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Examining False Solutions to Climate Change: A Postcolonial Feminist Perspective and a Hopeful Inquiry

Shehla Arif

March 28, 2024

Hybrid - Ballroom B (U03-3550B Campus Center), University of Massachusetts Boston. For in-person attendance:

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The Russian Invasion of Ukraine and the Geopolitics of Gender

Dr. Cinzia Solari

October 24, 2023

Hybrid - Ballroom A (U03-3550A Campus Center), University of Massachusetts Boston

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Gender, Agriculture and Water Insecurity

Citation:

Parker, Helen, Naomi Oates, Nathaniel Mason, Roger Calow. 2016. “Gender, Agriculture and Water Insecurity." ODI Insights.

Authors: Helen Parker, Naomi Oates, Nathaniel Mason, Roger Calow

Abstract:

Rural female farmers are becoming increasingly vulnerable to climate variability and water insecurity.
El Niño has already had devastating impacts on countries in Africa that primarily rely on agriculture. Drought, loss of livestock and failed harvests push poor households into food stress and result in children being removed from school or families migrating. 
Policy and programme implementation for water insecurity must consider social norms around gender and other drivers of inequality. Too often, policies and programmes on agricultural water management are gender blind and don't consider women's unique needs and experiences.
This paper explains how and why improved water management on the farm matters for women and girls, and what can be done to better support opportunities for them, as well as for men and boys, in the face of climate change.
The authors identify three areas where gender-focused programming needs to address the unique vulnerabilities of women to water (in)security:
• Women are often at the pinch point of water-related tasks in the home and on the farm, with pressure intensifying around seasonal periods of scarcity in many developing countries.
• Compared to men, women may have less access to or control of assets that can be used to buffer against the effects of rainfall variability.
• Women often have fewer opportunities to pursue off-farm work or migrate to urban areas as a temporary coping strategy for seasonal food and income shortages, or for shortages caused by droughts and floods.
(Abstract from original source)

Topics: Environment, Climate Change, Environmental Disasters, Security, Food Security Regions: Africa, Asia

Year: 2016

Climate Change and Drought: Impact of Food Insecurity on Gender Based Vulnerability in District Tharparkar

Citation:

Memon, Manzoor Hussain, Naveed Aamir, and Nadeem Ahmed. 2018. "Climate Change and Drought: Impact of Food Insecurity on Gender Based Vulnerability in District Tharparkar." The Pakistan Development Review 57 (3): 307-21.

Authors: Manzoor Hussain Memon, Naveed Aamir, Nadeem Ahmed

Abstract:

Climate change has now become a reality that has intensified the sufferings of people living in arid ecosystems. Decrease in rainfall, rise in temperature and increase in the frequency of extreme events are some of the changes observed in the semi-arid desert of district Tharparkar. For thousands of years, people of Tharparkar are coping with drought and aridity of the land by using indigenous knowledge. However, global changes in the climatic pattern and deterioration of social and economic conditions have pushed the inhabitants of this arid region into extreme vulnerable situation. This paper investigates the link between climate-induced natural disasters, particularly drought, from the perspective of changing climate patterns which have resulted in food insecurity and water scarcity. The paper analyses the rainfall pattern in the last 38 years—dividing it into two periods i.e. from 1975-1994 and 1995-2014. The findings of the paper have challenged the prevailing notions about aridity and rainfall patterns in Tharparkar district. The research found that there is an increase in average annual precipitation in the district with erratic patterns. Thus, the nature of drought in the district has changed from its historic pattern of less or no rainfall to more but erratic rainfall that is more threatening to livelihoods of the people that in turn have multiplier effect on water and food insecurity. In particularly, women are more vulnerable in the absence of social security and lack of basic necessities for their survival amidst drought. For instance, traditionally the burden of managing water resources falls on women, which leads to an increased work load during the time of drought and also water scarcity. (Abstract from original source)

Topics: Security, Food Security Regions: Asia, South Asia Countries: Pakistan

Year: 2018

Impact of Climate Change on Agricultural Production and Food Security: A Review on Coastal Regions of Bangladesh

Citation:

Hossain, M. S., and A. K. Majumder. 2018. "Impact of Climate Change on Agricultural Production and Food Security: A Review on Coastal Regions of Bangladesh." International Journal of Agricultural Research, Innovation and Technology 8 (1): 62-69.

