Climate Change

Gender, Conflict, and Global Environmental Change

Citation:

Fröhlich, Christiane, and Giovanna Gioli. 2015. “Gender, Conflict, and Global Environmental Change.” Peace Review 27 (2): 137–46.

 

Authors: Christiane Fröhlich, Giovanna Gioli

Annotation:

Summary:
"Gender has long been identified as an important variable in both conflict (de-)escalation processes and vulnerability or adaptive capacity toward global environmental change.We understand gender as the socioculturally and politico-economically constructed roles and responsibilities ascribed to men and women that change over time, are context- and history-specific, and are inseparable from power relations. With increasing scarcity and degradation of land and water, those who are poor in resources, income, and power—many of them women—lose their rights to use these existential resources. The loss of livelihood due to environmental change, regardless of whether it was caused mainly by global warming or more by bad governance, is often the starting point of resource-related conflicts on the micro and meso levels. Such escalation processes have gender-differentiated causes and consequences: each societal group is affected differently both by environmental change and by conflict, depending on its specific position in the respective structures along which access to resources, income, and decision-making power is distributed. This position is defined by various in- and out-group markers: age, ethnicity, (dis-)ability, religion, and so on—and, crucially, by gender. Thus, gender is a relevant category both for the analysis of (de-)escalation processes in violent conflicts and for examinations of the different vulnerabilities and adaptive capacities of women and men to (global) environmental change. This understanding, however, has yet to be translated into a comprehensive research framework that integrates gender as an analytical category into environmental and conflict research. With no pretense of being exhaustive, we provide a critical review of the main frameworks and research gaps in the relevant fields with a special regard for the current or potential integration of a gender lens. These include environmental conflict research; gender and environment; and gender and conflict. Hence, provided is a list of common fallacies and gaps, thereby uncovering popular myths and answering the very crucial question: What are we talking about when referring to gender in the context of conflict and global environmental change?" (Fröhlich & Gioli 2015, 137).
 

Topics: Conflict, Resource Conflict, Environment, Climate Change, Gender, Gender Analysis, Gender Roles, Gendered Power Relations, Livelihoods

Year: 2015

Climate Change, Gender, and Rethinking Military Operations

Citation:

Jody M. Prescott. 2014. “Climate Change, Gender, and Rethinking Military Operations.” Vermont Journal of Environmental Law 15 (4): 766–802.

Author: Jody M. Prescott

Annotation:

Summary:
"The linkages between climate change, gender, and military operations are not necessarily immediately obvious. This article argues, however, that a particular type of unit, the Agricultural Development Team (“ADT”), developed and deployed to Afghanistan since 2007, has not only demonstrated the capability to address the gender-differentiated, climate change-related sources of insecurity at the tactical level, but that it could also serve as a model to effectively factor the gender-differentiated impacts of climate change across the broad spectrum of U.S. military operations.  To support this argument, this article will first explore the gender- and sex differentiated impacts of climate change upon populations, and why women, particularly in developing countries, tend to be more vulnerable to these impacts. Mindful of this operational reality for U.S. forces deployed to these areas, this article reviews current U.S. military doctrine setting out the means and methods by which the U.S. military interacts with local civilian populations in foreign nations. In particular, this article further assesses the significance of DoD’s failure to meaningfully address the environment and gender in military-civilian operations. The third section of this article explains the role of the ADT in the context of other types of military-civilian interface units that the U.S. military has developed and used in Afghanistan. In the fourth section, this article briefly describes various ADT projects to highlight ways in which wartime missions can mitigate climate change’s effects and enable vulnerable population cohorts such as women to adapt to its effects. These descriptions are based in part upon interviews with National Guard officers that recently led different ADTs in Afghanistan. In conclusion, more fully factoring the process of climate change and the importance of its gender-differentiated impacts into modern military operations would help create the conditions which could lead to sustainable social and economic stability in countries challenged by the effects of armed conflict and climate change. Such stability is crucial for the reestablishment and growth of the rule of law, a cornerstone of U.S. stability and reconstruction policy" (Prescott 2014, 768-769).

