Central America

Citation:

Gonda, Noémi. 2019. “Re-Politicizing the Gender and Climate Change Debate: The Potential of Feminist Political Ecology to Engage with Power in Action in Adaptation Policies and Projects in Nicaragua.” Geoforum 106: 87-96.

Author: Noémi Gonda

Abstract:

The time of gender-blind climate change policies and projects has passed. However, while research is increasingly moving away from understanding the relationship between gender and climate change in a linear, technocratic, and instrumental way, gender and climate change policy-makers and project practitioners are having difficulties operationalizing this progress. In the meantime, as climate change effects are increasingly felt worldwide, and because the policy context after the Paris Agreement (2015) is bringing new challenges for gender and equity concerns, (re-)politicizing the climate justice debate in a policy and project-relevant way is more crucial than ever. My aim in this article is to contribute to this endeavor by exploring how a feminist political ecology framework applied to a specific case study in Nicaragua—one of the countries most affected by climate change in the world—can generate new policy and project-relevant lessons and insights from the ground that can in turn strengthen the conceptual debate on gender and climate change adaptation. Based on ethnographic fieldwork carried out in 2013 and 2014, as well as eight years of professional experience as a development worker in Nicaragua, I discuss the workings of power in the feminist political ecology of climate change adaptation; in so doing I raise new questions that will, I hope, lead policy-makers and project practitioners to explore how adaptation processes could open up the conceptual possibility for emancipation, transformation, and new ways of living life in common.

Keywords: power, feminist political ecology, climate change adaptation, Gender, Nicaragua

Topics: Environment, Climate Change, Feminisms, Feminist Political Ecology, Gender Regions: Americas, Central America

Year: 2019

Citation:

Kaufman, Joyce P., and Kristen P. Williams, eds. 2019. Women, Gender Equality, and Post-Conflict Transformation: Lessons Learned, Implications for the Future. Abingdon: Routledge.

Authors: Joyce P. Kaufman, Kristen P. Williams

Abstract:

Topics: DDR, Feminisms, Gender, Gender Mainstreaming, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality, Justice, Transitional Justice, Post-Conflict, Race, Peace Processes Regions: Africa, Southern Africa, West Africa, Americas, Central America, Europe, Balkans, Eastern Europe, Northern Europe Countries: Bosnia & Herzegovina, El Salvador, Guatemala, Liberia, Sierra Leone, South Africa, United Kingdom

Year: 2019

Citation:

Al-Ali, Nadje. 2020. "Covid-19 and Feminism in the Global South: Challenges, Initiatives and Dilemmas."' European Journal of Women's Studies: 1-15. doi: 10.1177/1350506820943617. 

Author: Nadje Al-Ali

Abstract:

The article addresses the gendered implications of Covid-19 in the Global South by paying attention to the intersectional pre-existing inequalities that have given rise to specific risks and vulnerabilities. It explores various aspects of the pandemic-induced ‘crisis of social reproduction’ that affects women as the main caregivers as well as addressing the drastic increase of various forms of gender-based violence. Both, in addition to growing poverty and severely limited access to resources and health services, are particularly devastating in marginalized and vulnerable communities in the Global South. The article looks at specific regions and countries to illustrate wider challenges faced by LGBTQ populations, ethnic minorities, domestic workers, migrants and sex workers. Against the background of these gendered intersectional challenges, the article then moves to discuss feminist initiatives and mobilizations to deal with the crisis in specific local contexts as well as nationally, regionally and transnationally. It concludes by highlighting a number of visions, tensions and dilemmas faced by feminists in the Global South that will need to be taken into consideration in terms of transnational feminist solidarities.

