Gendering Farmer Producer companies at the Agricultural Frontier of India: Empowerment or Burden?

Farmer Producer Companies (FPCs) are driving agricultural frontier expansions in India. Their main objectives are to mobilize small-scale farmers to collectivize and organize in order to gain collective bargaining power, in the process empowering farmers and eliminating middlemen. However, they have not established any demonstrable success in achieving these goals. This chapter seeks firstly, to draw transnational connections between agro-ecological transformations in India and larger market/capital expansions through FPCs, contextualized amidst national development goals for farmer empowerment, changing labor patterns, and ecological degradation. In doing so, it will, secondly, explore the gendered dimension of FPCs in India by analyzing how the process of establishing women-only FPCs by using mandatory inclusion as a participation tool can serve to disempower and further burden women. While mandatory involvement of women farmers on their Board of Directors as an empowerment strategy can prove crucial to enhancing women’s decision-making roles, this chapter asks whether such an inclusionary approach remains meaningful to achieve FPC success in a context where external support for women’s empowerment is not provided

Synergies and trade-offs between climate change adaptation options and gender equality: A review of the global literature

Climate change impacts are being felt across sectors in all regions of the world, and adaptation projects are being implemented to reduce climate risks and existing vulnerabilities. Climate adaptation actions also have significant synergies and tradeoffs with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including SDG 5 on gender equality. Questions are increasingly being raised about the gendered and climate justice implications of different adaptation options. This paper investigates if reported climate change adaptation actions are contributing to advancing the goal of gender equality (SDG 5) or not. It focuses on linkages between individual targets of SDG 5 and climate change adaptation actions for nine major sectors where transformative climate actions are envisaged. The assessment is based on evidence of adaptation actions documented in 319 relevant research publications published during 2014–2020. Positive links to nine targets under SDG 5 are found in adaptation actions that are consciously designed to advance gender equality. However, in four sectors—ocean and coastal ecosystems; mountain ecosystems; poverty, livelihood, sustainable development; and industrial system transitions, we find more negative links than positive links. For adaptation actions to have positive impacts on gender equality, gender-focused targets must be intentionally brought in at the prioritisation, designing, planning, and implementation stages. An SDG 5+ approach, which takes into consideration intersectionality and gender aspects beyond women alone, can help adaptation actions move towards meeting gender equality and other climate justice goals. This reflexive approach is especially critical now, as we approach the mid-point in the timeline for achieving the SDGs

"We Get Nothing": An Ethnography of Participatory Development and Gender Mainstreaming in a Water Project for the Bhil of Central India

Through the close examination of a state-sponsored watershed project being implemented by Association for Integrated Social Development (AISD) in the district of Jhabua, Madhya Pradesh, this dissertation project explores how current development approaches in water projects impact its intended targets, in this case the Bhil tribal community. A key aspect of this research is to analyze in detail how development narratives such as participatory or bottom-up approaches and gender mainstreaming often result in unintended consequences. With a focus on the gendered nature of participatory policies, I argue that popular development practices in India often lead to governing and managing target populations, rather than the purported objectives of poverty-alleviation and women’s empowerment. Far from providing solutions to development problems, these practices leave behind unintended consequences that in certain cases produce very gendered resonances, especially in projects targeting women

‘Othering’ Adivasi Identities : Perpetuating Tribal Stereotypes among the Bhil of India

