Extended deadline 15th May 2016

9th Equality, Diversity and Inclusion International Conference (EDI)

22 – 24 June 2016, University of Cyprus, Cyprus

Conference theme:

Equality, Diversity, Inclusion and Human Rights in Times of Austerity

Stream title: Intersectional approaches to climate change

Stream convenors: Kate Sang, Christopher Lyon, Susan Sayce, Nisha Onta

The effects of climate change will not be felt equally across national contexts, with poorer countries facing more immediate and stronger effects. However, global efforts to address climate change have also recognised that gender is also a factor in both the effects of climate change and also its mitigation. However, gender still remains peripheral to climate policy making, regardless of the gender composition of policy making teams (Mangusdottir & Kronsell, 2014). Further, there is increasing understanding of the importance of working with indigenous peoples and ontologies/epistemologies. This has been highlighted in terms of policy making, and media representations of climate change (Roosvall and Tegelberg, 2015).

However, social identities cannot be viewed in isolation. Efforts to understand how multiple identities may affect an individual’s experience have moved towards the theory of intersectionality. Developed by Kimberle Crenshaw (1991) this approach does not aim to add together sources of discrimination or oppression, rather how these sources interact to inform experience (Hancock, 2007). Davis (2008:68) defines intersectionality as ‘the interaction between gender, race, and other categories of difference in individual lives, social practices, institutional arrangements, and cultural ideologies and the outcomes of these interactions in terms of power’. Warner (2008:454) provides the following definition of intersectionality: ‘the idea that social identities such as race, gender and class interact to form qualitatively different meanings and experiences’. Analyses of intersectionality are moving towards understanding how privilege and disadvantage may interact (Yuval-Davis, 2006: 201). Early steps have been made to understand, from an intersectional perspective, can inform how communities respond to climate change (Vinyeta et al., 2015). However, there is considerable scope for further studies which can adopt intersectionality in order to provide nuanced and contextualised understandings of how to best respond to the threats posed by climate change.

Empirical and conceptual submissions are not limited to, but may wish to consider:

•   How gender informs experiences of working within organisations dedicated to mitigating the effects of climate change. Further, how does gender intersect with other social identities, such as ‘race’, ethnicity, sexuality, disability to inform these experiences.
•   How is gender, and other intersecting social identities, (re)produced within climate change organisations? What are the effects of these (re)productions on efforts to mitigate climate change and its effects?
•   The dynamics of how gender intersects with other social identities for understanding and mitigating the effects of climate change.
•   How incorporating methodological approaches which enable temporal and contextual elements may help to reveal the intersectional dynamics of climate change.
•   How can intersectional understandings be used to inform climate policy, and associated practice?
•   Given the particular local effects of climate change, to what extent (and in what ways) are global organisations adapting their policies to local concerns. This may include working relationships with indigenous peoples.
•   To what extent are indigenous, and other non Western perspectives, welcome within academic debates on climate change?
•   How, and to what extent, do new initiatives such as Green/Sustainable Human Resource Management create opportunities for organisations to challenge existing patterns of privilege/oppression?

The panel welcome queries prior to submission. Please contact Kate Sang (k.sang@hw.ac.uk) in the first instance.

 

Important dates:

•      Abstract (250 to 300 words) /Developmental (5 pages max) /full paper submission: May 15 2016 on

http://www.edi-conference.org 

(if you do not already have an account with the conference, please register with the site http://www.edi-conference.org/user_details.php?join=join) 

References

Crenshaw, K. (1991). Mapping the margins: Intersectionality, identity politics, and violence against women of color. Stanford law review, 1241-1299.

Davis, K. (2008). Intersectionality as buzzword A sociology of science perspective on what makes a feminist theory successful. Feminist theory,9(1), 67-85.

Hancock, A. M. (2007). When multiplication doesn’t equal quick addition: Examining intersectionality as a research paradigm. Perspectives on politics,5(01), 63-79.

Magnusdottir, G. L., & Kronsell, A. (2015). The (in) visibility of gender in Scandinavian climate policy-making. International Feminist Journal of Politics, 17(2), 308-326.

Roosvall, A., & Tegelberg, M. (2015). Media and the Geographies of Climate Justice: Indigenous Peoples, Nature and the Geopolitics of Climate Change.tripleC: Communication, Capitalism & Critique. Open Access Journal for a Global Sustainable Information Society, 13(1), 39-54.

Vinyeta, K., Whyte, K. P., & Lynn, K. (2015). Climate change through an intersectional lens: gendered vulnerability and resilience in indigenous communities in the United States.

Warner, L. R. (2008). A best practices guide to intersectional approaches in psychological research. Sex roles, 59(5-6), 454-463.

Yuval-Davis, N. (2006). Intersectionality and feminist politics. European Journal of Women’s Studies, 13(3), 193-209.