sustainability Article Indicators for the Analysis of Peasant Women’s Equity and Empowerment Situations in a Sustainability Framework: A Case Study of Cacao Production in Ecuador Olga de Marco Larrauri 1,2, David Pérez Neira 3,4,* and Marta Soler Montiel 5 1 Department of Investigation, Agrarian University of Ecuador, Guayaquil 090104, Ecuador;
[email protected] 2 ISEC (Institute of Sociology and Peasant Studies), Cordoba University, 14071 Cordoba, Spain 3 Department of Applied Economics and Statistics, University of Leon, 24071 Leon, Spain 4 Prometeo Research, National Secretary of Higher Education, Science, Technology and Innovation, Quito 170526, Ecuador 5 Department of Applied Economics II, University of Seville, 41004 Seville, Spain;
[email protected] * Correspondence:
[email protected] Academic Editor: Carol Shennan Received: 23 August 2016; Accepted: 21 November 2016; Published: 25 November 2016 Abstract: Family agriculture is a fundamental pillar in the construction of agroecological agri-food alternatives fostering processes of sustainable rural development where social equity represents a central aspect. Despite agroecology’s critical openness, this area has not yet incorporated an explicit gender approach allowing an appropriate problematization and analysis of the cultural inequalities of gender relations in agriculture, women’s empowerment processes and their nexus with sustainability. This work presents an organized proposal of indicators to approach and analyze the degree of peasant women’s equity and empowerment within a