Gender and the management of climate-related risks in Northern Thailand
Louis Lebel, Phimphakan Lebel and Boripat Lebel
Introduction
work to increase responsibilities without recognition or benefits, and simplify the real heteroIn many past projects aimed at improving the geneity in how women of different age, class sustainability of natural resource management and or family structure experience climate-related risks (Arora-Jonsson 2011). supporting rural development, Women who head a gender was either ignored or Dr Louis Lebel is Director of the Unit single-parent household, women were essentialised as for Social and Environmental Research for instance, often find natural ‘care-takers’ or ‘vic(USER) at Chiang Mai University. themselves in a situation tims’ (Cornwall et al. 2007; His research interests include global environment change, water governance, distinct from the majority. Nelson and Stathers 2009). resilience, gender and the sustainability of Thus, a study in Nigeria On the one hand, neglect of production-consumption systems. Email: found that although men and gender is a serious limitation, llebel@loxinfo.co.th, louis@sea-user. women had similar beliefs given the often large gender org. Dr Phimphakan Lebel is a researcher regarding causes of drought, differences in natural resource at the Unit for Social and Environthe adaptive responses of dependence, access to altermental Research, Chiang Mai University. women-headed households native livelihood options, and Her research interests include aquaculwere constrained by access decision-making or manageture, climate change adaptation, water manto resources and levels of ment roles (Figueiredo and agement, natural disasters, and gender. Email: phimphakan@sea-user.org. support received compared Perkins 2013; Morchain et al. Boripat Lebel BSc is a research assisto male-headed households 2015; Perez et al. 2015). On tant and communication specialist at (Yila and Resurreccion the other hand, essentialism the Unit for Social and Environmen2014). Likewise, in central is also problematic, because it tal Research, Chiang Mai University. His Vietnam, government hides the role of other factors research interests focus on innovative communication of risks and science. programmes aimed at and differences (Nightingale Email: boripat.lebel@gmail.com. reducing vulnerability 2009); and, as a result, because of inequalities may inadvertently create additional burdens for women without necessarily in resource access may instead further marginalise reducing vulnerabilities, or increasing incomes women household heads (Huynh and Resurreccion or power (Hamilton et al. 2001; Jost et al. 2015). 2014). Another common simplification is to assume Many recent programmes on disaster risk reduction and adaptation to climate change, when that the risks perceived by men and women are examined more closely, reveal the limitations of similar, and at the same time also assume that men making simplified assumptions about how gen- are primarily responsible for decisions around ecoder is experienced (Resurrecci´on 2013). Car- nomically important agricultural activities, and thus icatures of women as virtuous or vulnerable the focus in communicating risks should be to men.
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Louis Lebel, Phimphakan Lebel, and Boripat Lebel
As a consequence, women’s perceptions of risk are often given less attention by agricultural extension programmes (Nelson and Stathers 2009). Likewise, information on how to improve management of risks often targets men, overlooking the needs, aspirations, and roles of different groups of women in agriculture (Jost et al. 2015; Perez et al. 2015). Some examples illustrate how this is problematic. In fish farming households in Northeastern Thailand, women’s financial and care-giving responsibilities in the home restrict mobility and choices in ways that ultimately reduce risk-taking in aquaculture, and thus, engagement in more commercial production (Kusakabe 2003). Similarly, the shift from rice to commercial shrimp aquaculture in Bangladesh resulted in a reduced workload for women; it also lessened their control of household income (Gurung et al. 2016). Another study in China found that men and women had similar knowledge and perceptions of climate change, but that men were more likely to adopt new technologies and other adaptation strategies (Jin et al. 2015). A study of livelihoods in the fruit industry in Sonora, Mexico, suggests that increasing water scarcity arising from climate change would disproportionately impact women because of the impacts on their social networks and unequal gender power relations (Buechler 2009). In summary, women and men often differ in risk perceptions because they experience climate impacts differently – more often as a consequence of differences in vulnerability and situations they find themselves in than because of intrinsic differences in attitudes towards risk. A third simplification in much research on climate change is that local culture does not matter, from the meaning of weather through to the associated traditional strategies for managing natural resources and risk as normal parts of everyday life (Wisner 2010). Local culture, however, in particular social norms, is important for gender relations, which in turn influence capacities and opportunities to engage in risk management and the associated multiplication of burdens. Thus, the culture of the Fulbe people in Burkina Faso, with its emphasis on identity and freedom, restricts the engagement of women in economic activities such as gardening or labour migration, thereby acting as an important barrier to common adaptation strategies available to other ethnic peoples (Nielsen and Reenberg 2010). Moreover, local knowledge as a facet of culture is important for adaptation, evolves, and is
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FIGURE 1. Gender may influence risk perceptions and management directly or through impacts of other factors such as attitudes, emotions or vulnerability. Source: adapted from Lebel et al. (2015b).
