The impact of gender-blindness on social-ecological resilience: The case of a communal pasture in the highlands of Ethiopia

Abstract

We studied how the failure to take into account gendered roles in the management of a communal pasture can affect the resilience of this social-ecological system. Data were collected using qualitative methods, including focus group discussions, in-depth interviews, and participant observations from one community in the highlands of Ethiopia. The results show that women are excluded from the informal institution that defines the access and use rules which guide the management of the communal pasture. Consequently, women’s knowledge, preferences, and needs are not taken into account. This negatively affects the resilience of the communal pasture in two ways. Firstly, the exclusion of women’s knowledge leads to future adaptation options being overlooked. Secondly, as a result of the failure to address women’s needs, they start to question the legitimacy of the informal institution. The case study thus shows how excluding women, i.e., side-lining their knowledge and needs, weakens social learning and the adaptiveness of the management rules. Being blind to gender-related issues may thus undermine the resilience of a social-ecological system.

Gender perspectives in resilience, vulnerability and adaptation to global environmental change

“…customary norms over communal property rights may discriminate against women’s needs or intra-household gendered relations may favour men’s preferences over land use) is a critical aspect in our goal for understanding adaptation and resilience to environmental change through a gendered lens. The special issue recognizes this aspect by including three papers (Aregu et al 2016; Cohen et al 2016; Dah-gbeto and Villamor 2016). …”

“…Aregu et al (2016) analyse the gendered roles in the management of communal pastures in the highlands of Ethiopia and the consequent effects on the resilience of this traditional social–ecological system. They find that the informal institution regarding the customary norms and rules for accessing the communal pastures discriminates against women.…”

A synthesis of convergent reflections, tensions and silences in linking gender and global environmental change research

“…Three other empirical papers apply the gendered lens to resilience theory and empirical research (Aregu et al 2016; Díaz-Reviriego et al 2016; Wilmer and Fernández-Giménez 2016). As suggested by Thomas Smucker: by bringing a gendered lens to established concepts in the climate change lexicon (local knowledge, resilience, adaptation), we can contribute to refining our understanding of those terms and avoiding the use of simplistic metaphors derived from the natural sciences to describe processes that are complex, heterogeneous, and reflect dynamics of gender inequality.…”

“…Díaz-Reviriego et al (2016) and Aregu et al (2016) combine resilience theories with gender analysis to understand the different sources of environmental change that the system needs to adapt and cope with. Isabel Díaz-Reviriego and co-authors explicitly argue that the integration of the gender analysis with different ecological theories might make: visible uneven knowledge distribution, and specifically gendered knowledge, within communities in analysing the resilience of local medical systems .…”

“…Additionally, Aregu et al (2016) show evidence of how gender relations extend and configure the ecological system. As Lemlem Aregu says: this focus helps us to understand how not including the different interest and preferences of women can shape the natural resources dynamics which is the domination of unpalatable species in the pasture.…”