Keywords: Africa, Asia, Covid-19 pandemic, crisis in social reproduction, Global South feminism, accumulation by dispossession, middle east, transnational feminism

Topics: Domestic Violence, Ethnicity, Feminisms, Gender, Women, Gender-Based Violence, Health, Intersectionality, LGBTQ, Livelihoods, Sexual Livelihoods Regions: Africa, MENA, Americas, Caribbean countries, Central America, South America, Asia, Middle East

Year: 2020

Citation:

Vacoch, Douglas A, and Sam Mickey, eds. 2017. Ecofeminism in Dialogue. Lanham: Lexington Books.

Authors: Douglas A. Vacoch, Sam Mickey

Annotation:

Topics: Coloniality/Post-Coloniality, Domestic Violence, Feminisms, Ecofeminism, Gender, International Law, Infrastructure, Water & Sanitation, Justice Regions: MENA, Americas, Central America, South America, Asia, Middle East, Europe, Northern Europe Countries: Palestine / Occupied Palestinian Territories, United Kingdom

Year: 2018

Citation:

Isla, Ana, ed. 2019. Climate Chaos: Ecofeminisms and the Land Question. Toronto: Inanna Publications & Education Inc. 

Author: Ana Isla

Annotation:

Topics: Environment, Climate Change, Feminisms, Ecofeminism, Gendered Power Relations, Patriarchy, Indigenous, Land Grabbing, Land Tenure, Rights, Indigenous Rights, Land Rights Regions: Americas, Caribbean countries, Central America, South America, Asia, South Asia Countries: Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, India, Peru

Year: 2019

Citation:

Gervais, Christine, and Betsy Estevez. 2011. "Security through Solidarity: Honduran Women's Post-Coup Strategies of Support and Survival." Journal of International Women's Studies 12 (4): 1-21.

Authors: Christine Gervais, Betsy Estevez

Abstract:

As a follow up to the article "From Discovery to Dissidence: Honduran Women's Conceptions and Claims of Human Rights", published in this journal in May 2010 (Vol. 11 #4), this paper examines forty-eight Honduran women's experiences of state-based insecurity and feminist-based solidarity following the June 2009 coup d'État. The authors reflect on the ethical implications of the participant-centered and solidarity-oriented qualitative methodological approaches constrained by state repression. The women's testimonies shed light on the potential of a solidarity-security symbiosis.

Keywords: women's rights, coup d'état, solidarity, Honduras

Topics: Feminisms, Gender, Women, Post-Conflict, Rights, Women's Rights, Security Regions: Americas, Central America Countries: Honduras

Year: 2011

Citation:

Applebaum, Anna, and Briana Mawby. 2018. “Women and ‘New Wars’ in El Salvador.” Stability: International Journal of Security & Development 7 (1): 1-15.

Authors: Anna Applebaum, Briana Mawby

Abstract:

The most violent countries in the world are increasingly countries considered ‘at peace’. From Honduras to Mexico to South Africa, armed violence, often by gangs, has led to high levels of casualties. Disruption of daily life due to armed violence is similar to the challenges experienced during wartime, though often without the markers or recognition associated with war. With gang violence primarily viewed as a domestic criminal issue, external support for conflict mitigation and humanitarian assistance is often low. Yet the disruptive impact of such high rates of violence is significant, and the humanitarian impact is severe. New theoretical frameworks are needed to better problematize extreme armed violence in ‘peacetime’ states. This article seeks to bring an understanding of the severity of armed violence in states such as El Salvador into engagement with the critical and theoretical foundations of the women, peace and security (WPS) field. Gendered dynamics shape gang violence in El Salvador, and a gender lens helps reimagine its impact. Aligning critical theory with the lived experience of this subset of armed conflict allows new directions for engagement and, in particular, offers the opportunity to re-examine long-standing assumptions of what initiates, maintains, and challenges armed violence by non-state actors in communities considered ‘at peace.’ This article seeks to encourage greater debate and scholarship to inform our understandings of armed conflict and gender in communities affected by gang violence, such as those in El Salvador. In these communities, the level of violence often replicates the experiences of war, and thus a WPS lens is a critical tool for analysis. 