gender-sensitive (Lebel 2013). Knowledge about the environment is shaped by gender relations, and influences perceptions about risks and capacities to manage those risks and adapt (Bee 2016). These various findings imply the existence of several pathways of influence from gender to risk perceptions and risk management practices. Climate risk management is here taken to refer to the inclusion of concerns with climate-related risks in appraisals, decisions, practices or governance (Fig. 1). Gender differences, norms and relations, it is proposed, may influence risk capacities, perceptions, and management. Other factors, such as attitudes towards risk, evaluation of experiences, and emotions towards threats, may differ between women and men and in turn, also influence risk perceptions or management. Thus, it is important that interventions consider how gender influences perceptions and management of climate-related risks. The main question addressed in this paper is how does gender influence the perception and
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Eco-cultural context
Riparian Riparian Riparian
Peri-urban lowland
Ethnic Hmong and Karen in uplands Ethnic Karen in uplands
Riparian Riparian
Riparian
Lowland Fish farming households
Valley and lowland
Locations
Ping River, Chiang Mai Ping River, Chiang Mai Ping River, Chiang Mai
Mae Kuang watershed, Chiang Mai
Mae Hae watershed, Chiang Mai
Mae Wang watershed, Chiang Mai
Ping River, Chiang Mai Eight provinces in Northern Thailand
Eight provinces in Northern Thailand
Nine provinces in Northern Thailand Uttaradit and Chiang Mai
Nine provinces in Northern Thailand
Fish in dam cages
Fish in earthen ponds Fish in river cages
Fish in river cages
Fish in river cages Fish in river cages
Complex agro-forestry and field crops
Swidden rice, vegetables
Rice, field crops
Fish in river cages Fish in river cages Orchards, crop, & fish
Focal activities
2015
2013 2014-5
2012-3
2011 2012-3
2010
2008
2008
2005 2005-7 2007
Data year
Climate-related risks
Disease history and management Climate-related risks Risk decisions, emotions, attitudes and gender
Water scarcity and conflicts, gender Water scarcity and conflicts, gender Lazy garden as resilience-building strategy Exit from fish farming Climate-related risks
Rearing practices Gender relations Entry into fish farming
Focus of study
Survey (n = 585) Tablet game (n = 224) In-depth (n = 50) Focus Groups (n = 4) Survey (n = 97)
Survey (n = 80) Survey (n = 662) In-depth (n = 68) Survey (n = 662)
Survey (n = 275) In-depth (n = 82) Survey In-depth (n = 93) Survey (n = 400) In-depth (n = 42) Survey (n = 585) In-depth (n = 28) Survey (n = 190) In-depth (n = 33) Participant observation
Types of data collected
Lebel et al. 2016a
Pimolrat et al. 2013 Lebel et al. 2016b,c
Chitmanat et al. 2016
Lebel et al. 2013 Lebel et al. 2015e
Lebel et al. 2014a
Lebel et al. 2015a
Lebel et al. 2015a
Lebel et al. 2013 Lebel et al. 2009 Lebel et al. 2014b
Citation
TABLE 1. Studies and surveys synthesised in this paper. In some instances additional analyses of original datasets were undertaken to explore gender issues not addressed in the original papers
Gender and the management of climate-related risks in northern Thailand 3
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management of climate-related risks? The empirical foundation for the exploration of this and related questions, is a set of studies undertaken by the authors over the past decade in Northern Thailand on the management of water for agriculture and aquaculture (Table 1). Aquaculture in Northern Thailand makes a particularly interesting case for exploring the effects of gender on risk management because women often have significant roles in day-to-day management of aquaculture systems; climate-related risks include both rapid (e.g. floods) and slow-onset (e.g. droughts) threats; and, there is a range of levels of commercialisation. Field agriculture in Northern Thailand is also valuable as a case study because it is ecologically and culturally diverse, as well as being the major water user and thus vulnerable to dry season shortages in the highly seasonal climate. Lowland agriculture areas are typically irrigated and urbanising; upland areas, settled by ethnic minorities, are rain-fed and partly forested. Most crop, livestock, and fish farms in Northern Thailand are small and use predominantly household labour, although a few are larger and hire local as well as migrant workers. The combination of cases provides the possibility of considering cultural, ecological, and farming system influences.
