Re-politicizing the gender and climate change debate: The potential of feminist political ecology to engage with power in action in adaptation policies and projects in Nicaragua

Abstract

The time of gender-blind climate change policies and projects has passed. However, while research is increasingly moving away from understanding the relationship between gender and climate change in a linear, technocratic, and instrumental way, gender and climate change policy-makers and project practitioners are having difficulties operationalizing this progress. In the meantime, as climate change effects are increasingly felt worldwide, and because the policy context after the Paris Agreement (2015) is bringing new challenges for gender and equity concerns, (re-)politicizing the climate justice debate in a policy and project-relevant way is more crucial than ever. My aim in this article is to contribute to this endeavor by exploring how a feminist political ecology framework applied to a specific case study in Nicaragua one of the countries most affected by climate change in the world can generate new policy and project-relevant lessons and insights from the ground that can in turn strengthen the conceptual debate on gender and climate change adaptation. Based on ethnographic fieldwork carried out in 2013 and 2014, as well as eight years of professional experience as a development worker in Nicaragua, I discuss the workings of power in the feminist political ecology of climate change adaptation; in so doing I raise new questions that will, I hope, lead policy-makers and project practitioners to explore how adaptation processes could open up the conceptual possibility for emancipation, transformation, and new ways of living life in common.

Keywords

Power; Feminist political ecology; Climate change adaptation; Gender; Nicaragua

Published in

Geoforum
2019, Volume: 106, pages: 87-96

SLU Authors

• Gonda, Noémi

  • Department of Urban and Rural Development, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

Sustainable Development Goals

SDG5 Gender equality
SDG10 Reduced inequalities
SDG13 Climate action
SDG16 Peace, justice and strong institutions


UKÄ Subject classification

Gender Studies
Human Geography
Climate Research


Publication identifier

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2019.07.020

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/101699