1.
Caroline Moser
Emeritus Professor University of Manchester
Gender and Environment Change Workshop
IIED
March 17th
-18th
2014
London
Environment, gender relations and
transformation:
Clarifying concepts?

2.
IIED paper: Repeated emphasis on the
‘transformation of gender relations’
What does this mean both conceptually and
in practice?
Example from recent work on assets:
Transformative framework for nexus
linking gender, assets and just cities
Are there useful parallels /synergies – for
understanding resilience to environmental change?
Presentation: To contribute to workshop
Also provide feedback for my work
Issues for discussion

3.
i. Assets: a technical or transformative
concept?
i. What is an asset?
An asset is generally defined as:
“stock of financial, human, natural or social resources that can
be acquired, developed, improved and transferred across generations.
It generates flows or consumptions as well as additional stock” (Ford
Foundation 2004).
ii. Is it an instrumental or transformative
concept?
Debate about the ‘technification’ of poverty provides a
parallel debate with ‘depoliticisation’ of poverty reduces
poverty to characteristics of individuals or households.
 Harriss (2007) It fails to recognize poverty as ‘multi-
dimensional’ deprivation that includes a lack of capabilities,
assets, entitlements and rights.
 Green (2009) ‘In reality, poverty is a social relation, not an
absolute condition’.

4.
ii. Is an asset an instrumental
or transformative concept?
Similar to poverty debate, Bebbington (1999)
argues: ‘Assets give people the capability to be
and to act’.
Thus the acquisition of assets is not a passive act
‘but one that creates agency and is linked to the
‘empowerment of individuals and communities
(Sen 1997).
Assets exist within social processes, structures,
and power relationships
 All of which mediate access to them and the
accumulation of their value

5.
iii. Asset Accumulation
 Influenced by:
 Driving forces in the wider structural context:
 urban economy, city planning processes,
environmental factors; security (c.f WIEGO)
 Intermediary factors relate to institutions and
actors at city and local level
 that can help or hinder asset accumulation.
 Outcomes of asset accumulation strategies
show that assets are not static
 constant revalorization, transformation, and
renegotiation process. Asset frameworks recognizes
prioritization, sequencing, trade-offs, and negotiation

6.
Just as relationship between assets, agency and
empowerment is informed by differentiation between
instrumental and intrinsic value
The same applies to the complexity of
relationship between asset accumulation and
women’s empowerment:
Whether such empowerment is
transformative?
Individual women may be empowered, but it is
not necessarily transformative in terms of
changing power relations.
iv. The nexus linking gender, assets and
just cities

7.
1980s background: Gender planning as GAD
empowerment framework
Instrumental practical gender needs as the
needs women identify in their socially accepted
roles in society,
Transformative potential of strategic gender
needs women identify in their subordinate
position to men (Moser 1993).
In last 30 Years: gender debates advanced
theoretically in challenging complexities of gender
inequalities.
The Nexus Linking Gender, Assets and
Just Cities

8.
v. Conditions when gendered asset
accumulation empowers women
Empowerment identified as the processes by
which those who have been denied the ability to
make choices acquire such ability
Building on Kabeer’s gender empowerment
framework, conditions depends on:
Agency (either individual or collective), which
represents the decision-making processes by which
choices are made and put into effect
Assets that give people the capability to be and act,
are the medium, or means, through which agency is
exercised
Achievements are the concrete outcomes that
may or may not empower women.

9.
Conditions when gendered asset
accumulation empowers women
In summary, agency operationalizes
the concept of choice in the
accumulation of assets
 with the subsequent achievements
empowering women
And with the potential to lead to
transformation

10.
Pathways to gender transformation
While the strategic exercise of agency can erode
inequalities
it does not necessarily completely destabilize
wider structural inequalities
Importance of changes in individual consciousness
and capacity
But collective struggles for ‘representation,
redistribution and recognition’ (Fraser, 2000) have
proved more effective in challenging the
structure of oppression than individual acts.

11.
Just cities and assets: pathways to
gendered empowerment and
transformation
 Cities represent transformative opportunities
 but gendered asset accumulation constrained
by persistent gender-based disparities,
discrimination, and exclusions.
 Therefore the extent to which gendered
asset accumulation contributes to the goal
of achieving just, equitable cities is
dependent on
 both empowerment and transformation.
 Diagrammatic representation of pathways

12.
Driving forces
(constraints &
opportunities)
Economic
globalization
Urbanization
and urban
sprawl
Climate change
Violence &
insecurity
Cultural
norms
Institutions
(City planning)
Intermediary factors
Accumulation of
assets:
Physical: Land, housing
& infrastructure
Social: Networking &
collective action
Financial: Wages &
income
Human: Education &
Health
Well being
Empowerment
Gendered
transformations
Just and equitable
cities
Equality
Gendered outcomes

13.
Gendered asset accumulation
and just cities
 In examining experiences of how women negotiate
drivers and intermediate factors, and make choices as
identify opportunities two questions are relevant:
 Does their asset accumulation or
adaptation increase wellbeing and reduce
gendered poverty, or does it also lead to
greater gender equality and women’s
empowerment?
 How far is this transformative in terms of
changing power relations?