they started fish farming, but women were more likely to perceive that droughts had gotten more severe in terms of duration, frequency, and water levels (Lebel et al. 2015d). Looking to the future, women were more likely to be “very concerned” with climate change than men. Equal proportions of men and women who had heard of climate change thought it was already occurring. Farmers engaged in earthen pond culture expressed similar concerns and beliefs with respect to future climate change, with woman once again being more concerned (Pimolrat et al. 2013). In rice, orchard, and field crop farming households in the uplands and lowlands, the perceived severity of water shortages reported by men and women were similar (Lebel et al. 2015a). In the Mae Hae watershed, self-reported trends in availability of water for agriculture indicated substantial shifts in the past five years (2003–2008), with less water being available at end of the dry season (March– April). The perceptions of men and women of these changes, which point to an increased risks of shortages, were also similar. The declines were explained by men and women farmers as due primarily to less rainfall, while also acknowledging other factors that have increased water demand.
Risk perception
Vulnerabilities
Level of concern
One explanation for higher levels of concern with climate-related risks may be that women are more vulnerable. Women fish farmers were more likely than men to claim that the relatively severe 2012– 2013 drought and 2011 floods had significant adverse impacts on their fish farms (Lebel et al. 2015d). In contrast, for the much milder 2012 flood season and 2011 dry period there was no difference between men and women in impacts, which were much lower for both. This suggests women may have been more vulnerable to the consequences of extreme events. As was the case for farming in river cages, women farming fish in earthen ponds also tended to express slightly higher levels of concern over most climate-related risks (Pimolrat et al. 2013). The largest, significant, individual difference was with respect to drought. Moreover, women were more likely than men to claim adverse impacts from drought in the last 12 months, whereas for other impacts such as floods, heat waves, or cold spells, their claims were similar as those of men.
In our studies of households engaged in farming fish in river cages, women consistently expressed slightly greater concern than men for most climaterelated risks (Lebel et al. 2015e). The largest differences were with respect to hot weather and rapid increases in temperature or heat waves. Women also tended to be more concerned with disease, input quality, financial, and regulatory risks to profits. Women and men had very similar perceptions of the causes of disease overall, but women were significantly more likely than men to perceive heavy rainfall, a climate-related risk, as important for disease outbreaks (Chitmanat et al. 2016). Significant and relatively larger gender differences were also found for financial risks such as high interest rates, repaying loans, high feed, and low fish prices. Perceptions of changes in climate-related risks were also investigated through surveys and in-depth interviews with fish farmers. Women and men had similar views about how floods have changed since C
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Gender and the management of climate-related risks in northern Thailand
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This suggests again that women engaged in fish farming may be more vulnerable to extreme events like drought. For fish cage farming in reservoirs, cage sites are often quite distant from home, and have to be reached by boat (Lebel et al. 2016a). This creates increased personal risk to women, so it is most common to find that if women are involved in farming fish, and living part of the time on rafts near cages, then their partners typically lived there as well. In crop farming households, men and women both believed themselves to be more affected by water shortages. One of the consequences for men being more engaged in community affairs, especially related to water management (see risk governance section below), is that they are more affected by conflicts arising out of water shortages (Lebel et al. 2015a). Conflicts, though rare, sometimes escalate; this implies increased personal vulnerability of men.
