ArticleGlobal health action2021
'Cooking is for everyone?': Exploring the complexity of gendered dynamics in a cookstove intervention study in rural Malawi.
Article in Global health action, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.
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Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed.
- Multi-level community dissemination of public health research: insights from the fuel to pot project case study in Kenya and Malawi.Frontiers in public health · 2026Article
- Socioeconomic status and partaking in air pollution monitoring are associated with cookstove usage across three peri-urban communities in sub-Saharan Africa.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Article
- 'Why would they spend all this money and give us these items for free?': Exploring precarity and power in a cleaner cookstove intervention in rural Malawi.PLOS global public health · 2023Article
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Authors and funding
6 authors.
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Abstract
backgroundHousehold air pollution (HAP) resulting from cooking on open fires has been linked to considerable ill-health in women and girls, including chronic respiratory diseases, and has been identified as a contributor to climate change. It has been suggested that cleaner burning cookstoves can mitigate these risks, and that time saved through speedier cooking can lead to the economic empowerment of women. Despite these and other potential advantages of cookstoves, sustained use is difficult to achieve.
objectiveWe used qualitative methods (focus groups, interviews, observation) and the participatory methodology Photovoice in order to inform a deeper understanding of gendered social relationships within the Cooking and Pneumonia Study (CAPS) in rural Malawi.
methodsOver five CAPS villages, forty women and ten men were recruited for Photovoice activities, including image collection, village-level focus group discussion and interviews. Data were also collected from interviews with village-based community representatives.
resultsThis study facilitated a rich exploration of context-specific gendered household roles and power relations which found that there was space for contestation in seemingly entrenched and 'traditional' household responsibilities. The results suggest that the introduction of cookstoves through CAPS provided a focus for this contestation. It was evident that men and children also cooked, and that cooking played a central role in the gendered socialisation of children. However, there were no indications that time saved resulted in the empowerment of women.
conclusionOur findings suggest that dominant narratives of the links between gender and cookstoves are often reductive and fail to reflect the complexity of gender power relations. The use of qualitative methods incorporating Photovoice helped to facilitate an alternative 'bottom-up' view of cookstove use which demonstrated that while cookstoves may disrupt gendered relationships in target communities, positive impacts for women and girls cannot be assumed.
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