Authors: Md Sahadat Hossain, Ahmad Kamruzzaman Majumder

Abstract:

Bangladesh is severely vulnerable to climate change and its devastation on coastal livelihood and food security has been substantiated. Climate induced hazards will lead to food insecurity directly and indirectly by affecting the coastal biophysical and socioeconomic states. This review article found the potential impacts on coastal agricultural, livestock and fisheries sectors those are the main source of livelihood and food security to coastal people. Furthermore, most of the rural coastal people are hard poor in which women are major in portion and contribute to ensure food security for the entire family. Scrutinizing on ‘vulnerability’ revealed that it is not gender neutral and socio-economically underprivileged groups and marginal people are invaded disproportionately in which women is ranking in the top of the order. Hence, existing gender-poverty nexus along with socio-economic and political aspects make women more endangered to climate vulnerability and food security. It also found that existing policies and adaptation mechanisms failed to address the influence of powers on marginalize women and growing trend of feminization of food insecurity. In addition, also found the necessity for immediate pertinent caucus before the onset of this imminent concernment by aggregating gender and identified vulnerable groups. (Abstract from original source)

Keywords: climate change, vulnerability, gender, agricultural production

Topics: Agriculture, Security, Food Security Regions: Asia, South Asia Countries: Bangladesh

Year: 2018

The Social Cost of Environmental Solutions

Citation:

Dauvergne, Peter, and Genevieve LeBaron. 2013. "The Social Cost of Environmental Solutions." New Political Economy 18 (3): 410-430.

 

Authors: Peter Dauvergne, Genevieve LeBaron

Abstract:

This article assesses the social consequences of efforts by multinational corpor- ations to capture business value through recycling, reusing materials and reducing waste. Synthesising evidence from the global environmental justice and feminist and international political economy (IPE) literatures, it analyses the changing social property relations of global recycling chains. The authors argue that, although recycling more would seem to make good ecological sense, corporate programmes can rely on and further ingrain social patterns of harm and exploita- tion, particularly for the burgeoning labour force that depends on recyclables for subsistence living. Turning the waste stream into a profit stream also relies on prison labour in some places, such as in the United States where the federal gov- ernment operates one of the country’s largest electronics recycling programmes. The ongoing corporatisation of recycling, the authors argue further, is devaluing already marginalised populations within the global economy. Highlighting the need to account for the dynamism between social and environmental change within IPE scholarship, the article concludes by underlining the ways in which ‘green commerce’ programmes can shift capital’s contradictions from nature onto labour.

Keywords: multinational corporations, environmental justice, political economy, recycling, labour, e-waste, global recycling chain

Topics: Development, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality, Health, Land Tenure, Multi-National Corporations, Political Economies Regions: Africa, Americas, North America, South America, Asia, South Asia Countries: United States of America

Year: 2013

The United States, India and the Global Nuclear Order: Narrative Identity and Representation

Citation:

Pate, Tanvi. 2020. The United States, India and the Global Nuclear Order: Narrative Identity and Representation. London: Routledge.

Author: Tanvi Pate

Abstract:

In the Post-Cold War era, US nuclear foreign policies towards India witnessed a major turnaround as a demand for ‘cap, reduce, eliminate’ under the Clinton administration was replaced by the implementation of the historic ‘civil nuclear deal’ in 2008 by Bush, a policy which continued under Obama’s administration.

This book addresses the change in US nuclear foreign policy by focusing on three core categories of identity, inequality, and great power narratives. Building upon the theoretical paradigm of critical constructivism, the concept of the ‘state’ is problematised by focusing on identity-related questions arguing that the ‘state’ becomes a constructed entity standing as valid only within relations of identity and difference. Focusing on postcolonial principles, Pate argues that imperialism as an organising principle of identity/difference enables us to understand how difference was maintained in unequal terms through US nuclear foreign policy. This manifested in five great power narratives constructed around peace and justice; India-Pakistan deterrence; democracy; economic progress; and scientific development. Identities of ‘race’, ‘political economy’, and ‘gender’, in terms of ‘radical otherness’ and ‘otherness’ were recurrently utilised through these narratives to maintain a difference enabling the respective administrations to maintain ‘US’ identity as a progressive and developed western nation, intrinsically justifying the US role as an arbiter of the global nuclear order.

