Gender matters - Climate Change Adaptation and Development: Transforming Paradigms and Practices - page 83

5
gender matters
Adaptive capacities to climate variability
and change in the Lake Victoria Basin
Sara Gabrielsson
introduction
The central premise of this topic rests on the assumption that both vulnerability
and the ability to respond to climate change must be viewed as processes , shaped
by ongoing multiple stressors that interact on different levels, and with varying
impacts across localities and groups of people (see Reid and Vogel 2006; O'Brien
and Leichenko 2007). This argument builds on the increasing recognition
among scholars, practitioners and policy-makers alike, that adaptation cannot
be seen merely as a techno-managerial challenge that involves incremental
adjustments to technologies, regulations, policies and practices in order to live
with change. Fundamental shifts in societal systems are required, in particular
deliberate transformations aimed at influencing future change towards more
sustainable pathways. This implies the need to reduce emissions and to deal
with the social, political and cultural causes of vulnerability, including injustice
and inequity (Pelling 2011; O'Brien 2012). But that in turn requires in-depth
understanding of how people in different settings identify risk, make decisions
and implement actions, all mediated by their values, norms and traditions (Adger
et al. 2012). Few such studies have been conducted, even though socio-cultural
understanding is 'no less central to adaptation than financing infrastructural
development and reducing carbon emissions' (ibid.: 1).
This chapter attempts to fill some of these gaps by exploring how certain
social dimensions inherent in rural farmer livelihoods - specifically, norms
linked to gender and the moral economy - may obstruct women from pursuing
adaptation strategies that can respond to increased climate risks. Drawing
on extensive research among smallholder farmers in the Lake Victoria Basin
(LVB), the chapter concludes that failure to understand and incorporate
gender dimensions into future adaptation policies and projects may lead to