CHAPTER 2: CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK AND LITERATURE REVIEW
2.4 Climate change impacts
2.4.2 Mapping the intersection of climate change impacts and women’s livelihoods
Climate change discourse is often critiqued for homogenizing humanity as an undifferentiated group of victims (Moosa and Tuana, 2014). Sultana (2014) asserts that climate change affects the poor uniformly in the southern hemisphere however gendered relations further complicate this. With reference to gendered relations, Goh (2012) and Karanja (n.d.) assert that climate change ‘discriminates’ between men and women. Therefore, integrating gender into climate change discourse is vital for development of effective adaptation/mitigation strategies that are not gender neutral (Bob and Babugura, 2014). Climate change impacts magnify existing gender inequalities reinforcing women’s vulnerability (Danklelman et al., 2008). Hence, staying with climate change impacts, but introducing gender, this section outlines climate change impacts on women’s livelihoods.
Climate variability and change does not always disadvantage women however they are more likely to bear the negative impacts because of social structures and power relations (Bhattarai et al., 2015). This is evident in Babugura et al. (2010) research, which revealed that women were disproportionally affected by climate change when compared to men in two local municipalities (uMzinyathi and uMhlathuze) within KZN. Climate change impacts affect sectors that form the basis of women’s livelihoods, for example agriculture, water and energy resources (Huxtable and Yen, 2009). Alston (2014:289) further asserts that “those charged with the responsibility to secure water, food and fuel for cooking and heating face the greatest challenges [and] when coupled with unequal access to resources and to decision- making processes, limited mobility places women in rural areas in a position where they are disproportionately affected by climate change”.
25 In essence, climate change impacts exacerbate the challenges of meeting FEW needs (Carter and Gulati, 2014). Yet, despite the overwhelming evidence of climate change in South Africa, the gender-FEW nexus is understudied and overlooked in climate change policies and adaptation plans. As a result, South Africa has made little contribution to gender and FEW resources literature. The researcher argues that understanding the gendered implications of climate change impacts on FEW resources is important to understand the meaning of adaptation for women in rural contexts, and makes a point that these findings can inform climate change policy and adaptation planning. The aim of focusing on women is not to disempower men but rather to empower women oppressed by social structures. Andersson (2006) supports this and further asserts that due to unequal power relations between men and women, paying attention to women has an emancipatory purpose. Furthermore, neglect of gender equality in climate change adaptation will increase global gender inequalities (Huyer, 2016).
2.4.2.1 Intersectionality and its relevance in this study
According to Djoudi and Brockhaus (2011) and Djoudi et al. (2016) women are not a homogenous group. Looking at women as a homogenous group with respect to needs and interests may generate and/or reinforce inequitable practices and outcomes intertwined with or reinforced by other structures of domination instead of reducing them (Hackfort and Burchardt, 2016). Furthermore, individuals who do not fit into static categories may be excluded (Kaijser and Kronsell, 2014). That is not to say that studies focusing on gender only are useless, on the contrary they are invaluable for illuminating power relations in the face of climate change (Kaijser and Kronsell, 2014; Van Aelst and Holvoet, 2016). However, it important to transcend from this level of analysis and recognize diversity within the gender groups (Van Aelst and Holvoet, 2016).
Contemporary feminist research has moved beyond the narrow binary of man vs. women to demonstrate that gender categories gain meaning not just through opposition to one another, but also with reference to multiple social categories like age, income, and ethnicity (Carr and Thompson, 2014; Gonda, 2016;
Mungai et al. 2017). The intersection of gender with other systems of power based on various social categories means that gender oppression is neither experienced nor enacted the same way for women everywhere (Gonda, 2015). Therefore women will not experience climate change impacts in the same manner because their roles, responsibilities, and expectations are not only shaped by their gender (Carr and Thompson, 2014). Goh (2012) asserts that even among women, differential climate change impacts may occur depending on, inter alia, race, class and marital status. For example in Pakistan single women, single mothers and women who were not first wives had less access to food and any other form of assistance during climate shocks (Goh, 2012). With this realization, academics have come forth and stressed the need for research that focuses on localized and interactive effects of multiple stressors on
26 livelihoods across gender and other social categories (Goh, 2012). Since gender takes meaning from intersecting with other social categories (Hankivsky, 2014).
One approach to understand the combination of social categories that lead to oppression is the principle of intersectionality. Intersectionality is a central component of feminist research and is important to understand gender processes and the lives of women (Deckha, 2013). Kaijser and Kronsell (2014) define intersectionality as the interaction of different social locations and other categories of difference in individual’s lives, social practices, cultural beliefs and institutional arrangements and the outcome of these interactions in terms of power. Intersectionality says that social categories such as race, class and gender, must be studied in relationship to one another to better understand women’s perspectives (Banford and Froude, 2015). Intersectionality attempts to avoid essentialism of identities, which advantage one form of oppression over another (Dirsuweit and Mohamed, 2016). From an intersectional perspective, humans cannot be reduced to gender categories, nor does intersectionality promote the inclusion of many analytical categories - for example., examining the collective impact of gender, race, sexuality, age and class - as the sum of their independent effects (Hancock, 2007 as cited by Hankivsky, 2014; Kaijser and Kronsell, 2014; Rouhani, 2014). However, for research purposes a researcher may select relevant intersections pertaining to the study, while keeping in mind the bigger picture (Kaijser and Kronsell, 2014).
2.4.2.1.1 Intersectionality and climate change adaptation
Climate change impacts will not be negotiated by gender only but also according to location (Andersson, 2006) and multiple social categories (Andersson, 2006; Gonda, 2016). Differences in access to resources, knowledge and power within gender group’s influences vulnerability and adaptation to climate change (Hankivsky, 2014). Furthermore, research has shown that barriers and opportunities for climate change adaptation are shaped at the intersection of responsibilities and expectations attached to a wide range of social differences (Carr and Thompson, 2014). Therefore, climate change research will benefit from incorporating nuanced intersectional viewpoints.
Intersectionality allows researchers to understand differentiated vulnerability and adaptation due to the intersections of several social categories (Kaijser and Kronsell 2014; Ravera et al., 2016). Applying intersectionality in climate change research can provide invaluable guidance in developing adaptation strategies inclusive of women’s identities, roles, responsibilities and unique perspectives. In essence, intersectionality enables the development of more effective and efficient responses rather than ‘one-size fits all’ approach to solve social issues (Hankivsky, 2014). To summarize, the use of an intersectional approach “can help to better target stress-specific roles and responsibilities, and therefore build tailored understandings of vulnerability that are specific to the stressor and one or more specific activities (e.g.,
27 farming of rain-fed crops), making it easier to identify appropriate adaptation based policy interventions” (Thompson-Hall et al., 2016:376).
The reviewed literature on climate change adaptation pays minimal attention to intersectional analysis and as such this area of research is yet to be explored fully (Djoudi et al., 2016; Kaijser and Kronsell, 2014). Van Aelst and Holvoet (2016) conducted one of the few studies that use an intersectional framework to examine how adaptation strategies are mediated through gender and marital status. Marital status is a social category that determines social relations, rights and duties, especially of women (Van Aelst and Holvoet, 2016). This study builds on Van Aelst and Holvoet (2016) research. It looks at the intersections of gender and marital status using PRA tools and techniques. The researcher envisioned that this would capture not only women’s experience as a group but also differences between women based on marital status in determining adaptation strategies.