A useful work for scholars researching identity construction and US foreign and security policies, US-India bilateral nuclear relations, South Asian nuclear politics, critical security, and postcolonial studies. (Abstract from publisher)

Topics: Coloniality/Post-Coloniality, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality, Weapons /Arms, Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) Regions: Asia, South Asia Countries: India, United States of America

Year: 2020

A Continuum of Participation: Rethinking Tamil Women’s Political Participation and Agency in Post-War Sri Lanka

Citation:

Koens, Celeste, and Samanthi J. Gunawardana. 2021. “A Continuum of Participation: Rethinking Tamil Women’s Political Participation and Agency in Post-War Sri Lanka.” International Feminist Journal of Politics 23 (3): 463–84.

Authors: Celeste Koens, Samanthi J. Gunawardana

Abstract:

In post-war contexts, attention is given to women’s participation and barriers to their participation in formal processes (for example, peace talks, economic initiatives, and elections). Yet, women have engaged in various activities to exercise collective and individual agency to impact political participation. This article examines how Tamil women’s political participation in post-war Sri Lanka exists along a continuum, from formal participation within state structures and party politics to informal community participation. Scholarship about Tamil women’s political participation is framed within discourses of “militants,” “ex-combatants,” “political mothers,” or “victims.” Using narrative interviews, we argue that – based on their awareness of unequal gendered power relations, structures, and norms impacting their lives in post-war Sri Lanka – Tamil women in Mannar exercise agency to challenge these constraints and promote a broader transformative political arena. Some women attempt to expand the agency of others and to promote a collective voice through which women can be better represented in politics. Drawing on feminist international relations and gender and development knowledge, this study demonstrates how political agency is constituted within informal arenas, disrupting masculinist assumptions about who is considered a political actor and what counts as political agency by examining the spectrum of political participation in post-war contexts.

Keywords: political participation, Sri Lanka, post-war, gender, Tamil women

Topics: Gender, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality, Political Participation, Post-Conflict Regions: Asia, South Asia Countries: Sri Lanka

Year: 2021

The Gender Gap in Voting in Post-Conflict Elections: Evidence from Israel, Mali and Côte D’Ivoire

Citation:

Stockemer, Daniel, and Michael J Wigginton. 2020. “The Gender Gap in Voting in Post-Conflict Elections: Evidence from Israel, Mali and Côte D’Ivoire.” Conflict Management and Peace Science, 1-23. doi: 10.1177/0738894220966577.

Authors: Daniel Stockemer, Michael J. Wigginton

Abstract:

In this article, we first formulate some theoretical expectations about the development of the gender gap in voting in post-conflict situations. Second, we test these expectations on five cases, including two civil wars, the Ivorian Civil War (2011) and the Malian Civil War (2013–2015), and three major international Israeli conflicts, the Yom Kippur War (1973) and the First and Second Lebanon Wars (1982–1985 and 2006). We do so by comparing women’s and men’s turnout before and after a conflict using individual voting data and find that the sum of the nine factors we identify (i.e. duration of war, type of warfare, end of fighting after ceasefire/peace settlement, change in workforce participation, international involvement in the peace process, international development aid, the militarization of politics and female social movement activism) explain changes in the gender gap in voting after the conflict in three of the five cases we study.

Keywords: Gender gap in voting, post-conflict situation

Topics: Gender, Men, Women, Militarization, Political Participation, Post-Conflict Regions: Africa, Asia, Middle East Countries: Côte D'Ivoire, Israel, Mali

Year: 2020

How Women Can Save the Planet

Citation:

Karpf, Anne. 2021. How Women Can Save the Planet. Hurst Publishers.

Author: Anne Karpf

Annotation:

Summary: 
Here’s a perverse truth: from New Orleans to Bangladesh, women—especially poor women of colour—are suffering most from a crisis they have done nothing to cause. Yet where, in environmental policy, are the voices of elderly European women dying in heatwaves? Of African girls dropping out of school due to drought? Our highest-profile climate activists are women and girls; but, at the top table, it’s men deciding the earth’s future.
 
We’re not all in it together—but we could be. Instead of expecting individual women to save the planet, what we need are visionary, global climate policies that are gender-inclusive and promote gender equality.
 
Anne Karpf shines a light on the radical ideas, compelling research and tireless campaigns, led by and for women around the world, that have inspired her to hope. Her conversations with female activists show how we can fight back, with strength in diversity. And, faced with the most urgent catastrophe of our times, she offers a powerful vision: a Green New Deal for Women.

Topics: Environment, Climate Change, Feminisms, Feminist Political Ecology, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality Regions: Africa, Americas, Asia, Europe

Year: 2021

Pages

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