ABSTRACT
Land takes on multiple meanings in everyday lives, beingsimultaneously a productive resource that facilitates exchanges in cash or kind, and a symbolic resource, a marker of status and identity.* In material terms, women are as engaged with land and agriculture as men; it is in the social-symbolic realm that their rights are not just secondary, but often denied. Land is closely linked to the male identity of chasa hor or cultivators, with agrarian work reflecting a way of life, embedded with a moral quality and reasoning. Kinship and descent ideologies are used to justify a particular set of social rules for entitlement that emphasize belongingness to a group, even a lifestyle.1
