Coping strategies of peasant widows: a study of the economic and social contributions of peasant widows to the socionatures of Sirigu, Upper East Region of Ghana

Women living in Sirigu are faced with discrimination as a result of gender power relations that mark this patriarchal peasant society. Widows in Sirigu are the worse affected who experience a high level of social disconnectedness, low self-esteem, anxiety, depression and stimatization as they struggle to deal with grief of loss and the livelihood challenges that confront them in taking care of themselves and their families, particularly because widows do not inherit the properties of their deceased husbands. The study aimed to identify and analyze the livelihood coping strategies of peasant widows in Sirigu using two conceptual approaches. Using the concept of sustainable rural livelihoods, the study found that pluriactivities such as basket weaving, pottery making, firewood fetching were key sources of livelihoods that enabled them to supplement their work as peasant farmers. Using insights from Feminist Political Ecology the study expanded the understanding of livelihood issues to look at the everyday emotions of peasant widows and socio-natural relations. The findings emerged from in-depth narrative interviews with a selection of peasant widows, paternal orphans, and community leaders in Sirigu. The findings showed that rural poor peasant widows have a range of coping strategies that enable them to navigate their livelihoods as well as social needs that shaped their everyday lives access to resources and relations to the environment, society and culture (described as socio-nature in the study). These coping strategies are defined in the study as personal, social, productive, community and environmental. The findings also showed that churches, non-governmental organisation were key supports to peasant widows though these were not studied in detail.