Exploring Gender, Climate Change Vulnerability and Adaptive Capacity through an Intersectionality Lens

CIRCLE | www.acu.ac.uk/circle
Exploring Gender and Climate
variability/change through intersectionality lens
Presentation made during the 4TH Climate Change and Population
Conference on Africa [CCPOP-GHANA 2015]
29th- 31st July, 2015
Derkyi, M., Adiku, S., Akwen N., Dovie D., Codjoe, S., Nelson, V. & E. Awuah

Outline
• Introduction
• Intersectionality what is it and why
needed?
• Principles governing it
• Gender as intersectionality &
empirical evidence
• Intersectionality in climate issues
• Steps to integrate intersectionality
in academic research
• Conclusions

Introduction
 Climate change and variability (CCV) reported to
have significant implications on food security and
sustainable forest management esp. in developing
countries’ where most people depend on agriculture
and forest resources for their livelihoods (Sunderlin,2005;
World Bank, 2001; Acharya,2006)
 However, the effects/impacts are felt differently
 Rationale being that roles and responsibilities of
gender are socially and culturally ascribed
 Thus determine how each category experiences and
responds to CCV (Swai et al, 2012, FAO, 2012)

Cont.
 Appreciating gender from such approach
often leads to interventions targeting diverse
social identities or intersecting categories .
 However, disaggregated data by gender and
more specifically its intersection with other
social groups such as class, age and wealth
in the context of climate change in Ghana
are scarce (exmpt. Dzah, 2011)
 Most studies tend to focus on single variable
such as gender thus projecting it as binary
 Such perspective obscures the fact that
gender takes meaning from its intersection
with other identities (Hankivsky,2014).

Cont. & Methodology
 Against this gap in knowledge..
 Study explores how intersectionality
framework had been used to interrogate and
understand differences in gender and social
problem like CCV.
Methodology
 Systematic analysis of secondary data of
intersectionality, gender and climate change
literature
 Content analysis done focusing on themes like
definitional clarity, intersectional models &approaches,
principles governing intersectionality, gender, CCV &
intersectionality etc

Intersectionality what is it and why needed?
 A concept which original idea made
visible the marginalisation and power
struggles among black and minorities
women
 Grew out of feminist and womanist
scholars portraying the complex
factors in processes that shape human
lives (Collins, 1990; Smith & Andrew 2011)
Coined in 1989 by an American critical
legal race scholar Kimberle Williams
Crenshaw (1989) bringing to fore gender
with other dimensions of social identities.
 Many definitions but simply
put:
‘inequalities are never the
result of single, distant factors.
Rather , they are the outcomes
of intersections of different
social locations (i.e.
race/ethnicity, gender, class,
age , socio-economic status ,
religion etc) power relations
and experiences’ (Hankivsky, 2014)

 Thus, goes beyond
differences between men and
women to understanding How
intersections of the social
identities that are not
physically observed between
and among women and men
produce differential results
(Dzah, 2011)
Cont.

Intersectionality and other approaches
Hancook (2013 p.268) summarises three approaches
1. Unitary Approach= focuses on one primary marker or differences as
sufficient for explaining social problem
2. Multiple approach= considers more than one explanatory factor ,
but does so in additive way , paying little attention to relationships
and interactions between such factors.
3. Intersectionality approach = focuses on the relationships between
factors and mutually constructed processes that create differences.

Cont.
Similarly, Hankivsky (2014) compared four conceptual approaches to
conceptualising categories of differences as follows:
SGBA GBA+ HIAs IBPA
Sex &gender based
analysis
Gender based
analysis plus
Health impact
assessments
Intersectionality based
policy analysis
Priortizes sex &
gender; does not
question the
importance or
supremacy of sex
and or gender diff.
Emphasises factors
beyond gender in an
interactive way:
does not challenge
importance of
gender
Grounded in social
determinants of
health: lack voice
and participation of
those affected by
policy process
Emphasises that people
belong to more than
one social category at
the same time;
interactions of diff
social locations, syst &
process; investigate
rather than assumes…

Governing principles of intersectionality
Reflexivity
Power
Intersecting
categories
Multi-level
analysis
Social justices
& equity
Diversity of
knowledge
Time and
Space
Resistance
&Resilience
Intersectionality –
based policy
analysis framework
(IBPA)
Source : Hankivsky, 2014

Gender as intersectionality & Empirical evidence
 Is one of the social locations /identities under intersecting categories
 Different studies have revealed that appreciating gender from
intersectional lens have resulted in the following:
o Advance the understanding of how gender expressions and meanings are
co-constituted by other social location (e.g. age, geography etc) and can
differ across men. [evd. Mutua, 2013]
o Debunk false assumptions of gender-based differences by showing how
women sometimes share similar experiences of advantage and
disadvantage with men across social categories [evd. Circle field data in
Sunyani west]