 

Topics: Agriculture, Armed Conflict, Combatants, Environment, Climate Change, Gender, Women, Gendered Power Relations, Security Regions: Asia, South Asia Countries: Afghanistan

Year: 2014

Gendered Dimensions of Migration in Relation to Climate Change

Citation:

Lama, Phudoma, Mo Hamza, and Misse Wester. 2020. “Gendered Dimensions of Migration in Relation to Climate Change.” Climate and Development (June). doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/17565529.2020.1772708

Authors: Phudoma Lama, Mo Hamza, Misse Wester

Abstract:

It is widely accepted that climate change may be contributing to population movement and has gendered effects. The relationship between climate change as a direct cause of migration continues to give rise to debates concerning vulnerabilities, while at the same time gendered dimensions of vulnerabilities remain limited to binary approaches. There is limited cross-fertilization between disciplines that go beyond comparison between males and females but interrogate gender in association with climate change and migration. Here, we seek to develop an analytical lens to the nexus between gender, migration and climate change in producing, reproducing and sustaining at risk conditions and vulnerabilities. When gender and mobility are conceptualized as a process, and climate change as a risk modifier, the nexus between them can be better interrogated. Starting by using gender as an organizing principle that structures and stratifies relations entails viewing gender not as a category that distinguishes males and females but as a discursive process of social construction that (re)produces subjectivities and inequalities. Gender is a dynamic process that shapes and (re)produces vulnerabilities and consequently shapes mediation of climate impacts and migration and is also shaped by symbolic processes that go beyond households and communities.

Keywords: climate change, climate adaptation, migration, gender dynamics

Topics: Displacement & Migration, Climate Displacement, Migration, Environment, Climate Change, Gender, Gendered Discourses, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality

Year: 2020

Climate Change and Violence against Women: Study of a Flood-Affected Population in the Rural Area of Sindh, Pakistan

Citation:

Memon, Falak Shad. 2020. "Climate Change and Violence against Women: Study of a Flood-Affected Population in the Rural Area of Sindh, Pakistan." Pakistan Journal of Women's Studies 27 (1): 65-85.

Author: Falak Shad Memon

Abstract:

Climate-induced gender-based violence is an emerging area of study. Although studies on women and climate change are not new, a fresh understanding of gender-based issues and related problems are becoming of greater concern now. Women in Pakistan are generally at a disadvantage due to their societally- perceived norms, roles and responsibilities. This study aims to examine the experiences of women in flood settlement camps and to identify an association between natural disasters and violence against women. For this study, with the help of qualitative research methodology, 20 women were interviewed in the flood-prone areas of Sindh. Findings show that most women experience different types of violence, physical as well as emotional, committed by partners and even by complete strangers. The rate of such violence rises when women are displaced and are in temporary shelter facilities during a post-disaster period. Committing violence under such situations results in critical implications for both women victims and the development and implementation of gender sensitive climate change and disaster planning policies.

Keywords: climate change, disaster, gender-based violence, Pakistan, flood shelter-homes

Topics: Displacement & Migration, Climate Displacement, Environment, Climate Change, Environmental Disasters, Gender, Women, Gender-Based Violence, Violence Regions: Asia, South Asia Countries: Pakistan

Year: 2020

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Necro-Populationism of ‘Climate-Smart’ Agriculture

Citation:

Shaw, Amanda, and Kalpana Wilson. 2020. “The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Necro-Populationism of ‘Climate-Smart’ Agriculture.” Gender, Place & Culture 27 (3): 370–93.

