Weaving ties through cowpea: exchange networks and women relationships in Senegal

Abstract Women’s agricultural practices and knowledge remain underrepresented in the literature. While their role in agrobiodiversity management has gained increasing attention, particularly from a gender perspective, the influence of social relationships between women on seed circulation remains largely unexplored. This article focuses on cowpea, a crop almost exclusively cultivated and circulated by women in Senegal’s Kaffrine region, located in the heart of the groundnut basin. Combining social network analysis with ethnographic fieldwork, we examine how women’s positions -both within households and broader kinship networks- shape their roles as seed donors or recipients. Cowpea circulation networks offer a valuable lens to understand relational dynamics among women within a single village. Practices of acquiring cowpea within families, especially through the husband’s family, emerge as strategies to uphold his family’s honor and assert the wife’s integration into her marital household. These circulations also extend beyond village boundaries, revealing little-documented rural-urban circulations. The study further shows that access to seeds and inclusion in these networks are closely tied to women’s domestic trajectories, which are shaped by seniority, marital status, and assumed responsibilities. By focusing on power relations among women, this study offers a renewed perspective on the social logics that locally influence the circulation of so-called “women’s crops.” It sheds light on how intra-gender hierarchies are negotiated through everyday agricultural circulations, while also raising epistemological and methodological questions about studying seed circulation through women’s social ties.