China

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

Adding a Gender Perspective to China's Belt and Road Initiative as an International Human Rights Obligation

Citation:

Haina, Lu. 2019. “Adding a Gender Perspective to China's Belt and Road Initiative as an International Human Rights Obligation.” Frontiers of Law in China 14 (4): 455-77.

Author: Lu Haina

Abstract:

China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has a significant impact on the gender equality of receiving countries. It is noted that many BRI countries are facing challenges to realizing gender equality. Nevertheless, China has not developed a gender-mainstreaming or rights-based approach to implement the BRI. Hence, this paper argues that it is China’s international human rights obligation to develop such an approach and the country should adopt a gender policy in its BRI to ensure that its overseas investments and aid programs respect and promote gender equality. First, this paper maps China’s overseas investments and aid globally and particularly in BRI countries, and examines, in general, how the BRI may have an impact on gender equality both globally and in BRI countries. Second, the paper reviews international standards on gender equality in transnational trade and foreign investment and aid projects in the context of international human rights’ norms. It clarifies China’s obligations to promote gender equality within the BRI framework under international law. Third, based on the aforementioned findings, this paper conducts a gap analysis on the gender policy followed by China’s overseas investment and aid programs set within the context of international standards. Finally, the paper recommends some possible policy steps to ensure gender equality is mainstreamed in BRI projects of China.

Keywords: gender equality, Belt and Road Initiative, BRI, China's overseas investment, foreign aid, human rights

Topics: Development, Gender Mainstreaming, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality, Infrastructure, International Law, International Human Rights, Multi-National Corporations, Privatization, Rights, Human Rights Regions: Asia, East Asia Countries: China

Year: 2019

Gender, Mobility Regimes, and Social Transformation in Asia

Citation:

Martin, Fran, and Ana Dragojlovic. 2019. “Gender, Mobility Regimes, and Social Transformation in Asia.” Journal of Intercultural Studies 40 (3): 275–86.

Authors: Fran Martin, Ana Dragojlovic

Keywords: mobility, migration, gender, Asia

Annotation:

Summary:
“This special issue, which grows out of an international symposium that the editors hosted at the University of Melbourne in November 2016, explores the interrelations among gender, human mobilities, and power across selected sites in East and Southeast Asia, where today an intensification and acceleration in spatial movements of all kinds is reconfiguring the ways in which gender relations are lived and imagined. Gender, sexuality, intimacy, and family are taking on new expressions, shaped by political and economic demands for participation in geographic mobilities, flexible labour, intimate markets, and social reproduction. The articles gathered here explore how contemporary regimes of governance in Singapore, Indonesia, China, Taiwan and beyond impact on the spatial and social movements of people, and interrogate the economic, political, affective, and especially gendered dimensions of these emergent forms of mobility. Bringing together scholars from across gender studies, anthropology, and cultural studies, this issue explores how interdisciplinary methods and theories can productively engage the operations of mobility regimes in the making and un-making of gender relations in the Asian region” (Martin and Dragojlovic 2019).

Topics: Displacement & Migration, Migration, Economies, Gender, Gendered Power Relations Regions: Asia, East Asia, Southeast Asia Countries: China, Indonesia, Singapore, Taiwan

Year: 2019

Family Strategies: Fluidities of Gender, Community and Mobility in Rural West China.

Citation:

Judd, Ellen R. 2010. “Family Strategies: Fluidities of Gender, Community and Mobility in Rural West China.” The China Quarterly, no. 204: 921–38.

Author: Ellen R. Judd

Abstract:

This article queries the current mobility of China's rural population by inverting the usual urban perspective and looking at this mobility through exploring the lives of those who do not move. It departs from a micro-analysis of who remains in the countryside in three west China agricultural communities between 2003 and 2005 and links this with an exploration of emergent structural features of rural communities as they are remade in the early 21st century in the wake of the abolition of agricultural taxes and levies. The ethnographic approach adopted highlights the agency, choices and practices of local people in charting their courses in a rural social world being drained of people. It proposes the utility for analysis of family strategies, identifying a repertoire of resourceful and diverse practices through which people strive to recreate and repopulate their social worlds. The argument links the study of historical directions in polity and economy with local and gendered practices in everyday life.

Topics: Agriculture, Gender Regions: Asia, East Asia Countries: China

Year: 2010

Gender and Natural Resource Management: Livelihoods, Mobility and Interventions

Citation:

Resurrección, Bernadette P., and Rebecca Elmhirst. 2012. Gender and Natural Resource Management: Livelihoods, Mobility and Interventions. Abingdon: Routledge.

