Gender Relations and Climate Change Adaptation in...

Gender Relations and Climate Change Adaptation in Bagerhat

Amy MacMahon PhD Candidate| School of Social Science, University of Queensland | a.macmahon@uq.edu.au

Background

• Sociological perspectives on climate change, gender and adaptation

• Can adaptation be a tool for social justice?

• Socially Just Adaptation (Brown, 2013; Eriksen, 2011; Schlosberg, 2012).

• Gender Sensitive & Gender Transformative – Practical Needs & Strategic Needs (Allen & Sachs, 2007; Moser, 1989).

“Being the primary victim of climate change impacts, women can play a central role in adaptation to climate change….Therefore,

when it comes to decision-making and implementation towards building resilient communities in the face of climate change, the full

and meaningful participation of women become essential” Bangladesh Climate Change and Gender Action Plan

Gender, Vulnerability and Adaptation

• Gender relations manifesting as the heightened vulnerability of poor women to climate change.

• Women presented as “vulnerable or virtuous” (Arora-Jonsson 2011), or “chief-victim-and-caretaker” (Resurreccion 2011).

• Adaptation re-enforcing gendered divisions of material and socio-cultural labor (Carr 2008).

Fieldsites

Fieldsites

Baintola Fakirhat

Hurka Chitolmari

Fluctuating salinity

Rice

vegetables golda + bagda

fish chickens

High salinity

Crabs

Drinking water crisis

No salinity Cash crops (sunflowers) rice, golda Drinking water crisis

Fluctuating salinity Rice vegetables golda + bagda fish

Fieldwork & Methods

Local Level Interviews – 41 • 32 women • 19 men • Farmers, mechanic, teacher, NGO

staff, housewives, day labourers, landless, landed

Focus Groups - 12 • 12 Focus Groups, with 37 women

and 32 men Key Informant Interviews - 22 • 4 Academics • 6 Government Officials • 12 NGO Staff

Heading to Khulna next week for follow-up work

Gendered Vulnerability Women

• No land ownership

• Limited access to off-farm work (changing perceptions)

• Evidence of GBV

• Feminisation of development & ‘double burden’

• Limited environmental knowledge

• Access to water for drinking

• Education costs

Men

• Access & cost of water for irrigation

• High cost of food for fish and animals

• Low cost of shrimp & fish

• Political conditions (access to markets and transport)

Adaptation

• Adaptation - reduce the risks associated with climate change environmental change, or capitalize on benefits

• Homestead animals

• New cash crops

• Microcredit

• Alternative livelihoods & off-farm employment

• Integrated farming

• Rainwater harvesting

• Hybrid, high-yield and adaptive crops

• Re-enforcing gendered divisions of labor?

Microcredit loans for shrimp

Microcredit

• Loans for stocking ponds.

• Women were the loan ‘members’, but the signature of husband needed.

• Assumption from NGOs and communities that men were the ‘earner’ so they needed to sign.

• No question of micro-enterprise.

• “What would I do?”

Alternative Livelihoods

• Alternative income – for families, via women.

• Practical and gender sensitive – fitting around home-based work.

• Low income – Tk50 per piece.

• Bringing women together on a range of issues.

Crafts

New Cash Crops

Sunflowers

• Support from a large local NGO: seeds, training, monitoring, stipend.

• Men had received training but women

had not.

• Men & women involved in preparation and planting.

• Women predominantly involved in

day-to-day care, including application of pesticides and fertilizers.

• Ongoing viability without the NGO was uncertain.

Gender Sensitive Approaches

• Women’s contributions to adaptation processes were seen more as an effort to contribute to their families.

“She feels that the family consists of both men and women, and feels the impact on their families. If the economics go down, everyone goes down.”

• Gender sensitive paradigm, working within the existing social environment, established roles and responsibilities and geographical boundaries.

“We want separate work…for men and

women...factories, handicrafts. Everyone wants this, we can’t earn money from

outside”

Socially Just Adaptation

• Do these examples represent ‘socially-just’ adaptation?

• Re-enforcing gendered divisions of labour (crafts) or focusing on men’s work (sunflowers and microcredit).

• Sunflower initiative may represent a transformation in gender roles and relations?

• Extra burden on women? Or evidence of change, agency and identity?

Thank you

Amy MacMahon | PhD Candidate| School of Social Science, UQ | a.macmahon@uq.edu.au

This research is funded through an Australian Postgraduate Award, School of Social Science, University of Queensland and an ARC Discovery grant ‘Governing Food Security in Australia in an Era of Climate Change: A Sociological Analysis’, and the UQ School of

Social Science Madeleine Taylor Award. Thanks also to Nabolok and CARE Bangladesh.