from similar sources, with the exception of newspapers, which men cited more often.
Knowledge
Risk appraisal and decisions
Another explanation for higher concerns among women might be related to levels of information access and knowledge about climate risks. Fish cage farming in a river environment requires close monitoring of fish and water conditions. As a consequence, most people who farm fish live in houses near the river banks so that they can visit frequently and easily (Lebel et al. 2014b). This also makes it possible for households, in particular women, to multi-task; that is, look after fish while also taking care of household chores and other tasks nearby. The requirement to be “around�, however, is also a constraint on mobility, which may ultimately reduce the development of social networks and thus access to knowledge or other social resources. The evidence from our studies indicate that these constraints have not impacted knowledge access in these settings. Women and men who farmed fish in river cages were equally likely to have received early warning information about floods, and expressed similar levels of confidence in these warnings (Lebel et al. 2015c). Women farmers were even more likely to have heard of climate change than men. Women and men, however, scored similarly against a set of questions testing the quality of their understanding of climate change. Women and men obtained information about climate change
Measures and options
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Attitudes Perceptions of climate-related risks may reflect attitudes towards risks in general. There was no evidence of this from our studies of fish farmers: women and men showed similar levels of risk aversion in a lottery task that had strong parallels with decisions on level of investments made in the next crop (Lebel and Lebel 2016). Results using a second risk aversion scale that covered risk preferences across a much broader range of life situations also found no evidence for systematic differences in risk attitude between men and women fish farmers. This suggests that expectations of gains or losses, situations, knowledge, and other factors are more important for explaining levels of concerns and expectations of gains from a particular investment.
Decisions to take risks or invest in risk reduction measures depend on how risks are appraised (Fig. 1). Evidence from surveys and in-depth interviews and simulation tasks provide some insights about gender differences and relations. Women made the decisions on fish culturing techniques in 17 per cent of households engaged in river cage aquaculture, while men did so in 37 per cent, and the balance were joint decisions (Lebel et al. 2009). In those households where women were primarily responsible for feeding fish, they made culturing decisions in 77 per cent of households. The patterns were comparable in the case of earthen pond and dam cage culture, although women were even less frequently the primary decision-maker (9 per cent and 10 per cent respectively). In the uplands, women from agricultural households are often part of joint decisions to borrow money, but only in the lowlands do they also frequently sign loans (Lebel et al. 2015a). A role-playing simulation game on hand-held tables was used to investigate risk decisions of fish farmers in more detail (Lebel et al. 2016b). In the game, farmers had to choose between stocking low, intermediate or high numbers of fish, with the latter
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being a riskier option; higher pay-offs if successful, and larger losses if it flooded. After a flood event women were more likely than men to respond in their next decision by reducing stocking densities (i.e. choosing a safer option). Women and men were equally skilled at recalling the number of flood events after 20 rounds of decisions, with both tending to underestimate likelihoods when floods were common, and overestimate when they were rare. In separate FGDs with men and women fish farmers, the process of reaching decisions was discussed. A woman explained: “Men decide faster, women can’t think fast”. Men agreed, but conceded that the interaction between men and women could lead to better decisions, such as when “women stop men. Men sometimes get too excited, irrational, men go ahead, use more physical power. The risk decreases because women stop them by paying more attention to details.”