Authors: Bernadette P. Resurrección, Rebecca Elmhirst

Annotation:

Summary:
This book is about the gender dimensions of natural resource exploitation and management, with a focus on Asia. It explores the uneasy negotiations between theory, policy and practice that are often evident within the realm of gender, environment and natural resource management, especially where gender is understood as a political, negotiated and contested element of social relationships. It offers a critical feminist perspective on gender relations and natural resource management in the context of contemporary policy concerns: decentralized governance, the elimination of poverty and the mainstreaming of gender. Through a combination of strong conceptual argument and empirical material from a variety of political economic and ecological contexts (including Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Nepal, Thailand and Vietnam), the book examines gender-environment linkages within shifting configurations of resource access and control. The book will serve as a core resource for students of gender studies and natural resource management, and as supplementary reading for a wide range of disciplines including geography, environmental studies, sociology and development. It also provides a stimulating collection of ideas for professionals looking to incorporate gender issues within their practice in sustainable development. Published with IDRC. (Summary from Routledge)

Topics: Development, Economies, Poverty, Environment, Feminisms, Gender Regions: Asia Countries: Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Nepal, Thailand, Vietnam

Year: 2012

Women’s Land Activism and Gendered Citizenship in the Urbanising Pearl River Delta

Citation:

Po, Lanchih. 2020. “Women’s Land Activism and Gendered Citizenship in the Urbanising Pearl River Delta.” Urban Studies 57 (3): 602–17.

Author: Lanchih Po

Abstract:

 

ENGLISH ABSTRACT:
In light of the unequal access to urban citizenship resulting from the household registration system (hukou), an increasing number of scholarly works have pointed out how a system of citizenship stratification has emerged in urbanising China. However, this stratification has seldom been analysed in terms of gender. Rural women, situated at the bottom of the hierarchy of differentiated citizenship, often suffer gender-based discrimination and tumble still further down the hierarchy. Specifically, women are vulnerable to economic and social dispossession in the process of the displacement of rural populations and renegotiation of land rights. Owing to the custom of patrilocal residence, women who have ‘married out’ (waijianü) have been excluded from rights, participation and entitlement to collective land property. By creating a class of rural female non-citizens, rural communities have deprived waijianü of opportunities to share land-related revenue realised in the process of urbanisation, further perpetuating male dominance just as local economies and society are in flux. Through a case study of these conflicts in Guangdong, this paper explores how women have challenged gendered citizenship in the process of urbanisation.
 
CHINESE ABSTRACT:
摘要
 
鉴于户籍制度(户口)导致的获得城市居民身份方面的机会不平等,越来越多的学术著作指出了居民身份分层制度是如何在中国城市化过程中出现的。然而,学者们很少从性别角度分析这种分层。农村妇女位于不同居民等级的最底层,往往遭受基于性别的歧视,并跌入等级的更低的位置。具体而言,在农村人口驱逐和土地权利重新谈判的过程中,妇女容易遭受经济和社会剥夺。由于从夫居的习俗,已经“出嫁”的妇女(外嫁女))被排除在集体土地财产随附的权利、参与权和福利之外。通过创造一个农村女性非居民阶层,农村社区剥夺了外嫁女分享城市化进程中实现的土地相关收入的机会,在当地经济和社会不断变化之际进一步延续了男性的支配地位。本文通过对在广东省发生的这类冲突的案例研究,探讨了女性在城市化进程中是如何挑战性别居民身份的。

 

Keywords: agglomeration/urbanisation, citizenship, gender, inequality, poverty/exclusion

Topics: Citizenship, Displacement & Migration, Gender, Women, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality, Patriarchy, Rights, Land Rights, Property Rights, Women's Rights Regions: Asia, East Asia Countries: China

Year: 2020

Making Space for Women: Civil Society Organizations, Gender and Hydropower Development in the Mekong Region

Citation:

Lebel, Phimphakan, Louis Lebel, Darunee Singphonphrai, Chatta Duangsuwan, and Yishu Zhou. 2019. “Making Space for Women: Civil Society Organizations, Gender and Hydropower Development in the Mekong Region.” International Journal of Water Resources Development 35 (2): 305-25.

Authors: Phimphakan Lebel, Louis Lebel, Darunee Singphonphrai, Chatta Duangsuwan, Yishu Zhou

Abstract:

Large-scale hydropower development disrupts local livelihoods and resource access. Adverse impacts are often greater for women than men, but also large for children, the elderly, poorer households and ethnic minorities. Burdens of resettlement often fall disproportionately on already disadvantaged individuals. The purpose of this study was to evaluate how international, national and local civil society organizations (CSOs) have addressed gender in hydropower development in the Mekong Region. Four CSO orientations are distinguished: communitarian, environmentalist, knowledge-based and feminist. Common activities of CSOs were to share information, to expand participation and to mobilize development. The extent to which these activities were promoted and appear to be making space for women depended on the types of CSOs and women and men targeted or otherwise involved. 

Keywords: civil society organizations, gender, hydropower, Mekong

Topics: Age, Youth, Civil Society, Displacement & Migration, Development, Economies, Poverty, Environment, Ethnicity, Feminisms, Gender, Livelihoods Regions: Asia, East Asia, Southeast Asia Countries: Cambodia, China, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam

Year: 2019

Gender in Development Discourses of Civil Society Organisations and Mekong Hydropower Dams

Citation:

Lebel, Louis, Phimphakan Lebel, Kanokwan Manorom, and Zhou Yishu. 2019. “Gender in Development Discourses of Civil Society Organisations and Mekong Hydropower Dams.” Water Alternatives 12 (1): 192–220.