Authors: Amanda Shaw, Kalpana Wilson

Abstract:

Agricultural and reproductive technologies ostensibly represent opposing poles within discourses on population growth: one aims to ‘feed the world,’ while the other seeks to limit the number of mouths there are to feed. There is, however, an urgent need to critically interrogate new discourses linking population size with climate change and promoting agricultural and reproductive technologies as a means to address associated problems. This article analyses the specific discourses produced by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) in relation to these ‘population technologies’ and ‘climate-smart’ agriculture in particular. Drawing on concepts and approaches developed by Black, postcolonial and Marxist feminists including intersectionality, racial capitalism, social reproduction, and reproductive and environmental justice, we explore how within these discourses, the ‘geo-populationism’ of the BMGF’s climatesmart agriculture initiatives, like the ‘demo-populationism’ of its family planning interventions, mobilises neoliberal notions of empowerment, productivity and innovation. Not only do these populationist discourses reinforce neoliberal framings and policies which extend existing regimes of racialised and gendered socio-spatial inequality, but they also underwrite global capital accumulation through new science and technologies. The BMGF’s representations of its climate-smart agriculture initiatives offer the opportunity to understand how threats of climate change are mobilised to reanimate and repackage the Malthusian disequilibrium between human fertility and agricultural productivity. Drawing upon our readings of these discourses, we critically propose the concept of ‘necro-populationism’ to refer to processes that target racialised and gendered populations for dispossession, toxification, slow death and embodied violence, even while direct accountability for the effects of these changes is dispersed. We also identify a need for further research which will not only trace the ways in which the BMGF’s global policies are materialised, spatialised, reproduced and reoriented by multiple actors in local contexts, but will also recognise and affirm the diverse forms through which these ‘necro-populationist’ processes are disavowed and resisted.

Topics: Agriculture, Coloniality/Post-Coloniality, Development, Environment, Climate Change, Feminisms, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality, Intersectionality, Race, Rights, Reproductive Rights

Year: 2020

Rainfall Shocks and Intimate Partner Violence in Sub-Saharan Africa

Citation:

Cools, Sara, Martin Flatø, and Andreas Kotsadam. 2020. “Rainfall Shocks and Intimate Partner Violence in Sub-Saharan Africa.” Journal of Peace Research 57 (3): 377–90.

Authors: Sara Cools, Martin Flatø, Andreas Kotsadam

Abstract:

Global climate change makes extreme precipitation events likely to become more frequent and intense in large parts of Africa. We study the effect of rainfall shocks on intimate partner violence in sub-Saharan Africa. The analysis shows the presence of spatial autocorrelation in rainfall shocks, which compromises the exogeneity of rainfall shocks in many applications. We correct for the autocorrelation using spatial polynomials. In particular, we use three different estimation strategies. We first use the complete cross-sectional sample to analyze whether recent droughts are correlated with respondents’ experience with intimate partner violence during the last year. We then use the nine countries with repeated surveys to construct a repeated cross-section analysis at the grid level. Finally, we use event history analysis on a time series constructed from the information provided by the abused women about when the violence first took place. We find no robust evidence that droughts increase intimate partner violence. Potential explanations are that the rainfall shocks do not affect spouses’ power, or that the slow onset of the droughts allows for a calmer response to the crisis. We contribute to the wider literature on climate and conflict as many of the mechanisms, economic and psychological, that link climate to violence apply to both intimate partner violence and organized violence.

Keywords: Africa, violence, weather shocks

Topics: Domestic Violence, Environment, Climate Change, Gendered Power Relations, Violence Regions: Africa

Year: 2020

Gestión de Riesgo de Desastres, Género y Cambio Climático. Percepciones Sociales en Yucatán, México

Citation:

Soares, Denise, and Daniel Murillo-Licea. 2013. “Gestión de riesgo de desastres, género y cambio climático. Percepciones sociales en Yucatán, México.” Cuadernos de Desarrollo Rural 10 (72): 181-99.