Situations and experience It should be underlined that in the vast majority of farming households, decision-making involves consultation and contributions from both men and women. River cage farming households where women have more influence on decisions over agricultural investments were wealthier and had members with a higher education (Lebel et al. 2009). Household circumstances therefore can matter to gender relations and risk decisions. In fish farms and upland fields, women and men often work together. Some men argued that the perception and appraisals of risks are the same because men and women work together: “Husband and wife go together. No matter if it is hot or cold . . . In a household, husband and wife help each other in everything and know the technicalities of fish farming or taking care of the orchard. They perceive things the same because they work together”. Pond culture systems varied substantially from being subsistence, low input, largely for own consumption, through to integrated and high feed input systems aimed at commercial production. There was no evidence that women’s role in making decisions related to culture techniques or fish farm management more broadly was impacted by the level of market integration (Pimolrat et al. 2013). The association between having recently experienced adverse flood or drought impacts to river cage farms with the level of overall concern with C
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climate-related risks, was not affected by considering the gender of the respondent (Lebel et al. 2015d). This suggests that men and women take into account recent experience in similar ways when making risk decisions.
Emotions Some additional insights were gained from considering emotional responses to risk and decisions in a role-playing simulation game (Lebel and Lebel 2016). Women and men expressed similar emotions when discussing fish farming risks, except for pride and frustration which men expressed significantly more frequently. Men who expressed pride performed better in the role-playing simulation game than those who had not, but for women there was no difference. These observations are consistent for a cultural context in which it is more important for men than women to be seen by others as successful. Men who expressed feeling excited or thrilled chose higher densities (i.e. riskier decisions) than women in the game (Lebel et al. 2016b). Women and men who said they felt relaxed played the game equally well, but when they did not feel relaxed women did better than men. These observations suggest that emotions are relevant to risk decisions. They also hint that emotions may both influence risk decisions and be a reaction to those decisions.
Risk practices Women fish cage farmers, on average, gave slightly greater importance than men to many farm-level risk management practices, consistent with their perception of higher levels of risk (Lebel et al. 2015c). Significant and relatively larger gender differences were found for an aggregated set of monitoring-related practices, and for diversifying income from other sources.
Capacities Women and men may also differ in skills or self-confidence (Fig. 1). Thus, with respect to making observations of climate-related conditions, there was a diverse range of views expressed in FGDs (Lebel et al., 2015c). Women felt that either women were more observant than men or that they perceive things similarly. A woman argued that “women pay more attention to details than men.
Gender and the management of climate-related risks in northern Thailand
Men are gruffer, and when they feed fish they do so without thinking about the weather or climate; whereas women are more observant about weather and climate”. Another man, however, thought men more observant: “Men perceive more. We are more calm, but women get excited. We look at the water situation each year. See that water flows, see dusts, bubbles, then we know that rubbish will follow. After flowing for one hour, we see that the water changes slowly. So have to be careful with each flow of water”.
