Gender, governance and climate change adaptation

Abstract

This chapter attempts to highlight the role that gender plays in the context of climate change adaptation. It uses a discourse analysis approach to comparatively present a review of the role gender plays in climate change adaptation. Currently, two discourse storylines dominate the exploration of gender and climate change. One tells a story about women being disproportionately impacted by climate change and constructs them as ongoing victims. The other storyline explores the role women play in building adaptation and simultaneously presents women as both being more resilient and having more agency in these contexts. Applying a gender lens to governance could include enhancing the role of existing communities of practice. This chapter attempts to provide a detailed review of and means by which to understand and present how climate change and climate change adaptation is driven by gender and the implications of this for ongoing adaptive governance. This chapter adds to gender analyses by considering the role of communities of practice arguing that their deliberate utilization can enable gender to be productively rather than negatively utilized to build robust, socially just, and innovative adaptation regimes.