Topics: Armed Conflict, "New Wars", Gender, Humanitarian Assistance, Military Forces & Armed Groups, Non-State Armed Groups, UN Security Council Resolutions on WPS, Violence Regions: Americas, Central America Countries: El Salvador

Year: 2018

Citation:

Gonda, Noémi. 2017. “Revealing the Patriarchal Sides of Climate Change Adaptation through Intersectionality: a Case Study from Nicaragua.” In Understanding Climate Change through Gender Relations, edited by Susan Buckingham and Virginie Le Masson, 173-190. London: Routledge.

Author: Noémi Gonda

Abstract:

Nicaragua is the third most climate change-affected country in the world and its government identifies climate change adaptation as one of its key priorities. Since the early 2010s, this national priority is translated into measures that support rural populations to adapt to climate change impacts. This chapter explains how a discursive construction of nature as 'our own Mother' in post-neoliberal Nicaragua has contributed to giving women a primary place in climate change discourses and projects while the mainstream masculinist and science-oriented discourse is underlying the way climate change adaptation interventions are conceived. It also presents an argument that feminist scholars and practitioners need to engage more systematically with gendered climate change politics, in particular by mobilizing the intersectional perspective that simultaneously addresses the multifaceted oppressions climate change politics may reproduce, even though they include 'gender concerns'.

Topics: Environment, Climate Change, Feminisms, Gender, Gendered Discourses, Gendered Power Relations, Patriarchy, Masculinism Regions: Americas, Central America Countries: Nicaragua

Year: 2017

Citation:

Gonda, Noémi. 2017. “Rural Masculinities in Tension: Barriers to Climate Change Adaptation in Nicaragua.” RCC Perspectives: Transformations in Environment and Society no. 4, 69–76.

Author: Noémi Gonda

Abstract:

In this article, I focus on the ways in which rural masculinities influence how a climate change adaptation project that prompts ranchers to become cocoa producers in rural Nicaragua is being received by its intended participants. My intention is to draw the attention of researchers, policy makers, and practitioners to the fact that masculinities matter when it comes to implementing climate change adaptation projects. I show that it is important to analyze the discursive and cultural constructions of hegemonic masculinities that shape the way climate change is addressed on the one hand, and how the “subjects” of climate change adaptation interventions sometimes reproduce hegemonic gender identities on the other.

Keywords: climate change adaptation, men, climate change, cocoa, cattle ranching, livestock farms, gender roles, pastures, hegemonic masculinity

Topics: Environment, Climate Change, Gender, Gender Roles, Masculinity/ies, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality, Livelihoods Regions: Americas, Central America Countries: Nicaragua

Year: 2017

Citation:

Tarnaala, Elisa. 2019. “Legacies of Violence and the Unfinished Past: Women in Post-Demobilization Colombia and Guatemala.” Peacebuilding 7 (1): 103–17.

Author: Elisa Tarnaala

Abstract:

This article examines the historically grounded social acceptance of impunity and the role of unwanted actors in peace and transitional processes. The article argues from a post-demobilization violence perspective that counter-democratic developments, which have historical and global roots, condition peacebuilding and impose important limits on the deepening of inclusion. In Colombia and Guatemala, internationally backed peacebuilding activities occurred in the same regions where the local authorities continued their partnership with criminal and authoritarian actors. Thus, parallel to the shift towards greater political and economic stability at the national level, attacks against human rights activists and environmental activists, intra-community violence, violence against women, prostitution and the trafficking of girls continued at the local level and in some areas increased.

Keywords: Colombia, Guatemala, demobilization, women, violence, historical legacies

Topics: DDR, Democracy / Democratization, Gender, Women, Girls, Gender-Based Violence, Justice, Impunity, Transitional Justice, Peacebuilding, Trafficking, Human Trafficking, Violence Regions: Americas, Central America, South America Countries: Colombia, Guatemala

Year: 2019