Southern Africa

The Anthropocene and Imperial Ecocide: Prospects for Just Transitions

Citation:

Satgar, Vishwas. 2018. “The Anthropocene and Imperial Ecocide: Prospects for Just Transitions.” In The Climate Crisis: South African and Global Democratic Eco-Socialist Alternatives, edited by Vishwas Satgar, 47–68. Wits University Press.

Topics: Environment, Climate Change Regions: Africa, Southern Africa

Year: 2018

The Climate Crisis and a 'Just Transition' in South Africa: an Eco-Feminist-Socialist Perspective

Citation:

Cock, Jacklyn. 2018. “The Climate Crisis and a ‘Just Transition’ in South Africa: An Eco-Feminist-Socialist Perspective.” In The Climate Crisis: South African and Global Democratic Eco-Socialist Alternatives, edited by Vishwas Satgar, 210–30. Wits University Press.

Author: Jacklyn Cock

Topics: Environment, Climate Change, Feminisms, Ecofeminism Regions: Africa, Southern Africa

Year: 2018

How Resilient are Farming Households and Communities to a Changing Climate in Africa

Citation:

Perez, C., E.M. Jones, P. Kristjanson, L. Cramer,  P.K. Thornton, W. Förch, and C. Barahona. 2015. “How Resilient are Farming Households and Communities to a Changing Climate in Africa? A Gender-based Perspective.” Global Environmental Change 34: 95–107.

Authors: C. Perez, E.M. Jones, P. Kristjanson, L. Cramer, P.K. Thornton, W. Förch, C. Barahona

Abstract:

Social, economic and institutional factors and driving forces enhance or hinder the adaptation capacity of agricultural and pastoral households and communities. The effectiveness of the resulting adaptation strategies influences the nature and extent of the impact of multiple stresses and shocks, including climate change’s, at the local-level. Using a 9-country dataset from sub-Saharan Africa, and integrating quantitative household-level analyses with qualitative work, we show evidence that adaptation is connected to population growth, dependence on cash to cover essential needs, and limited sources of employment other than exploitation of natural resources and sale of crop produce and animals. In some countries, government policies like privatization of community forests, rangelands and riparian areas, the settlement of pastoralists, and the provision of subsidies for food or agricultural inputs reduce adaptation capacity. Policies take away the traditional decision-making and collective action powers that communities had to regulate the use and sustainable management of natural resources. Gender relations also affect agricultural practices and adaptation. The women farmers in our sample control less land than men, the land they control is often of poorer quality, and their tenure is insecure. Women, more than men, are dependent on internal village groups, as opposed to organizations operating at regional or national levels. Hence, women have less access to extension and input services, and are less likely than men to use improved seeds, fertilizers, and pesticides. The adaptive capacity of individuals and communities depends on their differential access to resources, economic assets and social capital, which are mediated by their socially defined rights and responsibilities. Highlights include:
• Vulnerability and adaptation to climate change depend on opportunities governed by the varied and complex interplay of social relations, institutions, organizations, and policies.
• Climate is one of many influences that affect the producers’ coping and adaptation strategies.
• Women and men incorporate a wide range of technology and production management adjustments.
• The producers’ most frequently cited reasons for adjustments include decrease in productivity, fluctuation in prices, market opportunities, and frequency of drought.
(Abstract from original source)

Keywords: climate, agriculture, adaptation, Surveys, gender

Topics: Agriculture, Gender, Gender Analysis, Security, Food Security Regions: Africa, Southern Africa

Year: 2015

Gender Implications of Biofuels Expansion in Africa: The Case of Mozambique

Citation:

Arndt, Channing, Rui Benfica, and James Thurlow. 2011. “Gender Implications of Biofuels Expansion in Africa: The Case of Mozambique.” World Development 39(9): 1649–62.

Authors: Channing Arndt, Rui Benfica, James Thurlow

Keywords: biofuels, 'gender', growth, poverty, land abundance, Africa

Annotation:

Summary: 

We use a gendered dynamic CGE model to assess the implications of biofuels expansion in a low-income, land-abundant setting. Mozambique is chosen as a representative case. We compare scenarios with different gender employment intensities in producing jatropha feedstock for biodiesel. Under all scenarios, biofuels investments accelerate GDP growth and reduce poverty. However, a stronger trade-off between biofuels and food availability emerges when female labor is used intensively, as women are drawn away from food production. A skills-shortage among female workers also limits poverty reduction. Policy simulations indicate that only modest improvements in women’s education and food crop yields are needed to address food security concerns and ensure broader-based benefits from biofuels investments (Summary from original source).

