Climate change is not equal to all: The contribution of feminist studies to climate change research

Authors

  • Marta Rivera-Ferre INGENIO (CSIC-UPV), Valencia (Spain).

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.7203/metode.12.20508

Keywords:

climate change adaptation, maladaptation, feminist research, intersectionality, contextual vulnerability

Abstract

The impacts of climate change on people are not homogeneous, with some social groups being more heavily affected than others. This is due to the existence of a differential and contextual vulnerability that most often is related to inequality. In this sense, gender is a key axis of social inequality that intersects with other systems of power and marginalization to cause unequal experiences of climate change vulnerability and adaptive capacity. Thus, a gender analysis in climate change research examines structures and relationships of power. In this article, I provide some examples of differential impacts of climate change and how feminist studies make visible the underlying causes of vulnerability as well as the agency of marginalised actors to propose alternatives.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Author Biography

Marta Rivera-Ferre, INGENIO (CSIC-UPV), Valencia (Spain).

Research Professor at INGENIO (CSIC-UPV), Valencia (Spain). She has been the director of the Chair of Agroecology and Food Systems (UVic-UCC) between 2014 and 2021. Her research experience has given her a multidisciplinary profile in the analysis of agri-food systems. In recent years she has focused on the sociology of agriculture and food, and particularly on the interactions between agriculture, food, society, and the environment, with an emphasis on climate change adaptation and food security and sovereignty, as well as on the social function of agriculture and the role of women from a feminist studies perspective. 

References

Andersson, E., & Gabrielsson, S. (2012). ‘Because of poverty, we had to come together’: Collective action for improved food security in rural Kenya and Uganda. International Journal of Agricultural Sustainability, 10(3), 245–262. https://doi.org/10.1080/14735903.2012.666029

Arora-Jonsson, S. (2011). Virtue and vulnerability: Discourses on women, gender and climate change. Global Environmental Change, 21(2), 744–751. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2011.01.005

Atteridge, A., & Remling, E. (2017). Is adaptation reducing vulnerability or redistributing it? Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, 9(1), e500. https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.500

Benjaminsen, G., & Kaarhus, R. (2018). Commodification of forest carbon: REDD+ and socially embedded forest practices in Zanzibar. Geoforum, 93, 48–56. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2018.04.021

Bradshaw, S., & Linneker, B. (2009). Gender perspectives on disaster reconstruction in Nicaragua: Reconstructing roles and relations? In E. Enarson & D. P. G. Chakrabarti (Eds.), Women, gender and disaster: Global issues and initiatives (1a edición, pp. 75–88). SAGE Publications Pvt. Ltd. http://doi.org/10.4135/9788132108078.n6

Carter, T. R., Fronzek, S., Inkinen, A., Lahtinen, I., Lahtinen, M., Mela, H., O’Brien, K. L., Rosentrater, L. D., Ruuhela, R., Simonsson, L., & Terama, E. (2014). Characterising vulnerability of the elderly to climate change in the Nordic region. Regional Environmental Change, 16(1), 43–58. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10113-014-0688-7

Carvalho, L. M. D., & Bógus, C. M. (2020). Gender and social justice in urban agriculture: The network of agroecological and peripheral female urban farmers from São Paulo. Social Sciences, 9(8), 127. https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci9080127

Djoudi, H., & Brockhaus, M. (2011). Is adaptation to climate change gender neutral? Lessons from communities dependent on livestock and forests in northern Mali. International Forestry Review, 13(2), 123–135. https://doi.org/10.1505/146554811797406606

Djoudi, H., Locatelli, B., Vaast, C., Asher, K., Brockhaus, M., & Basnett Sijapati, B. (2016). Beyond dichotomies: Gender and intersecting inequalities in climate change studies. Ambio, 45(S3), 248–262. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13280-016-0825-2

Eriksen, S. H., Nightingale, A. J., & Eakin, H. (2015). Reframing adaptation: The political nature of climate change adaptation. Global Environmental Change, 35, 523–533. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2015.09.014