Authors: Denise Soares, Daniel Murillo-Licea

Abstract:

SPANISH ABSTRACT:
El objetivo del presente trabajo es abonar a la reflexión de la articulación entre la gestión de riesgo de desastres y la equidad de género. Se presenta un estudio de caso en cuatro localidades del estado de Yucatán, México, sobre percepciones respecto al cambio climático y capacidades institucionales sobre gestión de riesgos. Para conocer las percepciones sociales locales se han utilizado los métodos de encuestas y entrevistas a informantes clave, y los resultados encontrados dan cuenta de la existencia de severos problemas en la institucionalidad municipal encargada tanto de la gestión de riesgo de desastres como de la promoción de procesos de mayor igualdad de género; además de esto, se registró un escaso conocimiento sobre los factores que provocan el cambio climático.
 
ENGLISH ABSTRACT:
The aim of this paper is to contribute to the reflection on the link between disaster risk management and gender equity. It is presented a case study on perceptions about climate change and institutional abilities regarding risk management in four locations of the state of Yucatan, Mexico. In order to know the local social perceptions, surveys and interviews were administered to key informants, and the results account for the existence of serious problems in municipal institutions in charge of both disaster risk management and the promotion of processes to generate greater gender equality. Additionally, a lack of knowledge about the factors that cause climate change was recorded.
 
FRENCH ABSTRACT:
Le but de ce travail est porté à la réflexion de l’articulation entre la gestion des risques de catastrophes et l’égalité de genre. Il se présente une étude de cas en quatre localités de l’état de Yucatan, Mexique, sur les perceptions à propos du changement climatique et les capacités institutionnelles sur la gestion de risques. Pour connaître les perceptions sociales locales, les méthodes d’enquêtes et d’interviews à des informateurs clés se sont utilisées, et les résultats trouvés rendent compte de l’existence de problèmes très graves dans les institutions municipales chargées de la gestion de risques de catastrophes et des processus visant à promouvoir une plus grande égalité entre les sexes ; en plus de cela, un manque de connaissance sur les facteurs qui occasionnent le changement climatique s’est enregistré.

Keywords: cambio climático, gestión de riesgo de desastre, gênero, gender, climate change, Disaster Risk Management, genre, changement climatique, gestion de risque de catastrophe

Topics: Climate Change, Environmental Disasters, Gender, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equity Regions: Americas, North America Countries: Mexico

Year: 2013

We Have to Wake Up, Humankind! Women’s Struggles for Survival and Climate and Environmental Justice

Citation:

Rodriguez Acha, Maria Alejandra. 2017. “We Have to Wake Up, Humankind! Women’s Struggles for Survival and Climate and Environmental Justice.” Development 60 (1–2): 32–9.

Author: Maria Alejandra Rodriguez Acha

Abstract:

The climate and environmental crises of our times heighten existing inequalities and pose challenges to our very survival. The lives, livelihoods and bodies of women around the world are at the frontlines of its impacts and of the struggles to resist and build alternatives centred around justice and the sustainability of life. The 2016 AWID Forum gathered ecological and women’s rights activists to share experiences and perspectives on how the exploitation of people and planet is interlinked and interdependent and what shapes our resistance does and must take.

Keywords: climate change, climate justice, environmental justice, women's rights, women human rights defenders

Topics: Environment, Climate Change, Gender, Women, Justice, Livelihoods, Rights, Women's Rights

Year: 2017

Derechos territoriales de mujeres y revalorización de sistemas alimentarios indígenas y agroecológicos del Chaco Cruceño en Bolivia

Citation:

Llanque, Aymara, y Freddy Delgado. 2018. “Derechos territoriales de mujeres y revalorización de sistemas alimentarios indígenas y agroecológicos del Chaco Cruceño en Bolivia.” Cadernos de Agroecologia 13 (1).