Contd.
o Reveal within-group differences
among young men & adult men/
adult women & young women
and how these can be more
significant than those between
men and women [evd. CIRCLE data from 3 villages
in offinso north]
o Demonstrate the existence of
diverse expressions of
masculinities that are shaped by
culture and subcultures [evd. Evans et al,
2011]

 Most CCV studies tend to focus on single variable (Stern, 2007, Lambrou and Paina, 2006 etc)
 Thus construct concept like gender as binary –overlooking significant
differences regarding knowledge, resources and power within the gender
groups(Carr and Thompson, 2014)
 Hence concealing the fact that gender takes meaning from its intersection
with other identities, roles and responsibilities.
However,
 Intersectionality analysis illuminates how different individuals and groups
relate differently to or are vulnerable to and adapt to CCV due to their
situatedness in power structures based on context-specific and dynamic
social categorisation
Intersectionality in Climate issues & Empirical Evidence

Cont.
• In USA and in line with Katrina, Tuana (2008) observed various intersecting
forms of marginality thus bring to fore how CC impacts can intersect with
social structures
• In Ghana, Dzah (2011) indicated that the simplistic comparisons of men vs.
women are not adequate for understanding who is impacted by CC and
how. Instead, gender, age, ethnicity, marital status and life stage affect
levels of vulnerability and adaptive capacity.
 Besides multi-level analysis of intersecting factors, processes and
structures impacting CC experiences, the principles also lead to questions
regarding how climate change problems are framed and understood (Hankivsky,
2014).
 Intersectionality-informed analysis can bring to fore alternative knowledge
on CC and in turn, improved climate change strategies (Kaijser &Kronsell, 2013:6)

Steps to integrate intersectionality in academic research
Kaijser & Kronsell (2014) proposed 3 possible questions as sensitizers to help maintain
awareness of intersecting structures in order to identify the intersections that are
relevant in a particular case.
Social categories
 Which social categories , if any , are represented in the empirical
material?
 Which social categories are absent?
 Are there any observable explicit or implicit assumptions about social
categories and about relations between social categories?
 What identities are produced and considered to serve as grounds for
political actions?
 Are any other aspects of identity neglected or deemed insignificant?

Cont.
Synergy between humans & the environment
 How are relations between humans and between humans and the
environment portrayed?
 How is nature represented?
 What type of environmental knowledge is recognised and privileged?
Governing norms implications
 Are any norms for behaviour visible in the material? Are there norms about
the relation to other humans, resources and nature? What are the norms
that set the standards for a ‘’good life’? How are these norms reproduced ,
reinforced or challenged? How are they reflected in institutional practices?

Conclusion
Intersectionality portrays that :
 Human lives cannot be explained by single categories such
as gender, race etc
 People’s lives are multi-dimensional and complex thus
shaped by different factors and social dynamics operating
together
 In analysing social problem /issue like climate change or
livelihoods, the importance of any category or structure
cannot be predetermined thus must be discovered through
process of investigation.
 Relationships and power dynamics between social locations
and process are linked and can change overtime and be
different depending on geographical settings

Cont.
 People experience privileges and oppressions simultaneously
depending on situation and context.
 Intersectionality is not a ‘’cure for all’’ but is explicitly oriented
towards transformation, building coalitions among different groups
and working towards social justice especially among gender and
intersecting categories in the era of climate issues .

References
• Swai, W.O., Mbwambo, S.J., and Magayane, T.F. 2012. Gender and Adaptation Practices to the Effects of Climate
Change in Bahi and Kondoa Districts Dodoma Region, Tanzania. Journal of Sustainable Development; Vol. 5, No.
12; 2012
• FAO (2012) Training Guide: Gender and Climate change Research in Agriculture and Food security for rural
development. http://www.fao.org/docrep/015/md280e/md280e00.htm (Accessed 20th July, 2014)
• Hankivsky, O (2014) Intersectionality 101.
• Dzah, E.D. E (2001) Gender Dynamics of Climate Change in Ghana: An Intersectional Perspective. Dissertation.
International Institute of social studies , Erasmus University.
• Hyde, J.S. (2004) Gender similarities and differences. Annual review of psychology , 65, 373-398

Acknowledgements
CIRCLE
UENR
LEGON, RIPS/ORID
SUPERVISORS
MENTOR
EXTERNAL ADVISOR
ALL PRESENT TODAY

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