Resilience building Men and women build resilience of their households to the impacts of climate-related risks in several ways, like diversification. Thus, river cage fish farming is usually not the only source of income of a household. Strategies to manage climate-related risks to profits reflect the attention given to diversification of income sources and maintaining a portfolio of activities (Lebel et al. 2013). Some women’s groups have explored value-adding activities, for example, to deal with mortality events: “When fish die they have to be roasted or grilled, otherwise it would be wasting. Men don’t do it. Everything falls to the women. If lots of fish die, then I cry. If fish die, men just throw it out”. Overall, 92 per cent of households that farmed fish in river cages, and 88 per cent in reservoir cages, had other sources of income (Lebel et al. 2013; Lebel et al. 2016a). In the case of earthen pond fish farms, all households had other income sources (Pimolrat et al. 2013). Diversification is also a very important strategy for managing climate-related risks to fruit, rice, and vegetable crops of agricultural households. The typical, alternative, supplementary livelihoods vary with ecological setting, culture, and gender (Lebel et al. 2015a). In the uplands, forests are an important source of food. In Mae Hae, both Karen and Hmong men and women collect wild vegetables from the forest. Hunting of large forest animals is done by men, whereas women usually hunt smaller animals like frogs and fish. Hmong woman are experts in the collection and use of forest herbs. Traditional knowledge is passed down between generations. In Karen households, men have greater knowledge of forest herbs than women, as they have more opportunities to enter forest areas. Almost 40 per cent of Karen households also had significant income from livestock. Almost 80 per C
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cent of Hmong households had fruit orchards. In the lowland peri-urban setting there are many nonfarm and off-farm options for both men and women, though men are usually more mobile. In periods where households are suffering from impacts of extreme climate events on crops, these alternative livelihood incomes or sources of food are important to resilience. Another approach to diversification is in modifying the land-use system, as in the lazy garden innovation of the Karen, which draws on local traditional knowledge from swidden cultivation practices, as well as genetic materials and practices of complex agro-forestry to produce very high diversity plots (Lebel et al. 2014a). This approach emphasises working with natural processes: “Hardworking people eat the benefits of their labour; lazy gardeners eat the benefits of their thinking”. In most of the households studied, men played a dominant role in adopting the “lazy garden” even as the work ethic and knowledge of local plants of women was recognised. A long dry season in 2010 which impacted paddy rice production underlined the high value the lazy garden patches had for household food, fuel wood, and income security.
Reducing risks Women placed greater importance on various risk management practices than men; that on its own does not mean they took more risk-reducing actions. Women might lack self-confidence, lack access to resources required to take action, have less time or fewer opportunities to do so, or be unable to convince partners, or be more likely not to do so for other reasons related to their situation. In our survey questions, it was not always possible to distinguish support for, or intentions to do, something from having successfully completed particular actions (Lebel et al. 2015e). There was no evidence of gender differences in practices with respect to preparing in advance for imminent floods; however, for slower-onset droughts, women were more likely to prepare aerators and pumps than men (Lebel et al. 2015c). There was no difference for other key actions: moving cages into deeper water; harvest early; change stocking date; or temporarily refrain from culturing. Apart from risks to profits, in the case of fish farming in river cages there is also a significant
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climate-related risk to personal safety while trying to reduce risks to a fish farm. In periods of flooding, spates with floating debris, or otherwise high river flows, fish farmers must tie down or move cages under dangerous conditions (Lebel et al. 2013). Typically these tasks, requiring physical strength, are done by men even where women own or head the management of a fish farm (Lebel et al. 2009). In these situations men were at greater risk than women, as a consequence of norms regarding tasks requiring physical strength and working in dangerous situations.
Risk governance Gender differences In this paper, risk management at a level higher than the farm, for instance at the community or watershed level and requiring collective action, is considered as risk governance. For example, fish farmers acknowledge the importance of how water infrastructure is operated and attempt to influence those decisions (Lebel et al. 2015c; Lebel et al. 2016a). They also jointly seek support from local government for dredging during times of low flows, and express concerns about pollution from activities in the watershed. Women, however, rated seeking government assistance as more important for reducing risks than men. In fish farming households, women on average gave greater importance than men to operation of water infrastructure and watershed management for climate risk management, but they did not attach more importance than men to participation in water governance bodies (Lebel et al. 2015c). In the case of earthen pond fish farms, there were very few differences with respect to risk management practices (Pimolrat et al. 2013). One significant difference was that men gave greater importance than women to maintaining relations with fisheries and local government officials. Men and women may have different strategies for engaging authorities. In the uplands, in particular, where homes and villages are remote, men have an advantage over women in that they are able to travel safely more easily (Lebel et al. 2015a), making it “convenient to give them responsibility. The weakness of men is in interacting with society. What I find hard to accept, is their drinking. No matter where they go, who they meet, they drink”.
