Suchergebnisse

Climate catastrophe throws into stark relief the extreme, life-threatening inequalities that affect millions of lives worldwide. The poorest and most marginalized, who are least responsible for the consumption and emissions that create climate change, are the first and hardest impacted, and the least able to protect themselves. Climate justice is simultaneously a movement, an academic field, an organizing principle, and a political demand. Building climate justice is a matter of life and death. Climate Justice and Participatory Research offers ideas and inspiration for climate justice through the creation of research, knowledge, and livelihood commons and community-based climate resilience. It brings together articulations of the what, why, and how of climate justice through the voices of energetic and motivated scholar-activists who are building alliances across Latin America, Africa, and Canada. Exemplifying socio-ecological transformation through equitable public engagement, these scholars, climate activists, community educators, and teachers come together to share their stories of participatory research and collective action. Grounded in experience and processes that are currently underway, Climate Justice and Participatory Research explores the value of common assets, collective action, environmental protection, and equitable partnerships between local community experts and academic allies. It demonstrates the negative effects of climate-related actions that run roughshod over local communities' interests and wellbeing, and acknowledges the myriad challenges of participatory research. This is a work committed to the practical work of transforming socio-economies from situations of vulnerability to collective wellbeing

Climate catastrophe throws into stark relief the extreme, life-threatening inequalities that affect millions of lives worldwide. The poorest and most marginalized, who are least responsible for the consumption and emissions that create climate change, are the first and hardest impacted, and the least able to protect themselves. Climate justice is simultaneously a movement, an academic field, an organizing principle, and a political demand. Building climate justice is a matter of life and death.

Climate Justice and Participatory Research offers ideas and inspiration for climate justice through the creation of research, knowledge, and livelihood commons and community-based climate resilience. It brings together articulations of the what, why, and how of climate justice through the voices of energetic and motivated scholar-activists who are building alliances across Latin America, Africa, and Canada. Exemplifying socio-ecological transformation through equitable public engagement, these scholars, climate activists, community educators, and teachers come together to share their stories of participatory research and collective action.

Grounded in experience and processes that are currently underway, Climate Justice and Participatory Research explores the value of common assets, collective action, environmental protection, and equitable partnerships between local community experts and academic allies. It demonstrates the negative effects of climate-related actions that run roughshod over local communities' interests and wellbeing, and acknowledges the myriad challenges of participatory research. This is a work committed to the practical work of transforming socio-economies from situations of vulnerability to collective wellbeing.

Much recent work in ecological economics, degrowth, climate justice, and political ecology focuses on 'commons' as an emergent paradigm for sustainable governance institutions to address or rectify ecological crisis. This paper summarizes definitions and typologies of commons, give some examples of commons which help to further climate justice, and discusses these ideas from an ecofeminist perspective. ; his research was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, FRN IDRC and SSHRC File Agreement No. 2017-0082

Economic inequality reduces the political space for addressing climate change, by producing fear-based populism. Only when the safety, social status, and livelihoods of all members of society are assured will voluntary, democratic decisions be possible to reverse climate change and fairly mitigate its effects. Socio-environmental and climate justice, commoning, and decolonization are pre-conditions for participatory, responsible governance that both signals and assists the development of equitable socio-political systems. Degrowth movements, when they explicitly prioritize equity, can help to focus activism for climate justice and sustainable livelihoods. This paper overviews the theoretical grounding for these arguments, drawing from the work of ecofeminist and Indigenous writers. Indigenous (and also ecofeminist) praxis is grounded in activists' leadership for commoning and resistance to extraction, the fossil fuel economy, and commodified property rights. These movements are building a politics of decolonization, respect, solidarity, and hope rather than xenophobia and despair. ; This research was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada

Feminist ecological economics links gender and ecological perspectives both theoretically and practically, providing justification and impetus for considering gender, intersectionality, and ecology together in relation to economic activity. Such analysis reveals the material links between biophysical reproduction and social reproduction, and their importance for economies, despite their generally being undercounted and/or externalized. Feminist ecological economics analysis also generates important and timely insights about how economies might be structured differently to prioritize equity, ecological and political sustainability, and interspecies or ecosystemic well-being (Salleh 1997, 2009; Gibson-Graham and Miller 2015).Feminist ecological economics is closely related to ecofeminist economics, which is somewhat more critical since it is built on extensive ecofeminist analysis of the links between feminism and ecology. Both fields problematize and critique economies and economics from intersectional feminist standpoints. These fields are also intertwined with feminist political ecology, postcolonial feminisms, the subsistence approach theory, materialist ecofeminism, Indigenous feminisms, gender and development, feminist commons theory, and feminist degrowth theory (see Mellor 2002; Nixon 2015; Dengler; Akram-Lodhi and Rao; Tsikata and Torvikey; and Agarwal, this volume). ; This research was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada

