Warum verlassen junge Frauen ihre Heimatdörfer, warum bleiben junge Männer dort - häufig unverheiratet? In ihrer Studie untersucht Nancy Konvalinka diese Entwicklung am Beispiel eines spanischen Dorfes. Deutlich wird, dass sich das Haus als Ort der gemeinsamen (Re-)Produktion verändert hat und dass Bildungsmöglichkeiten die Lebensläufe der Frauen entscheidend beeinflussen. Die Studie lässt Rückschlüsse auf ähnliche Prozesse in anderen ländlichen Gegenden Europas zu.Why do young men born in many small villages in Spain tend, at the end of the twentieth century, to stay there to live, often remaining unmarried, while young women from the same villages tend to leave? In Gender, Work and Property, Nancy Konvalinka explores this phenomenon using the case of one small village in northwestern Spain, and she extrapolates her findings there to understand similar processes elsewhere in Europe.

ContentsIntroductionFieldwork and methodology1. Practical, Usable Value TheoryValue theory in anthropologySpecific problems of value and gender, localized in a Leonese village2. The Casa as a Unit of Production, Reproduction, and Consumption: The First Half of the 20th CenturyCovering an extended time period to study processesDemography and social structure at the beginning of the 20th centuryThe agent of decision: person, family or casa?The casa as a unit of production, reproduction, and consumptionWhat is the casa?Who are the members of the casa?Rural capitalValue and gender during the first half of the 20th centuryThe distribution of work among men and womenInteriorness and exteriornessInheritance and differential uses of rural capital: men's permanence and women's mobilityReproducing the casaMarried couples and children: the agents involved in reproducing the casaLife courses and vital conjuncturesOrientation of the casa toward the future3. Local Dimensions of a General Transformation: 1960–1979Changing circumstances: industrialization, emigration, and mechanizationLife courses and vital conjuncturesThe appearance of the categories of optionality, tastes, and preferencesEmigration and the accumulation of capital: You only needland to marry if you are going to stay in the villageMechanizationThe introduction of milk productionValues and gender repositioned: rural capital and interior and exterior spacesRural capital and men's and women's uses of itInterior and exterior spaces: the tasks change, but not thepositionsThe casa reproduces itself, but only in some of its childrenEmigration makes it possible to concentrate rural capital, a limited resourceMechanization as a catalyst of the processThe casas reproduce themselves, but only in some of theirchildren4. Casas and Sociedades: Splitting Meanings at the End of the 20th CenturyChanging circumstances: economic crisis and the reshaping of the family farmThe economic crisis and the reassessment of the casa as a job position for young menMechanization in the fields and in the stablesReconfiguration of the family farm: the sociedadesOption, taste, and preference: decisive factors in the formation of sociedadesWhen the children do not reproduce the casaDemographic profile, 1980–2000The configuration of the households, 1980–2000Values and gender repositioned: inheritance, schooling and lifecoursesSociedades and their consequences"The differences are less noticeable"Changes in schooling and their interactions with gender configurations and vital conjuncturesSeparating men's and women's life coursesThe casa as a unit of production, consumption, andreproduction no longer exists5. ConclusionsSome considerations about rural societyRural society is not static, nor has it been in the recent pastPeople make their decision in the framework of theirimmediate, relevant social environment, such as the familyor the casaThe processes of change develop along the axes of the structure that has existed up to that moment: Gender is a main axis that structures rural lifeAmbivalence toward rural lifeThe unexpected results of the changesConsiderations for a theory of value in relation to genderSocial subjects in their fields of value: processes of changePeopleThe casasThe villageSuggestions for a theory of value in relation to genderList of Diagrams, Figures, Graphs, and TablesWorks CitedIndex