her by other social sciences, especially those of the Russian A.V. Chayanov, she ar- husband, Mogens Boserup, worked in parts of anthropology and geography gued that the behavior of subsistence India from 1957 to 1960, an experience dealing with smallholder (quasi) sub- farmers differed from commercial ones that transformed her view on agricultural sistence farming systems. The Conditions ‡ development. Returning to Denmark, of Agricultural Growth has been pub- (9). Subsistence farmers responded to Boserup took on consultancies and served lished by five different publishing houses household (consumption) more so than on various commissions as she penned in 17 issues from 1965 to 2008 and has market demand and sought to minimize her most important works, at least two of been translated into French, Swedish, risk to household needs, not maximize gain, affecting the allocation of land, la- which would have far-reaching impacts on Japanese, and Estonian. § interdisciplinary research and real world The large and sustained impact of bor, and landesque capital. Farmers practice, become the subjects of intensive this work has at least a threefold expla- academic scrutiny, and led to her award of nation. First, it addressed an enduring three honorary doctorate degrees in the theme—the relationship between pop- Author contributions: B.L.T. and M.F.-K. wrote the paper. agricultural (Wageningen University), ulation and environmental resources— The authors declare no conflict of interest. economic (Copenhagen University), and which has regularly resurfaced in differ- 1To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: human sciences (Brown University). Bo- ent expressions at least since the work of [email protected]. serup was elected Foreign Associate of the Thomas Malthus in 1798. Boserup *For details on the life of Ester Boserup, see refs. 1–3 and National Academy of Sciences, United challenged his proposition that the rela- http://irenetinker.com/publications-and-presentations/ States, in 1989. She died in Geneva, Swit- tively slow growth in the food ceiling ester-boserup. † zerland, on September 24, 1999.* served as the upper limit for the more Boserup was not the first to link land (or population) fast-paced potential growth in popula- pressures to intensification (5), but she was the first Agricultural Change to set the relationship into a conceptual model spe- tion. She reversed the causality, arguing cifically aimed at agricultural change (see the work by Boserup erupted on the international that increases in population (or land) A.V. Chayanov and C. Geertz noted in this text). ‡ transdisciplinary scene in 1965 with pressure trigger the development or use One of us (B.L.T.) once asked Boserup why she did not cite her landmark book The Conditions of of technologies and management strate- Chayanov in her own work. She replied that she had never Agricultural Growth: The Economics of gies to increase production commensu- read or heard of Chayanov at the time and explained the Agrarian Change Under Population Pres- rate with demand. Agricultural intensity, close similarities of their logic to the fact that both he and sure (4). This brief nontechnical work thus, rises with population density (or she were essentially drawing on the same school of offered a powerful set of ideas in oppo- land pressures in related literatures) economic thought. † § sition to neo-Malthusian and other pre- holding mediating factors constant. Landesque capital is a term used in human, political, and cultural ecology and land change science to refer to per- vailing ideas of the time applied to Over the long run, this process trans- manent land improvements for production, such as ter- agricultural development. Turned down forms the physical and social (e.g., land race or irrigation systems, especially among noncommercial by several publishers, her book was dis- tenure, labor markets, and other societal land managers. www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1013972108 PNAS Early Edition | 1of3 Downloaded by guest on September 29, 2021 shifted from known techno-managerial Women in Development the developing world might reduce family strategies or explored innovations in them Drawing on field observations in India but size. This observation thrust Boserup into only if land–labor dynamics pressured blossoming during her subsequent experi- the UN World Population Conference them to do so. This production logic was ences in Senegal, Boserup challenged de- in Bucharest in 1974 and subsequent in- subsequently shown to be present side by velopment research and practice yet again ternational programs addressing popu- side or variously mixed with market be- with the release in 1970 of Woman’sRolein lation. Interestingly, demographers would havior among many smallholder house- Economic Development (49). Her thesis subsequently show that drops in the fer- holds worldwide (10–14). tility rates worldwide track with the level was so obvious in hindsight, it is somewhat ¶ Third, Boserup questioned neo- difficult to understand why it was so chal- of women’s education (65, 66). Malthusian and related assumptions per- lenging. Women have always been an im- WID and Boserup continue to draw at- meating development practice, especially portant component in the practice of tentionfromalternativeviewswithingender that smallholder subsistence farmers were agriculture beyond the corporate–com- studies at large. Critique holds that WID is, at the mercy of their own population dy- mercial farming systems of the world, but at its base, a “neoclassical economic con- namics and in desperate need of techno- their consideration was missing in eco- struct,” which is insufficiently nuanced and managerial assistance to intensify pro- nomic theory and development practice of too focused on questions of education duction. Her ideas were heard and ex- the time. Boserup argued that Western-led within the modernization paradigm (51, 58, plored by major institutions involved in development reduced the status of and 67). WID is accused of failing to consider agricultural and rural development, in- opportunities for women. Her challenge to domestic production and isolating repro- cluding the World Bank (15–18). rectify this omission is credited, even by ductive from productive work (51, 68, 69). If Boserup’s thesis remains important to- her critics (50–59), with helping to inspire this challenge is applicable for WID, it day for the various subfields contributing the UN Decade for Women (1976–1985). seems odd to extend it to Boserup, if only by to sustainable development. Its founda- Indeed, the UN Development Program implication. After all, her agricultural in- tions have been tested—showing the distributed a summary of her book at the terests were directed to household or do- ability to explain the variance in the in- first World Conference on Women held in mestic production, and her gender gap is tensity of subsistence-like cultivation— Mexico City in 1975, the UN’s Interna- predicated on understanding that modern- and variously elaborated and critiqued
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