The diversity of gendered adaptation strategies to climate change of Indian farmers: A feminist intersectional approach

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The main goal of this special issue is to offer a room for interdisciplinary and engaged research in global environmental change (GEC), where gender plays a key role in building resilience and adaptation pathways. In this editorial paper, we explain the background setting, key questions and core approaches of gender and feminist research in vulnerability, resilience and adaptation to GEC. Highlighting the interlinkages between gender and GEC, we introduce the main contributions of the collection of 11 papers in this special issue. Nine empirical papers from around the globe allow to understand how gendered diversity in knowledge, institutions and everyday practices matters in producing barriers and options for achieving resilience and adaptive capacity in societies. Additionally, two papers contribute to the theoretical debate through a systematic review and an insight on the relevance of intersectional framings within GEC research and development programming.

Section: Major Themes and Paper Contributionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Ravera et al (2016) explore adaptation strategies to climate change among farmers drawing on a feminist intersectional approach in two regions of India. They find gender differences in the perception and adoption of strategies to cope and adapt to climate change impacts and other concomitant drivers.…”

Section: Major Themes and Paper Contributionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Gender perspectives in resilience, vulnerability and adaptation to global environmental change

Ravera

Iniesta-Arandia

Martín‐López

et al. 2016

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“…Literature on vulnerability and adaptation in agrarian settings in the Global South has tended to focus on one such marker, gender, as a primary category of difference that influences a person’s vulnerability and their ability to adapt (see Carr and Thompson 2014 for a recent summary of such work). This work generally revolves around three core themes: (i) lack of women’s inclusion in decision making (Mehra and Hill Rojas 2008; Dankelman and Jansen 2010), (ii) gendered inequalities in access to land and land tenure (Brody et al 2008; Quisumbing and Pandolfelli 2008; Djoudi and Brockhaus 2011; FAO 2011), and (iii) gendered agricultural practices and crop choices (Barry and Schlegel 1982; Arndt and Tarp 2000; Carr 2008; Ravera et al 2016). Such themes have emerged out of a long history of influence from the rich collection of knowledge generated within interdisciplinary feminist studies on development policy, practice, and research since the 1970s.…”

Section: Gender and Adaption Programmingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Enhancing and expanding intersectional research for climate change adaptation in agrarian settings

Thompson-Hall

Carr

Pascual

2016

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Most current approaches focused on vulnerability, resilience, and adaptation to climate change frame gender and its influence in a manner out-of-step with contemporary academic and international development research. The tendency to rely on analyses of the sex-disaggregated gender categories of ‘men’ and ‘women’ as sole or principal divisions explaining the abilities of different people within a group to adapt to climate change, illustrates this problem. This framing of gender persists in spite of established bodies of knowledge that show how roles and responsibilities that influence a person´s ability to deal with climate-induced and other stressors emerge at the intersection of diverse identity categories, including but not limited to gender, age, seniority, ethnicity, marital status, and livelihoods. Here, we provide a review of relevant literature on this topic and argue that approaching vulnerability to climate change through intersectional understandings of identity can help improve adaptation programming, project design, implementation, and outcomes.

“…From the experiences documented in this special issue (e.g. Djoudi et al 2016; Ravera et al 2016), it is highlighted that, both in praxis and in theory, the mainstreaming gender framework and analysis as it is applied in science, specifically in climate change adaptation, is misleading, meaning there is a risk that existing inequalities will be ignored and/or exuberated. In fact, there is a risk of not considering differences within gender groups due to multiple and hidden underlying factors of inequity in access, use and management of resources in the context of GEC.…”

Section: Theoretical Reflectionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Ravera et al 2016) and contribute with new insights to the exploration of underlying contextualized factors that define inequity power relations, by interrogating the intersections of different social categories (for similar studies, see Carr 2008; Onta and Resurreccion 2011; Van Aelst and Holvoet 2016). In the words of Federica Ravera: the time is ripe for intersectionality and feminist studies to serve as strong connecting pieces between the different bodies of knowledge related to GEC .…”

Section: Empirical Insightsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A synthesis of convergent reflections, tensions and silences in linking gender and global environmental change research

Iniesta-Arandia

Ravera

Buechler

et al. 2016

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This synthesis article joins the authors of the special issue “Gender perspectives in resilience, vulnerability and adaptation to global environmental change” in a common reflective dialogue about the main contributions of their papers. In sum, here we reflect on links between gender and feminist approaches to research in adaptation and resilience in global environmental change (GEC). The main theoretical contributions of this special issue are threefold: emphasizing the relevance of power relations in feminist political ecology, bringing the livelihood and intersectionality approaches into GEC, and linking resilience theories and critical feminist research. Empirical insights on key debates in GEC studies are also highlighted from the nine cases analysed, from Europe, the Americas, Asia, Africa and the Pacific. Further, the special issue also contributes to broaden the gender approach in adaptation to GEC by incorporating research sites in the Global North alongside sites from the Global South. This paper examines and compares the main approaches adopted (e.g. qualitative or mixed methods) and the methodological challenges that derive from intersectional perspectives. Finally, key messages for policy agendas and further research are drawn from the common reflection.