Women are generally more vulnerable than men to environmental disasters and extreme weather events due to four main factors, which are related to women's gendered roles in society: women are economically disadvantaged in comparison to men and are more likely to live in poverty; sexual and reproductive health and physical demands on their bodies during pregnancy, child-bearing and rearing, and menopause put them at special risk; their lives tend to be longer and they spend more time as seniors / widows, with resulting economic and health implications; and their social options are restricted so that they often fill paid and unpaid roles related to physical and emotional caring that put them at special risk of environmental injustice. This means that environmental and climate injustice are gendered in both rich and poor countries, and this can be manifested in a variety of ways: housing, transportation, food insecurity, stress, mental illness, disability, heat exposure, interruptions of electricity and water services, violence against women, partner and elder violence, toxic exposure, health vulnerability, worker safety, political voice/agency/leadership, and many others. Gender also intersects with other categories of vulnerability such as ethnicity, 'race,' sexuality, dis/ability, etc. to heighten climate risk and injustice. The gendered effects of extreme weather events are often not disaggregated in government statistics and research literature, and an explicit gender focus, including attention to the access of women and marginalized people to participation in climate policy setting, has been minimal. Both at the local level and globally, climate change adaptation and response initiatives can downplay or suppress democratic, equity-enhancing politics. ; This research was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, FRN IDRC and SSHRC File Agreement No. 2017-0082 and IDRC GRANT NO. 106002-001

Commoning represents a dynamic and emergent means of risk-reduction and livelihood provision which can address the shortcomings of both market and state-oriented economic systems -- increasingly relevant as climate change threatens human subsistence worldwide. This paper brings together international examples of responses to climate-related threats that are collective (not privatizing), to provide preliminary empirical evidence about how and in what circumstances people may develop equitable communal institutions rather than ones that worsen community fragmentation. The examples include traditional and new forms of commons which help to meet local subsistence needs and develop communities' social, political and economic resilience in the face of climate change, exploring how climate justice -- improving the local and global equity of climate change impacts and processes – can advance in parallel with commons development. ; This research was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, FRN IDRC and SSHRC File Agreement No. 2017-0082

It seems to me that we must think in terms of regeneration and resurgence, as Simpson says, not mere sustainability. Following centuries of colonization and imperialism, industrial "development", toxic pollution, and carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels, the status quo is not to be sustained, but rather remediated. The impacts on the most vulnerable are crucially important for us all as a species. It is a myth that the rich will always be able to buy their way out of crises, and in any case, building an attractive future for humans requires regenerating the Earth for all life. One good place to start is by recognizing the heinous impacts of capitalist growth-driven economic systems. As someone who was trained as a neoclassical economist, I can state that the more you learn about economics, the more pernicious you realize it is. We need to admit the impossibility of privatizing all that is valuable, and the need to instead equitably govern the life-support systems (water, soil, air, forests, culture) that sustain humans and all life. This requires building education processes and systems that will be capable of transmitting skills for personal and collective responsibility, conflict resolution, "two-eyed seeing, 5 " awareness of nature and others, and discerning appropriate behaviours. It also requires continually articulating for ourselves, and publicly, that individual greed is not deserving of respect or adulation; linking personal wealth with political power is not the only or the best way to run human systems; it always eventually leads to downfall. Humans can do better. An example of a sustainable way to culturally embed the redistribution of wealth, and balance material wealth against respect for long-term leadership (rather than allowing wealth and political/economic leadership to reinforce each other) is the potlatch ceremony traditional to several First Nations on the Pacific Coast.