Focusing on the indigenous Bhil community in central India, this paper examines the role of British colonial policies in paving the way for ‘tribal identity’ formation and, how postcoloniality, or the postcolonial condition, is continuing to shape this identity. I interrogate the power of the colonial and contemporary government to categorize, and how such categories persist in the consciousness of the Indian government, mainstream communities, and more significantly, among indigenous communities themselves. Modernizing and developing the Bhil (among other indigenous communities) has been a national goal for the nation-state since independence. According to Indian development policies, building an agrarian community that is self-sufficient and empowered is in the best interest of the nation and its economic growth. I argue that far from portraying a unified national identity to demonstrate modernity and progress to the world, Indian policies have instead created politicized identities, which serve to perpetuate stereotypes and contain their subjects in exploitative cycles of debt, dependency, and development.En se concentrant sur la communauté indigène Bhil dans le centre de l’Inde, cet article examine le rôle des politiques coloniales britanniques dans la formation d’une « identité tribale », et comment la postcolonialité, ou la condition postcoloniale, continue de façonner cette identité. Cet article examine le pouvoir de catégoriser des gouvernements colonial et contemporain, et comment ces catégories persistent dans la conscience du gouvernement indien, des communautés dominantes et, le plus important, parmi les communautés autochtones elles-mêmes. La modernisation et le développement des Bhil (parmi d’autres communautés autochtones) ont été un objectif national pour l’État-nation depuis l’indépendance. Selon les politiques de développement indiennes, la construction d’une communauté agraire autosuffisante et autonome est dans le meilleur intérêt de la nation et de sa croissance économique. Je soutiens que loin de dépeindre une identité nationale unifiée pour montrer modernité et progrès au monde, les politiques indiennes ont plutôt créé des identités politisées, qui servent à perpétuer les stéréotypes et à contenir leurs sujets dans des cycles d’exploitation de la dette, de la dépendance et du développement

Urban water insecurity and its gendered impacts: on the gaps in climate change adaptation and Sustainable Development Goals

It is commonly accepted that water insecurity, accelerated by climate change, is experienced by women in gender specific ways. Using a rapid review methodology this paper evaluates existing literature (2014–2021) on climate change adaptation in relation to water (SDG6) and gender (SDG5) in urban and peri-urban contexts. By analyzing water, gender, and adaptation literature a thematic mapping of SDG5 was done on the resulting 34 documents. Despite methodological limitations–time constraints, exclusion of gender-sustainable development literature, and narrow inclusion criteria–this paper finds a paucity of research in this space during the time period under study. Most literature focuses on low- and middle-income countries, primarily Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, to the exclusion of South America. Notably, evidence demonstrating interlinkages between SDG5 and climate change adaptations in the WaSH sector and gender sensitive dissemination of disaster warnings is lacking. Adaptation strategies resulting in negative impacts on women undermine SDG5 and maladaptive behaviours related to management of domestic water supply and disaster-risks are particularly concerning in this context. Subsequently, this paper establishes the need for practical research assessing the gendered dimensions of all adaptations, including research demonstrating interlinkages between adaptations, women-specific benefits, and strengthened legislation to promote gender equality and empowerment

Synergies and trade-offs between climate change adaptation options and gender equality:a review of the global literature

Climate change impacts are being felt across sectors in all regions of the world, and adaptation projects are being implemented to reduce climate risks and existing vulnerabilities. Climate adaptation actions also have significant synergies and tradeoffs with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including SDG 5 on gender equality. Questions are increasingly being raised about the gendered and climate justice implications of different adaptation options. This paper investigates if reported climate change adaptation actions are contributing to advancing the goal of gender equality (SDG 5) or not. It focuses on linkages between individual targets of SDG 5 and climate change adaptation actions for nine major sectors where transformative climate actions are envisaged. The assessment is based on evidence of adaptation actions documented in 319 relevant research publications published during 2014–2020. Positive links to nine targets under SDG 5 are found in adaptation actions that are consciously designed to advance gender equality. However, in four sectors—ocean and coastal ecosystems; mountain ecosystems; poverty, livelihood, sustainable development; and industrial system transitions, we find more negative links than positive links. For adaptation actions to have positive impacts on gender equality, gender-focused targets must be intentionally brought in at the prioritisation, designing, planning, and implementation stages. An SDG 5+ approach, which takes into consideration intersectionality and gender aspects beyond women alone, can help adaptation actions move towards meeting gender equality and other climate justice goals. This reflexive approach is especially critical now, as we approach the mid-point in the timeline for achieving the SDGs