Climate change, COVID-19, and the co-production of injustices: a feminist reading of overlapping crises

Abstract

The overlapping global socio-ecological crises of climate change and COVID-19 pandemic have simultaneously dominated discussions since 2020. The connections between them expose underbellies of structural inequities and systemic marginalizations across scales and sites. While ongoing climate change amplifies, compounds, and creates new forms of injustices and stresses, all of which are interlinked and interconnected, the emergence of COVID-19 pandemic has also co-created new challenges, vulnerabilities, and burdens, as well as reinforcing old ones. An intersectional analysis of these overlapping but uneven global crises demonstrates the importance of investigating and addressing them simultaneously through a feminist lens. This allows for a more nuanced understanding of the co-production of injustices structurally, materially, and discursively.

Political ecology II: Conjunctures, crises, and critical publics

“…The immediacy and urgency with which the pandemic forced states, societies, and individuals to act were in stark contrast to the slow temporality and inertia with which climate has been addressed (Markard and Rosenbloom, 2020; Phillips et al, 2020). Both crises are global but uneven emergencies with differentiated responses and lived experiences (Sultana, 2021). There is inequitable distribution of material burdens from diverse vulnerabilities to, exposures from, and abilities to cope with these dual nature–society challenges.…”

Climate change and agrarian struggles: an invitation to contribute to aJPSForum

“…Proponents argue that a focus on different dimensions of justice is key to addressing climate change (Gardiner 2011). Climate change goes beyond the biophysical and technical and must be seen through the lenses of inequality and injustice (Newell and Mulvaney 2013;Lynch et al 2019;Tuana 2019;Newell et al 2020;Sultana 2021), extending beyond the rights of people to those of the living world, with a multi-species conception of environmental and climate justice (Tsing et al 2020;Tschakert et al 2021).…”

Intersectional and Entangled Risks: An Empirical Analysis of Disasters and Landfills

“…To better assess the ways gender inequality contributes to environmental hazards and intersects with race and socioeconomic status, scholars have also begun to apply intersectionality theory to further understand relationships among gender, race, socioeconomic status, along with other socio-demographic characteristics, and environmental outcomes (Ducre, 2018;Malin and Ryder, 2018;Mollett and Faria, 2018;Sultana, 2021). Intersectionality, a critical theory and approach that grows out of Black feminist thought, seeks to identify and critique the ways various systems of power oppress specific kinds of people and how oppressed peoples can enact their own forms of power (e.g., Crenshaw, 1989;Collins, 1990;Cho et al, 2013;Collins and Bilge, 2020).…”