Much recent work in ecological economics and political ecology, including calls for "de-growth" in the transition towards more sustainable economies, focuses on commons as a promising paradigm for sustainable governance institutions. The vision involves people who depend on or have an interest in a resource or asset, working together co-operatively to use that asset for production, service provision, and exchange which creates value and well-being while integrating ecological care, justice, and long-term planning to the best of diverse communities' abilities. This includes institutions such as co-ops, land trusts, and non-market or beyond-market collective ways of organizing production, distribution, consumption, and waste or materials management.Developing such collective institutions requires nurturing the skills and abilities needed to create and maintain them: empathy, communication and listening skills, a sense of shared purpose, creativity, dispute resolution across differences, long-term vision, environmental awareness and stewardship, among others. Transformative education praxis and transdisciplinarity facilitate the growth of these skills and abilities in children and adults, as Paulo Freire and other transformative learning practitioners have shown (Gadotti 2009; O'Sullivan 1999;Gutierrez & Prado 1998). Transformative pedagogy, including both eco-pedagogy and transdisciplinarity, is foundational as human society evolves institutions for sustainability such as commons. ; This research was supported by the International Development Research Centre, grant number IDRC GRANT NO. 106002-001

This article analyzes some initiatives and models for community-based climate change activism, through examples in three different types of communities. It outlines the methods and results of two international projects- the Sister Water-sheds project, with Brazilian partners (2002-2008), and Climate Change Adaptation in Africa project with partners in Mozambique, Kenya, and South Africa (2010-2012)- as well as the Green Changes Project in the Jane-Finch neighbourhood of northwest Toronto. The main point of this paper is to show that these projects have demonstrated that local-level initiatives led by civil society organizations provide a way to address gender equity challenges by building women's knowledge, interest and engagement in water-related and climate change politics ; This research was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada

Socio-economically vulnerable people, and women in particular, are generally those most impacted by global climate change (because of their gendered/racialized socio-economic roles and often their geographic location). The same people tend to be the least-equipped to deal with those impacts (because of their weak economic and political position). Women, who are usually unpaid or underpaid for their work, have special contributions to make towards climate change adaptation because of gendered differences in positional knowledge of ecological and water-related conditions. Community-based education, organizing, and alliances with labour unions and civil society groups are fundamental to making it possible for this knowledge to be shared and utilized, through equitable democratic participation by marginalized people, especially women. ; This research was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada

The Canadian federal election of 2015 was a watershed moment for women's political agency, indigenous activism and climate justice in Canada. Since 1990, skyrocketing fossil fuel extraction, especially in the Alberta tar sands, had generated escalating environmental crises on First Nations territories. Extreme weather events due to climate change were impacting communities across the country, with particular implications for women's caring and other unpaid work. Ten years of attacks on women's organizations and priorities by the conservative government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper had angered female voters. In response, indigenous and settler women's organizing on climate and environmental justice, fossil fuel extraction and voting rights was an important factor in Harper's October 2015 defeat. Justin Trudeau, elected on promises to address climate change, indigenous rights and gender equity, now faces the challenge of delivering on both distributive and procedural climate justice. This story of extraction, climate change, weather, unequal impacts, gender and political agency in a fossil fuel-producing country in the Global North has implications for gender and climate justice globally. Canada contains within its borders many examples of environmental racism stemming from fossil fuel extraction and climate change, paralleling global injustices. The politics of addressing these inequities is key to a successfully managed energy transition away from fossil fuels. In the Canadian case at least, women's leadership – especially indigenous women's leadership – is emerging as crucial. ; This research was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada IDRC and SSHRC File Agreement No. 2017-0082 and SSHRC File #: 895-2013-1010 Project period: 01-April-14 to 31-Mar-21

This paper outlines a number of examples from around the world of participatory processes for watershed decision-making, and discusses how they work, why they are important, their social and ecological potential, and the practical details of how to start, expand and develop them. Because of longstanding power differentials in all societies along gender, class and ethnic lines, equitable public participation requires the recognition that different members of society have different kinds of relationships with the environment in general, and with water in particular. From a range of political perspectives, inclusive participatory governance processes have many benefits. The author has recently completed a 5 year project linking universities and NGOs in Brazil and Canada to develop methods of broadening public engagement in local watershed management committees, with a special focus on gender and marginalized communities. The innovative environmental education and multi-lingual international public engagement practices of the Centre for Socio-Environmental Knowledge and Care of the La Plata Basin (which spans Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay and Bolivia) are also discussed in this paper. ; This research was supported by the International Development Research Centre

This paper uses feminist ecological economics and ecofeminist methodologies and theory to contribute to Degrowth in theory and practice. These feminist contributions involve highlighting unpaid work and ecological services, redistribution, and participatory processes as crucially important in developing the new paradigm and movement for equitable material Degrowth. ; This research was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada

Informal and community-based education and organizing are fundamental to creating the conditions for equitable democratic participation by women and marginalized people. This paper overviews recent Brazilian initiatives which develop such "pedagogies of resistance," focusing on watershed decision-making. ; This research was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada