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Why Women’s Traditional Knowledge Matters in the Production Processes of Natural Product Development: The Case of the Green Morocco Plan

This piece provides a unique case study of how development agendas in Morocco are seeking out the “traditional knowledge” of sustainable agriculture by Moroccan women for the implementation of the Green Morocco Plan. It both challenges the mainstream agenda of replacing traditional indigenous land practices with the mass production agricultural practices that are often at the forefront of development programs in the Global South, while also reproducing many of the dominant narratives regarding what constitutes women’s work and what the objectives of development are. The authors of this plan are two white women, neither are Moroccan, which brings into question: who is defining “traditional knowledge”? Ultimately, this project may be a double-edged sword. On one hand, the production process is attempting to maintain so-called “traditional knowledge” practices that have sustained indigenous Moroccan communities for generations; however, in doing so, this program may commodify these practices in an economizing way. This would render the alternative production process complicit in valorizing Western ideals of development and improving the status of women solely through economic empowerment.

Montanari, Bernadette, and Sylvia I. Bergh. “Why Women’s Traditional Knowledge Matters in the Production Processes of Natural Product Development: The Case of the Green Morocco Plan.” Women’s Studies International Forum 77 (2019): 1-11. doi:10.1016/j.wsif.2019.102275.

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