A socionature approach to adaptation - Climate Change Adaptation and Development: Transforming Paradigms and Practices - page 221

dimensional aspects of 'adaptation'. Such a conceptualization demands that
we pay attention to social justice, not because of disproportionate impacts on
women, but because it is impossible to produce durable adaptation programmes
without accounting for socionatures and power.
Thus, a feminist approach attends to more than simply gender, but rather
seeks to capture 'intersectional' social relations that shape the operation of
power, and in this case, the way adaptation is conceived, implemented and
enacted on the ground (Nightingale 2011). Intersectionality refers to the ways
in which forms of social difference (race, class, gender, disability, among other
identities) 'add up' to circumscribe how people see themselves and how they are
seen in the social milieu, leading to various forms of discrimination or privilege
(Butler 1997). In relation to environment, feminist political ecologists have
further argued that not only does intersectionality shape access to, control over,
knowledge of and distribution of resources (Rocheleau, Thomas-Slayter, and
Wangari 1996), struggles over social difference are also played out in relation to
environmental management (Sundberg 2003). Issues of how to 'participate' and
what constitutes 'adaptation' are predicated upon ideas of inclusion, justice and
equity, all of which have been shown to be strongly shaped by gender (MacGregor
2009). I go a step further and show how climate adaptation programmes
themselves are instrumental in promoting particular ideas of inclusion, justice
and equity; ideas highly contested in the current setting. Indeed, struggles over
social identity and inclusion are at the very centre of political unrest. As such,
adaptation programmes need to be understood as produced within and as part
of fragile state politics - rather than fragile politics derailing well-designed
adaptation programmes.
The analysis lends insights into both who is most at risk from climate change,
and how climate change can become an opportunity for social change. The hope
is that the context of rapidly shifting resources can be used to foster greater
deliberation, inclusion, and realistic democratic processes that take inequality as
a starting point rather than an externality that requires management. I argue that
whether adaptation occurs or not will be the outcome of contestations over such
relations, regardless of how well the plans are formulated.
In what follows, I first sketch my 'socionatural' theorization, followed by an
outline of Nepal's climate adaptation plans and their relationship to contentious
politics. I then probe Nepal's NAPA, Local Adaptation Plan of Action (LAPA)
and related documents, as well as ethnographic data on the political transition
at different scales to illustrate the ways that climate change and political
transition intersect. The conclusion draws into question the adequacy of the
current conceptualization of adaptation as 'moderating harm and capitalizing
on benefits' for the challenges ahead. Rather, more emphasis needs to be placed
on social inequalities and how they shape the design and implementation of
adaptation programmes.
The case study is based on research done between 2005 and 2013 on the
political transition in Nepal and forestry governance. Mixed qualitative methods