Gender, Environment and Sustainable Development
From: SEI
How do gender, environment and sustainable development interconnect? Why does this matter for environmental researchers, policymakers, scientists, academics, and practitioners? How do people from different class, ethnicity, age groups, civil status and gender face and cope with environmental and climate challenges? How can we better understand and integrate gender dimensions and gender equality in our research and development projects?
Gender is considered a key variable of power inequality. A specific focus on gender usually attends to how societies culturally assign differences to women and men from different class, ethnic, age groups, civil status, religion, and education. These differences define how they will experience and be affected by the changes in their environments.
About this course
This online course from Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) Asia Centre equips you with a set of multimedia and learning tools to better understand gender in environment and sustainable development.
Our course consists of three content modules. Firstly, the Introduction module will provide an explanation of the key issues and concepts about the gender and environment relationship with an explanation of the Feminist Political Ecology (FPE) framework. The second module, Gender in Agriculture and Water, will explore gender inequalities in agriculture and water management, and use an illustrative case study from the Mekong Region. Lastly, the module on Gender in Climate Change and Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) will use the FPE perspective to explain the connections between gender, climate change and DRR along with a gender analysis of climate change adaptation and mitigation governance and a case study of the Nepal earthquake of April 2015.
Course Syllabus
What you will learn
- How gender, in its intersection with other social and economic identities, shapes control of women and men, and their access to natural resources, and mediates their experiences to the impacts of environmental and climate change
- The relationship between gender and the environment in key sectors of natural resources management
- How to address gender inequality in political decisions over natural resources
- How to implement gender-transformative approaches in climate change adaptation and mitigation governance
Module resource persons
Instructors
Dr. Bernadette P. Resurreccion
Former Senior Research Fellow, Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) Asia Centre
Dr. Bernadette is a researcher on gender, livelihoods, climate change adaptation, migration, and natural resource management in Cambodia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam for over 15 years. Apart from producing a range of scientific papers in journals and book chapters, she co-edited the “Gender and Natural Resource Management: Livelihoods, Mobility and Interventions” (Routledge, 2012) and “Water Rights and Social Justice in Mekong Waters” (Routledge, 2011). She has led projects on climate adaptation, gender and water stresses in peri-urban Southeast Asia (IDRC), mobility and disasters in Philippine coastal areas (The Research Council of Norway), and the Mekong research fellowships program on water governance (CPWF-M-POWER-AusAID). After working with SEI for seven years, she recently left to take up a position as Associate Professor at Global Development Studies, Queen’s University.
Content developers and script writers
Rajesh Daniel
Communications coordinator, Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) Asia Centre
Rajesh is a writer, researcher and filmmaker with more than 15 years of experience working on ecology and environmental issues in the Southeast Asia and the Mekong Region. Apart from authoring scientific journal papers and book chapters, he was co-editor of “Democratizing water governance in the Mekong” (Silkworm Books) and “Governing the Mekong: Engaging in the Politics of Knowledge” (SIRD). He is a regular writer of features, photostories and opinion pieces, and has produced many documentary films on climate risks and local livelihoods, and podcasts on water insecurity. His areas of interest are media and communications, politics of knowledge systems and natural resources governance in the Mekong Region.
Ha Nguyen
Research Fellow, Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) Asia Centre
Ha has 20 years of experience as researcher and development practitioner. Her work centers around gender and social justice as well as empowerment in multiple thematic areas such as community and civil society development, integrated sustainable livelihoods, agriculture value chains, disaster risk management, energy transition and geospatial technologies. She is an expert in gender mainstreaming in development projects and organizations with a strong commitment to issues of economic and social justice, empowering marginalized groups, and expanding spaces to promote voices of civil society.
Dr. Andreea Raluca Torre
Former Research Fellow, Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) Asia Centre
Andreea has a multi-disciplinary background in modern languages, social anthropology, sociology of migration, and feminist approaches to development. With over 12 years of experience in research, policy analysis , and capacity building, her work developed at the intersection of academic and policy engagements in Europe, the Pacific, Southeast Asia, and Africa. Andreea’s research interests span critical development and migration studies, feminist theories, and gender and environment analysis. Before joining SEI Asia, she was a Lecturer in Development Studies at The University of the South Pacific (USP) in the Fiji Islands. Currently, Andreea is Research Coordinator (Consultant) at UNICEF Mozambique.
Kadesiree Thossaphonpaisan
Communications Assistant, Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) Asia Centre
Kadesiree’s expertise and interest is using social media, multimedia and digital platforms for enhancing gender equity and civic participation. She is experienced in using data visualization and data journalism to narrate engaging and compelling stories about environmental issues and climate change and the challenges faced by different groups of people in the Mekong Region.
Jenny Yi-Chen Han
Research Associate, Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) Asia Centre
Jenny is a Research Associate for the Gender, Environment, and Development research theme. She is a sociologist with a broad interest in the interrelationship between consumption, environmental justice, and gender. She holds a Master of Science degree (distinction) in Sociology and Global Change from the University of Edinburgh.
Guest speakers
Angela Lentisco
Independent researcher in gender and fisheries
Angela has more than 12 years of international experience working with international development organizations such as Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), providing technical advice, preparing capacity building modules, and organizing and delivering trainings. Her areas of expertise are small-scale fisheries, gender mainstreaming, ecosystem approaches, aquatic resource management and sustainable livelihoods.
Dr. Clara Mi Young Park
Regional Gender Officer, Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)
Dr. Clara is a committed feminist scholar and practitioner with a successful record of publications and leading complex social and rural development initiatives. She has engaged in challenging dialogues, author resonant articles and reports, and worked with a range of stakeholders including government bodies, multilaterals, civil society, academia, and UN agencies.
Dr. Irene Dankelman
Professor, Centre for Sustainable Management of Resources, Radboud University
Dr. Irene is an ecologist by background who has worked extensively on environment and sustainable development for over 30 years and was a pioneer in bringing forward the gender dimension in research domains, She has also advised the United Nations, government agencies and non-governmental organizations on these themes. She was a former lecturer at the Radbound University in the Netherlands.
Dr. Kanokwan Manorom
Professor, Ubon Ratchathani University
Dr. Kanokwan is a lecturer and a researcher at the Faculty of Liberal Arts, Ubon Ratchathani University, Thailand. Since her graduation in 1997, she has been working in the Mekong Region on water and land governance, development and social impact assessment and local livelihoods. Much of her work both research and application have involved policy recommendations on hydropower, irrigation, and land resource management and development in the northeast of Thailand and the Mekong Region. She is a research partner and member of the Sustainable Mekong Research Network (SUMERNET).
Dr. Rebecca Elmhirst
Researcher, University of Brighton
Dr. Rebecca is a human geographer and political ecologist with over 20 years of research and teaching experience on struggles over environmental governance, migration and social justice in the global South. Most of her work is in partnership with scholar-activists in Southeast Asia, with whom she has developed various programmes of research and teaching. These include current projects on the gender dimensions of oil palm investment in Indonesia, links between migrant remittances, livelihoods and resource access, and on living with floods in a mobile Southeast Asia. She is a Principal Investigator in the WEGO (Wellbeing, Ecology and Gender) Innovative Training Network on feminist political ecology.
Sangita Thebe Limbu
Graduate student, Gender, Development and Globalization at the London School of Economics
Sangita is a researcher with an academic background in gender, disasters and development. She has experience researching in areas related to post-war reconstruction, land relations, domestic youth employment, women’s political participation and economic empowerment, and gendered impacts of infrastructure development and urbanization. She holds an MSc in Gender, Development and Globalization from the London School of Economics and Political Science.