The Politics of Governing Resilience: Gendered Dimensions of Climate-Smart Agriculture in Kenya

Abstract

This paper uses climate-smart agriculture (CSA) in Kenya as an empirical entry point for investigating how climate actions reshape or reinforce gender relations, and how they are aimed at improving local resilience that is nested in such relations. While enhancing national food security, CSA practices could however reproduce inequitable power relations, such as gendered authority relations that produce vulnerability and inequalities. Equity and knowledge represent particularly contested aspects of CSA because it largely fails to address who wins and who loses from such interventions, who are able to participate while others are excluded, and whose knowledge and perspectives count in decision-making processes. Gender relations provide a stark illustration of the way that CSA fails to address how enduring inequalities of access in both production and consumption shape who is rendered vulnerable to climate change and who is left food insecure. In this paper, we treat CSA projects as a site of tensions between stability and contestation of gender relations, brought into view through moments where practices and knowledges are (re)shaped. We first review the concepts of authority, recognition, and resilience as a framework to understand how gendered inequalities and struggles over rights to resources are perpetuated within adaptation and resilience responses to climate variability. We analyze evidence from past studies regarding rural adaptation processes and gender dimensions in CSA projects to identify how such projects may modify the space for renegotiating inequitable gender relations. We approach gender relations as authority relations that are constantly internalized, resisted, and contested through practices and interactions between different actors associated with CSA projects, and the different knowledges that direct these practices. The examination focuses on Kenya as an empirical context to gain sufficient depth in understanding the social and political processes in which climate actions and gender relations are nested, enabling us to identify key points of intersection within these two themes. In addition, gendered dimensions of rural resource governance and adaptation are relatively well-described in Kenya, providing lessons for how climate actions can become more gender-responsive.

Gender relations and decision-making on climate change adaptation in rural East African households: A qualitative systematic review

“…However, our review found no instances of external CCA interventions leading to such positive transformations. Hence, given that Climate-Smart Agriculture tends to be promoted by stakeholders that are external to households and communities, [7] our findings could in fact be considered as being in alignment as those of Brisebois et al concerning CSA adoption in Kenya [7].…”

“…At first glance, this wide range of adaptive responses appears to deviate from the findings of a recent review concerning "gendered dimensions of Climate-Smart Agriculture in Kenya" [7, p.1], which found that decision-making about Climate Smart Agriculture consistently reinforced inequitable gender norms and roles. [7] While our findings do indicate that CCA might reinforce inequities in many instances, we have also found evidence of autonomous CCA processes that appeared to open up spaces for transformative re-negotiation. However, our review found no instances of external CCA interventions leading to such positive transformations.…”

“…In this discussion, we engage particularly with two literature reviews concerning the gendered nature of CCA practices within rural East African households that were published while we were conducting our review. [7,8] While neither of these articles focus primarily on CCA decision-making, their findings are adjacent to the issues studied in the present review. We then conclude by discussing implications for gender-responsive adaptation interventions.…”

“…Previous reviews indicate that CCA initiatives have the potential to reproduce or reinforce inequitable gender relations. [7,8] Furthermore, it has been argued that CCA initiatives may be more effective when women are involved in meaningful ways [9].…”

Gender relations and decision-making on climate change adaptation in rural East African households: A qualitative systematic review

“…In this discussion, we engage particularly with two literature reviews concerning the gendered nature of CCA practices within rural East African households that were published while we were conducting our review. [7,8] While neither of these articles focus primarily on CCA decision-making, their findings are adjacent to the issues studied in the present review.…”