Authors: Louis Lebel, Phimphakan Lebel, Kanokwan Manorom, Zhou Yishu

Abstract:

'Gender in development' discourses are used to justify interventions into, or opposition to, projects and policies; they may also influence perceptions, practices, or key decisions. Four discursive threads are globally prominent: livelihoods and poverty; natural resources and the environment; rights-based; and managerial. Civil society organisations (CSOs) have been vocal in raising awareness about the adverse impacts of large-scale hydropower developments on the environment, on local livelihoods, and on vulnerable groups including women. This discourse analysis first examines how CSOs engaging in hydropower processes in the Mekong Region frame and use gender in development discourses, and then evaluates the potential of these discourses to empower both women and men. Documents authored by CSOs are examined in detail for how gender is represented, as are media reports on CSO activities, interview transcripts, and images. The findings underline how CSOs depend on discursive legitimacy for influence. Their discursive strategies depend on three factors: the organizations’ goals with respect to development, gender, and the environment; whether the situation is pre- or post-construction; and, on their relationships with the state, project developers and dam-affected communities. The implications of these strategies for empowerment are often not straightforward; inadvertent and indirect effects, positive and negative, are common. The findings of this study are of practical value to CSOs wishing to be more reflexive in their work and more responsive to how it is talked about, as it shows the ways that language and images may enhance or inadvertently work against efforts to empower women.

Keywords: civil society organisations, gender in development, discourse, representation, hydropower

Topics: Civil Society, Development, Environment, Gender, Infrastructure, Energy, Livelihoods Regions: Asia, East Asia, Southeast Asia Countries: Cambodia, China, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam

Year: 2019

Gender and Renewable Energy Study in Tibetan Pastoral Areas of China

Citation:

Ding, Wenguang, Li He, Dinka Zewudie, Huilin Zhang, Tanjia Binte Zafar, and Xinde Liu. 2019. “Gender and Renewable Energy Study in Tibetan Pastoral Areas of China.” Renewable Energy 133 (April): 901–13.

Authors: Wenguang Ding, Li He, Dinka Zewudie, Huilin Zhang, Tanjia Binte Zafar, Xinde Liu

Abstract:

As interdisciplinary research, this Gender and Energy study innovatively revealed the crucial role of Tibetan women in using, saving and developing energy. We chose a typical Tibetan area named Gannan Prefecture in northwestern China, we chose three total grassland counties in Gannan; all three communities still have a nomadic lifestyle and do not have sufficient energy. After we concluded the close relationship between gender and energy in this area, we compared our research area with other Tibetan area those are located in Sichuan, Qinghai and Tibet. This comparison helped to figure out the relationship between Tibetan women and energy in China. The results showed a significant increase of total household energy consumption and the energy efficiency and the decrease of the disease rate because of using renewable energy and clean devices. It also improved women's empowerment in household energy management and promoted cultural change. However, a Tibetan woman's daily working time increased by 1 h from 15 h/day to 16 h/day. The reasons behind gender inequity include Religion influence, Social change and Industrial structure. This paper conclude the changes and attempts to analyze the internal factors, and tries to bring about some policy advice to benefit the Tibetan women.

Keywords: gender equity, renewable energy, policy

Topics: Gender, Women, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equity, Health, Households, Infrastructure, Energy, Religion Regions: Asia, East Asia Countries: China

Year: 2019

Water Conservation Awareness and Practices in Households Receiving Improved Water Supply: A Gender-Based Analysis

Citation:

Tong, Yan, Liangxin Fan, and Haipeng Niu. 2017. "Water Conservation Awareness and Practices in Households Receiving Improved Water Supply: A Gender-Based Analysis." Journal of Cleaner Production 141: 947-55.

Authors: Yan Tong, Liangxin Fan, Haipeng Niu

Abstract:

Adoption of water conservation practices (WCPs) is essential to save water. However, the factors that affect changes in behaviour related to water consumption remain unclear, particularly those related to gender differences and women's views towards WCPs. These factors often result in ineffective public policies. In this study, we analysed the effects of consciousness, perceptions and individual behaviour control towards WCPs, as well as the influence of gender (i.e. male and female) on residents' WCPs via a detailed survey of 622 residents (female: 318, male: 304) in rural northern China. Data were analysed using a one-way ANOVA and structural equation model. The respondents had a high degree of awareness of WCPs but reported low participation in WCPs, particularly among male users. Female users consumed twice as much water and adopted more WCPs than male users. Saving water bill was the main incentive for female users to practise WCPs, whereas that for male users was to alleviate water supply shortage. Daily routine changes and additional time and physical efforts were the main barriers for WCPs, particularly for male users. In addition, WCPs of male users were highly affected by individual behaviour control and attitude towards conservation, whereas for female users, WCPs were highly affected by expected results and social norms. The significant gender disparities in the results emphasise the need to ensure information transparency and communication across gender, users, and authorities in public policies and community programs to fix gender gaps and to enhance adoption of WCPs by the public.

Keywords: domestic water consumption, water-use behavior, gender disparity, survey, Rural China

Topics: Gender, Women, Men, Infrastructure, Water & Sanitation Regions: Asia, East Asia Countries: China

Year: 2017

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