Climate change and the operation of power: intersectionality, dispossession, and knowledge politics in pastoral communities

Abstract

This paper employs a feminist political ecology (FPE) framing to show how adaptation processes result in shifting intersectional subjectivities that reshape peoples' relationships to resources and communities. Drawing on cases of pastoralists affected by conservation efforts in Kenya and India, we argue that these shifts create marginalisation while also offering possibilities to challenge existing, gendered subjectivities. We show how maladaptive outcomes result from systemic and deliberate processes, exemplified through loss of land access and control, knowledge politics, and changes in social relations. Using FPE illustrates how top-down adaptation becomes maladaptive and fails, but also offers opportunities to counter marginalisation.

Keywords

Climate change; intersectionality; subjectivities; pastoralists; adaptation; maladaptation

Published in

The Journal of Peasant Studies
2025
Publisher: ROUTLEDGE JOURNALS, TAYLOR AND FRANCIS LTD

SLU Authors

• Nightingale, Andrea

  • Department of Urban and Rural Development, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    
  • University of Oslo (UiO)

Global goals (SDG)

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

UKÄ Subject classification

Gender Studies
Social Anthropology

Publication identifier

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/03066150.2025.2451288

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/141132