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Gender Relations and Climate Change Adaptation in Bagerhat
Amy MacMahon PhD Candidate| School of Social Science, University of Queensland | [email protected]
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
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 | [email protected]
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.