Topics: Economies, Poverty, Gender, Women, Security, Food Security Regions: Africa, Southern Africa Countries: Mozambique

Year: 2011

Water is Life: Women's Human Rights in National and Local Water Governance in Southern and Eastern Africa

Citation:

Hellum, Anne, Patricia Kameri-Mbote, Barbara van Koppen, eds. 2015. Water Is Life: Women’s Human Rights in National and Local Water Governance in Southern and Eastern Africa. Weaver Press. 

Authors: Anne Hellum, Patricia Kameri-Mbote, Barbara van Koppen

Abstract:

This book approaches water and sanitation as an African gender and human rights issue. Empirical case studies from Kenya, Malawi, South Africa and Zimbabwe show how coexisting international, national and local regulations of water and sanitation respond to the ways in which different groups of rural and urban women gain access to water for personal, domestic and livelihood purposes. The authors, who are lawyers, sociologists, political scientists and anthropologists, explore how women cope in contexts where they lack secure rights, and participation in water governance institutions, formal and informal. The research shows how women – as producers of family food - rely on water from multiple sources that are governed by community based norms and institutions which recognize the right to water for livelihood. How these 'common pool water resources' - due to protection gaps in both international and national law - are threatened by large-scale development and commercialization initiatives, facilitated through national permit systems, is a key concern. The studies demonstrate that existing water governance structures lack mechanisms which make them accountable to poor and vulnerable waters users on the ground, most importantly women. Our findings thus underscore the need to intensify measures to hold states accountable, not just in water services provision, but in assuring the basic human right to clean drinking water and sanitation; and also to protect water for livelihoods.

Annotation:

Table of Contents 
 
Part I Introduction
1. The Human Right to Water and Sanitation in a Legal Pluralist Landscape: Perspectives of Southern and Eastern African Women
 
2. Turning the Tide: Engendering the Human Right to Water and Sanitation 
Anne Hellum, Ingunn Ikdahl and Patricia Kameri-Mbote
 
Part II Kenya
3. Human Rights, Gender and Water in Kenya: Law, Prospects and Challenges 
Patricia Kameri-Mbote and Francis Kariuki
 
4. Not so Rosy: Farm Workers’ Human Right to Water in the Lake Naivasha Basin 
Patricia Kameri-Mbote and Edna Odhiambo
 
5. Watered Down: Gender and the Human Right to Water and Reasonable Sanitation in Mathare, Nairobi 
Celestine Nyamu Musembi
 
6. Gender Dimensions of Customary Water Resource Governance: Marakwet Case Study 
Elizabeth Gachenga
 
Part III Malawi 
7. The Political Economy of the Human Right to Water and Women in Malawi 
Ngeyi Ruth Kanyongolo, Timothy Chirwa, Asiyati Chiweza and Michael Chasukwa
 
8. Women’s Right to Water and Participation in Practice: Insights from Urban Local Water Governance Systems 
Asiyati Lorraine Chiweza, Ngeyi Ruth Kanyongolo, Michael Chasukwa and Timothy Chirwa
 
9. Primary Actors on the Back Seat: Gender, Human Rights and Rural Water Governance in Malawi – Lessons from Mpemba and Chileka 
 
Part IV Zimbabwe
10. Governance, Gender Equality and the Right to Water and Sanitation in Zimbabwe: Contested Norms and Institutions in an Unstable Economic and Political Terrain 
Anne Hellum, Bill Derman, Ellen Sithole and Elizabeth Rutsate
 
11. Zimbabwe’s Urban Water Crisis and its Implications for Different Women: Emerging Norms and Practices in Harare’s High Density Suburbs 
Anne Hellum, Ellen Sithole, Bill Derman, Lindiwe Mangwanya and Elizabeth Rutsate
 
12. Securing Rural Women’s Land and Water Rights: Lessons from Domboshawa Communal Land 
Anne Hellum, Bill Derman, Lindiwe Mangwanya and Elizabeth Rutsate
 
13. A Hidden Presence: Women Farm Workers Right to Water and Sanitation in the Aftermath of the Fast Track Land Reform 
Elizabeth Rutsate, Bill Derman and Anne Hellum
 
Part V South Africa 
14. Fixing the Leaks in Women’s Human Rights to Water: Lessons from South Africa 
Barbara van Koppen, Bill Derman, Barbara Schreiner, Ebenezer Durojaye and Ngcime Mweso
 
15. Gender-Equality in Statutory Water Law: the Case of Priority General Authorizations in South Africa 
Barbara van Koppen and Barbara Schreiner
 
16. Gender, Rights, and the Politics of Productivity The Case of the Flag Boshielo Irrigation Scheme, South Africa 
Barbara van Koppen, Barbara Tapela and Everisto Mapedza
 

Topics: Class, Governance, Infrastructure, Water & Sanitation, Livelihoods, Rights, Human Rights, Women's Rights Regions: Africa, East Africa, Southern Africa Countries: Kenya, Malawi, South Africa, Zimbabwe

Year: 2015

BRICS Countries and the Construction of Conflict in the Women, Peace and Security Open Debates

Citation:

Hamilton, Caitlin, Pagot Rhaíssa, and Laura J Shepherd. 2021. “BRICS Countries and the Construction of Conflict in the Women, Peace and Security Open Debates.” International Affairs 97 (3): 739–57.