Gay-Antaki, M. (2016). “Now We Have Equality”: A feminist political ecology analysis of carbon markets in Oaxaca, Mexico. Journal of Latin American Geography, 15(3), 49–66. https://doi.org/10.1353/lag.2016.0030

Laska, S., & Morrow, B. H. (2006). Social vulnerabilities and hurricane Katrina: An unnatural disaster in New Orleans. Marine Technology Society Journal, 40(4), 16–26. https://doi.org/10.4031/002533206787353123

Mustafa, D., & Wrathall, D. (2011). Indus basin floods of 2010: Souring of a Faustian bargain? Water Alternatives, 4(1), 72–85. http://www.water-alternatives.org/index.php/volume4/v4issue1/127-a4-1-5/file

Nightingale, A. J. (2011). Bounding difference: Intersectionality and the material production of gender, caste, class and environment in Nepal. Geoforum, 42(2), 153–162. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2010.03.004

Oliver, B. (2016). “The Earth gives us so much”: Agroecology and rural women’s leadership in Uruguay. Culture, Agriculture, Food and Environment, 38(1), 38–47. https://doi.org/10.1111/cuag.12064

Paprocki, K. (2018). Threatening dystopias: Development and adaptation regimes in Bangladesh. Annals of the American Association of Geographers, 108(4), 955–973. https://doi.org/10.1080/24694452.2017.1406330

Röhr, U. (2006). Gender and climate change. Tiempo, 59, 3–7. https://www.preventionweb.net/files/9739_tiempo59low.pdf

United Nations Viet Nam & Oxfam Viet Nam. (2009). Responding to climate change in Vietnam. Opportunities for improving gender equality. https://ciaotest.cc.columbia.edu/wps/oxfam/0018939/f_0018939_16199.pdf

Vincent, K. E., Tschakert, P., Barnett, J., Rivera-Ferre, M. G., & Woodward, A. (2014). Cross-chapter box on gender and climate change. In C. B. Field, V. R. Barros, D. J. Dokken, K. J. Mach, M. D. Mastrandrea, T. E. Bilir, M. Chatterjee, K. L. Ebi, Y. O. Estrada, R. C. Genova, B. Girma, E. S. Kissel, A. N. Levy, S. MacCracken, P. R. Mastrandrea, & L. L. White (Eds.), Climate change 2014: Impacts, adaptation, and vulnerability. Part A: Global and sectoral aspects. Contribution of Working Group II to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (pp. 105–107). Cambridge University Press.

Wekesah, F. M., Mutua, E. N., & Izugbara, C. O. (2019). Gender and conservation agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa: A systematic review. International Journal of Agricultural Sustainability, 17(1), 78–91. https://doi.org/10.1080/14735903.2019.1567245

Westholm, L. (2016). Fruits from the forest and the fields: Forest conservation policies and intersecting social inequalities in Burkina Faso’s REDD+ program. International Forestry Review, 18(4), 511–521. https://doi.org/10.1505/146554816820127578

Downloads

Published

2022-02-02

How to Cite

Rivera-Ferre, M. (2022). Climate change is not equal to all: The contribution of feminist studies to climate change research. Metode Science Studies Journal, (12), 131–135. https://doi.org/10.7203/metode.12.20508
Metrics
Views/Downloads
  • Abstract
    2290
  • PDF
    958

Issue

The future of science (2022)

Section

Climate crisis. The crevice of the planet

License

All the documents in the OJS platform are open access and property of their respective authors.

Authors publishing in the journal agree to the following terms:

  1. Authors keep the rights and guarantee Metode Science Studies Journal the right to be the first publication of the document, licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of authorship and publication in the journal.
  2. Authors are allowed and encouraged to spread their work through electronic means using personal or institutional websites (institutional open archives, personal websites or professional and academic networks profiles) once the text has been published.

Metrics

Similar Articles

<< < > >> 

You may also start an advanced similarity search for this article.