Authors: Aymara Llanque, Freddy Delgado

Abstract:

SPANISH ABSTRACT:
El empuje al agro negocio en Bolivia durante la última década está presionando las formas tradicionales de producción y consumo de alimentos, manejadas principalmente por mujeres campesinas e indígenas. El artículo se enfoca en las múltiples actividades desarrolladas por mujeres de tres comunidades en el Municipio de Cabezas, para analizar configuraciones institucionales que posibilitan la tenencia territorial y los desafíos en sustentabilidad alimentaria, frente a las presiones del sistema alimentario agroindustrial, en el Chaco cruceño de Bolivia, una región caracterizada por su alta vulnerabilidad climática. Entre los años 2015 y 2016 se aplicaron 16 entrevistas con enfoque transdisciplinar, para aproximarnos a las dinámicas territoriales. Los Resultados muestran que los derechos territoriales de las mujeres dependen sobre todo del reconocimiento social y de los mecanismos consuetudinarios construidos en sus comunidades; a pesar de la persistencia de inseguridad jurídica, las mujeres ejercen sus derechos territoriales con la diversidad de actividades desarrolladas por mujeres campesinas e indígenas hacia la economía del cuidado. Este estudio da indicios sobre las dinámicas pro- positivas de las mujeres, como respuestas a las crisis económicas, ambientales, socioculturales que se desarrollan ampliamente en sus territorios.
 
ENGLISH ABSTRACT:
The push to agro-business in Bolivia over the last decade is pressing traditional forms of food production and consumption, mainly managed by peasant and indigenous women. The article focuses on the multiple activities carried out by women from tree rural communities in Cabezas Municipality, to analyze institutional configurations that make possible territorial tenure and challenges in food sustainability, as opposed to the pressures of the food system Agro industrial, in the Chaco cruceño of Bolivia, a region characterized by its high climatic vulnerability. Between 2015 and 2016, we applied 16 interviews with a trans-disciplinary focus, in order to approach the territorial dynamics. The results show that the territorial rights of women depend mainly on social recognition and customary mechanisms built in their communities; despite the persistence of legal uncertainty, women apply their territorial rights with the diversity of activities developed by peasant and indigenous women towards the economy of care. This study provides clues about the women’s purposefully dynamics, as responses to economic, environmental, socio-cultural crises that are widely developed with agribusiness. 
 

Keywords: Mujeres, tenencia, diversificación, sistemas alimentarios, women, tenure, diversification, foodsystems

Topics: Agriculture, Economies, Care Economies, Environment, Climate Change, Indigenous, Indigenous Knowledge Systems, Land Tenure, Livelihoods, Rights, Land Rights Regions: Americas, South America Countries: Bolivia

Year: 2018

¿Para qué quieren las mujeres la tierra? Entre la agroecología y el feminismo: La Red de Mujeres Rurales de Costa Rica

Citation:

Bonilla Leiva Correio, Alejandra. 2020. “¿Para qué quieren las mujeres la tierra? Entre la agroecología y el feminismo: La Red de Mujeres Rurales de Costa Rica.” O Público E O Privado 35: 17-42.

Author: Alejandra Bonilla Leiva Correio

Abstract:

Las crisis ambientales, económicas y alimentarias han demostrado las limitaciones del sistema capitalista para alimentar a grandes poblaciones en diferentes latitudes, así como evidenciar las formas de producción con alto impacto y deterioro de la naturaleza y su nula capacidad para recuperarse de ese deterioro. El proceso de despojo de tierras y bienes se basa en la profundización de las relaciones de subordinación y sumisión de los pueblos y particularmente de las mujeres. La investigación de acción participativa permitió conocer el  deterioro del  medio  ambiente,  el  impacto  en  las  comunidades,  en  la  base productiva ̧ elementos del modelo agroindustrial y el aumento de los mecanismos de control sobre las mujeres; al mismo tiempo encontrar la concreción en la práctica diaria hacia la soberanía alimentaria; con agroecología y feminismo como instrumentos conceptuales y crítica política.

Keywords: agroecologia, mujeres campesinas, feminismo

Topics: Environment, Climate Change, Feminisms, Gender, Women, Rights, Land Rights, Security, Food Security Regions: Americas, Central America Countries: Costa Rica

Year: 2020

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