Una prospettiva di genere sui cambiamenti climatici. Vulnerabilità e adattamento, discorso internazionale e gender mainstreaming

La dimensione di genere dei cambiamenti climatici è un tema di grande interesse e urgenza. Questo saggio si propone di offrire un quadro generale del nesso tra genere e cambiamenti climatici. Esso identifica le più rilevanti variabili che determinano la maggiore vulnerabilità delle donne nelle circostanze ambientali avverse e presenta gli orientamenti elaborati a livello internazionale per favorire le capacità di adattamento. Nella parte conclusiva l’autrice discute alcuni dei limiti e degli orientamenti controversi sul piano teorico e pratico di questo campo di studi.The gender dimension of climate change is an issue of considerable interest and urgency. This paper aims at providing a general overview of the relationship between climate change and gender. We identify major variables determining a greater vulnerability for women during adverse environmental circumstances, and introduce main approaches elaborated at the international level to enhance coping and adaptation capacities. In the conclusive section, some of the limits and controversial theoretical and practical approaches characterizing the field are discussed

Chinese Women at the Forefront of Environmental Activism: Wang Yongchen, Liao Xiaoyi and Tian Guirong.

All around the world, women have been at the forefront of environmental activism. In the Western world, very little is known about China’s environmental movement and its champions. This paper aims to bridge this gap. It does so by tracing the path to activism of three female figures: Wang Yongchen, Liao Xiaoyi and Tian Guirong. For each of the three, I first introduce the main environmental campaigns and I then sketch out a profile of the activist, shedding light on their personal motivations, the rhetorical strategies they employ to spur collective action, and their vision for a greener China. The paper has a twofold result: it not only provides the reader with the elements to understand the country’s struggle for sustainability, it also sheds lights on the different manifestations of environmental activism “made in China”. Findings draw mainly from the analysis of secondary sources (books, academic papers, newspaper articles) and to a lesser extent, from first hand interviews carried out by the author between July and December 2013

An Ethos and Practice of Appreciation for Transformative Research: Appreciative Inquiry, Care Ethics, and Creative Methods

AbstractThis chapter departs from the need to pursue transformative research, understood as the co-production of knowledge with and for societal stakeholders aimed at supporting and enabling sustainable change. It explores how Appreciative Inquiry (AI) and its underlying 'ethos of appreciation' (after Zandee & Cooperrider, 2008) can complement and enrich care-full and resourceful approaches to transformative research. It presents the five dimensions of an 'ethos of appreciation', and lays out their philosophical meaning, their resonance with the care ethics literature, as well as their practical application. It gives a detailed account of how five different creative methods were employed during a participatory action-oriented Ph.D. study in Finland, and in so doing, showcases how an 'ethos of appreciation' can be embodied and applied in practice. Finally, it discusses the methodological potentials and limitations of using creative methods, as well as the challenges and outcomes they yield to support transformative research that aims to enable care-full and resourceful participatory engagement processes

A care-based approach to transformative change:Ethically-informed practices, relational response-ability & emotional awareness

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Institutional Change in China’s Sustainable Urban Development

Over the past decade, the concept of sustainable development has gained increasing importance within China’s urban development. Urban(ising) China not only catalyses many of the country’ sustainability issues, but also constitutes the locus where novel institutional arrangements for sustainable development are tested and implemented. This paper explores new paradigms of integrated territorial management unfolding in areas where concerns of water pollution intersect with objectives of urban renewal. The analysis focuses on the case of the Lihu Lake basin, located in the city of Wuxi (Jiangsu Province), considered by many observers to be at the forefront in China’s quest for sustainable urban development. In Lihu the integration of environmental management with urban planning has led to the creation of a new organisational field, revolving around the issue of sustainable development of urban areas, with distinctive regulatory, normative, and cognitive aspects. While epitomising a case of integrated territorial management, the experience of Lihu Lake basin highlights the challenge of fostering inclusive social development in urban areas

Caring in, for, and with nature: An integrative framework to understand Green Care practices

Green Care practices have received increasing scholarly attention in the last decade. Yet most studies are concerned with the aspect of human well-being, with less attention given to other caring dimensions and their relation to sustainability. This paper aims to contribute to an integrative understanding of Green Care by proposing an analytical framework inspired by the ethics of care literature and, in particular, Tronto’s five stages of caring (about, for, with, giving, and receiving). The goal is to use a relational lens to appreciate the diverse caring practices and their potential in three Finnish cases studies—a care farm, a biodynamic farm, and a nature-tourism company. We apply the framework on data gathered during three years through an in-depth participatory action-oriented research. Findings show that: (a) Green Care practitioners share sustainability concerns that go beyond human well-being and that translate into practices with benefits for the target users, wider community, and ecosystems; (b) caring is a relational achievement attained through iterative processes of learning. Two concluding insights can be inferred: a care lens sheds light on practitioners’ moral agency and its sustainability potential; in-depth creative methods are needed for a thorough and grounded investigation of human and non-human caring relations in Green Care practices

Évolution institutionnelle du développement urbain durable en Chine

Au cours de la dernière décennie, le concept de développement durable a pris une importance croissante au regard du développement urbain de la Chine. La Chine urbaine ou en cours d’urbanisation catalyse non seulement un grand nombre des questions de durabilité qui se posent au pays, mais constitue aussi le locus où les nouveaux arrangements institutionnels du développement durable sont testés et mis en oeuvre. Cet article explore les nouveaux paradigmes de la gestion territoriale intégrée dans les zones où les problèmes de pollution de l’eau se heurtent aux objectifs de rénovation urbaine. L’analyse se concentre sur le cas du bassin du lac Lihu, situé dans la ville de Wuxi (province du Jiangsu) considéré par de nombreux observateurs comme étant à la pointe des efforts de la Chine en matière de développement urbain durable. À Lihu l’intégration de la gestion environnementale à la planification urbaine a conduit à la création d’un nouveau champ organisationnel axé autour de la question du développement durable des zones urbaines et caractérisé par des aspects réglementaires, normatifs et cognitifs spécifiques. Cas emblématique de gestion territoriale intégrée, l’expérience du bassin du lac Lihu met en évidence le défi posé par un développement social inclusif dans les zones urbaines