Authors: Caitlin Hamilton, Pagot Rhaíssa, Laura J Shepherd

Abstract:

The Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda is a diverse field of practice comprised of numerous actors, activities and artefacts. Conventional accounts of WPS development and implementation tend to reproduce a narrative that positions states located in the global North as ‘providers’ of WPS, and those in the South as ‘recipients’. This assumption in turn prescribes, and proscribes, forms of WPS engagement and has a constitutive effect on the agenda itself, as shown by post- and de-colonial analyses of the WPS agenda. This article seeks to explore the WPS practices of a group of states that in many ways challenge these North/South and provider/recipient binaries by explicitly positioning themselves as operating beyond and across them: the BRICS countries, comprised of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. In this article, we explore how constructions of conflict within the WPS practices of BRICS states relate to the acknowledgement of, and commitment to, the agenda more broadly. We ultimately argue that the BRICS' commitment to the WPS agenda is driven more by identity-making geopolitical considerations, including geostrategic interests, than a politics of peace.

Topics: Coloniality/Post-Coloniality, Peace and Security, UN Security Council Resolutions on WPS Regions: Africa, East Africa, Southern Africa, Americas, South America, Asia, South Asia, Europe Countries: Brazil, China, India, Russian Federation, South Africa

Year: 2021

Perceptions of Gender, Mobility, and Personal Safety: South Africa Moving Forward

Citation:

Vanderschuren, Marianne J. W. A., Sekadi R. Phayane, and Alison J. Gwynne-Evans. 2019. “Perceptions of Gender, Mobility, and Personal Safety: South Africa Moving Forward.” Transportation Research Record 2673 (11): 616–27.

Authors: Marianne J.W. A. Vanderschuren, Sekadi R. Phayane, Alison J. Gwynne-Evans

Abstract:

Transport users make mode choices based on a variety of factors. These factors are economic or service driven, based on individual roles, habits, and interests, as well as age, life cycle stage, and gender. Analysis reflects different mobility patterns for males and females relating to care activities. Literature suggests that experiences of harassment have a significant effect on user choices. This study examines how South African data compares with international studies. Mode use and trip purposes, distances, and times differ depending on gender and are affected by the experience of harassment, which affects females more than males. Analyzing trip making in South Africa revealed that travel modes, distances, and times are not significantly different across gender. South African females make fewer trips than males, but significantly more care trips. Different modes of public transport score differently regarding potential experience of harassment, with trains performing the worst. The reason mode choice is not significantly different between females and males is assumed to be because of financial reasons. Investigating harassment perception in Cape Town reveals that females experience harassment more often and this influences their choices regarding care trips. These findings have significant implications for transport policy in South Africa and suggest that more nuanced policies are required.

Topics: Age, Gender, Infrastructure, Transportation Regions: Africa, Southern Africa Countries: South Africa

Year: 2019

Social Exclusion and Rural Transport: Gender Aspects of a Road Improvement Project in Tshitwe, Northern Province

Citation:

Mahapa, Sabina M., and Mac Mashiri. 2001. “Social Exclusion and Rural Transport: Gender Aspects of a Road Improvement Project in Tshitwe, Northern Province.” Development Southern Africa 18 (3): 365–76.

Authors: Sabina M. Mahapa, Mac Mashiri

Annotation:

Summary:
This article presents a case for a reorientation of the way in which rural transport needs are perceived, planned and provided for, with a view to improved targeting of interventions, particularly with regard to addressing the mobility and accessibility needs of rural women. In addition, it seeks to critically appraise the sustainability of poverty alleviation properties attributed to the labour-based road works, especially in respect of their impact on women. It also explores the role that non-motorised modes of transport could play in reducing the transport burden of the Tshitwe community. 

Topics: Economies, Poverty, Gender, Women, Infrastructure, Transportation Regions: Africa, Southern Africa Countries: South Africa

Year: 2001

Gendered Incidence and Impacts of Tenure Insecurity on Agricultural Performance in Malawi’s Customary Tenure System

Citation:

Deininger, Klaus, Fang Xia, and Stein Holden. 2019. “Gendered Incidence and Impacts of  Tenure Insecurity on Agricultural Performance in Malawi’s Customary Tenure System.” The Journal of Development Studies 55 (4): 597–619.

Authors: Klaus Deininger, Fang Xia, Stein Holden

Abstract:

Malawi’s recent passage of Land Acts provides an opportunity to clarify different aspects of the country’s land tenure in an integrated way. To assess whether doing so might be economically justified, we explore incidence and impact of tenure insecurity among smallholders. Insecurity is not only widespread, with 22 per cent of land users being concerned about losing their land, but is also associated with a productivity loss of 9 per cent for female operators, equivalent to US$ 11 million per year at the national level, enough to pay for a nation-wide tenure regularisation programme in two to three years

Topics: Agriculture, Gender, Women, Land Tenure, Rights, Land Rights Regions: Africa, Southern Africa Countries: Malawi

Year: 2019

Marxist-Feminist Theories and Struggles Today: Essential Writings on Intersectionality, Labour and Ecofeminism

Citation:

Fakier, Khayaat, Diana Mulinari, and Nora Räthzel, eds. 2020. Marxist-Feminist Theories and Struggles Today: Essential Writings on Intersectionality, Labour and Ecofeminism. London: Zed Books.

Authors: Khayaat Fakier , Diana Mulinari, Nora Räthzel

Annotation:

Summary:

This vital new collection presents new Marxist-Feminist analyses of Capitalism as a gendered, racialized social formation that shapes and is shaped by specific nature-labour relationships. Leaving behind former overtly structuralist thinking, Marxist-Feminist Theories and Struggles Today interweaves strands of ecofeminism and intersectional analyses to develop an understanding of the relations of production and the production of nature through the interdependencies of gender, class, race and colonial relations. With contributions and analyses from scholars and theorists in both the global North and South, this volume offers a truly international lens that reveals the the vitality of contemporary global Marxist-Feminist thinking, as well as its continued relevance to feminist struggles across the globe (Summary from Zed Books).

Table of Contents:

Introduction
Khayaat Fakier, Diana Mulinari, Nora Räthzel

Part I – Conceptualising

1. Standpoint Theory
Cynthia Cockburn

2. Outside in the Funding Machine
Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak

3. Contradictions in Marxist Feminism
Frigga Haug

4. Ecofeminism as (Marxist) Sociology
Ariel Salleh

5. The ‘Flat Ontology’ of Neoliberal Feminism
Jennifer Cotter

6. The Byzantine Eunuch: Pre-capitalist Gender Category, ‘Tributary’ Modal Contradiction, and a Test for Materialist Feminism
Jules Gleeson

7. Reading Marx against the Grain: Rethinking the Exploitation of Care Work Beyond Profit-Seeking
Tine Haubner

Part II – Production

8. Marx and Social Reproduction Theory: Three Different Historical Strands
Ankica Čakardić

9. The Best Thing I Have Done Is to Give Birth; The Second Is to Strike
Paula Mulinari

10. Women in Small Scale Fishing in South Africa: An Ecofeminist Engagement with the ‘Blue Economy’
Natasha Solari and Khayaat Fakier

11. The ‘Crisis of Care’ and the Neoliberal Restructuring of the Public Sector – a Feminist Polanyian Analysis
Rebecca Selberg

12. Gender Regimes and Women’s Labour: Volvo Factories in Sweden, Mexico, and South Africa
Nora Räthzel, Diana Mulinari, Aina Tollefsen

Part III – Religions and Politics

13. Religious Resistance: A Flower on the Chain or a Tunnel towards Liberation?
Gabriele Dietrich

14. A Marxist-Feminist Perspective: From Former Yugoslavia to Turbo Fascism to Neoliberal Postmodern Fascist Europe
Marina Gržinić

15. Feminism, Antisemitism and the Question of Palestine/Israel
Nira Yuval Davis

Part IV – Solidarities

16. Women in Brazilian's Trade Union Movement
Patricia Vieira Trópia

17. Argentinean Feminist Movements: Debates from Praxis
Ana Isabel González Montes

18. Marxist Feminism for a Global Women’s Movement against Capitalism
Ligaya Lindio McGovern

19. Marxist/Socialist Feminist Theory and Practice in the USA Today
Nancy Holmstrom 

20. Solidarity in Troubled Times: Social Movements in the Face of Climate Change
Kathryn Russell

Topics: Class, Coloniality/Post-Coloniality, Economies, Care Economies, Environment, Feminisms, Ecofeminism, Gender, Gendered Power Relations, Intersectionality, Race, Religion Regions: Africa, MENA, Southern Africa, Americas, North America, South America, Europe, Balkans, Nordic states Countries: Argentina, Brazil, Israel, Mexico, Palestine / Occupied Palestinian Territories, South Africa, Sweden, United States of America

Year: 2020

Pages

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