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Gender norms In the responses to water shortages faced by agricultural households, men played a much more prominent role in conflict resolution than women (Lebel et al. 2015a). In lowland Northern Thailand, men dominate water user groups. Water management for irrigation is seen as men’s business: “If it is management of water for agriculture, women won’t go because it is too awkward. Women don’t want to get involved. Suppose we invited a woman to be a Muang Fai representative; the others would not accept her”. In the uplands women are more involved as irrigators in water user groups. Decision-making positions in water management committees in both upland and lowland areas were nevertheless dominated by men. Overall, over 90 per cent of men and women respondents agreed with the statement that women should be involved in the resolution of water conflicts. Somewhat surprisingly, men agreed significantly more often than women with this statement. Farmers in the uplands also agreed more than those in the lowlands, consistent with the modest roles of women in lowland irrigation water management. Gender norms for behaviours important to governance roles were found to differ by gender of respondent, cultural and ecological settings (Lebel et al. 2015a). Upland Hmong, for example, considered “using physical force to win arguments” more than other upland and lowland respondents. Lowland women considered “convince through reasoning” as a much more feminine characteristic than men did. Consistent with previous studies in Northern Thailand, to “think about and care for others” was overall seen as a more feminine trait by women respondents than by men.
Implications and significance The agency of women farmers in Northern Thailand varied substantially among farming systems, ecological context, and culture. It also varied among household situations and with experience. Women were not invariably passive victims of extreme climate events, nor were they always care-takers of the environment in managing those risks. In Northern Thailand fish farming communities, women perceived climate-related risks to be greater than men did, and attached more importance to their management. In other countries,
Gender and the management of climate-related risks in northern Thailand
women typically are found to be more concerned with climate-related risks than men, for instance in Sweden (Sundblad et al. 2007), Norway (Lujala et al. 2015), and the US (McCright 2010). In the cases explored in this paper, most management options appear to be accessible to both men and women at the farm level, and many decisions and actions are taken jointly – although with important exceptions and significant differences among cultures and ecological settings. Studies in Africa and South Asia suggest that men dominate reception of information from rural extension services, and this can reduce women’s adaptive capacities (Jost et al. 2015; Perez et al. 2015). This does not appear to have been the case in any of the locations, cultures, or livelihood systems studied in Northern Thailand. Northern Thailand has undergone significant agrarian change with expansion of non-farm employment opportunities for rural households, and the intensification and commercialisation of agriculture (Rigg and Nattapoolwat 2001). Marketrelated opportunities and risks are important and interact with climate-related risks, but there is no simple generalisation that covers the consequences for men and women of market engagement. Commercialisation of production is not necessarily bad for women (Hamilton et al. 2001), and market engagement has not inevitably made women more vulnerable to climate-related risks. Women from wealthier or more educated fish farming households had higher decision-making authority within the home, underlining that gender alone is an incomplete characterisation of likely power. In the introduction to this paper we illustrated the limitations of three simplifications made about gender: knowing about men is enough; all women are all the same; and culture does not matter. The analyses in this paper show that these simplifications are particularly misleading with respect to the experience and management of climate-related risks in Northern Thailand. In addition, the findings suggest that there can be substantial differences in gender power relations when making risk decisions within a household, as opposed to in the wider community, underlining the danger also of scale simplifications. Authority at home does not invariably translate into roles and influence beyond the household (Agarwal 1997). Outside the home, decisionmaking and leadership positions in the community remain difficult to attain as a result of typical
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multiplication of burdens for women leaders (Pini 2005), and persistent social norms related to leadership. In the lowland irrigated agriculture settings studied here, women still have little authority and infrequent roles in community water management despite their contributions to farming. Globally, women are often under-represented in water and river management organisations (van Koppen and Hussain 2007; Zwarteveen 2008). In 2015, Thailand introduced a new fisheries law. For river cage aquaculture, the new law strengthens requirements already in the process of being implemented, including the requirements to gain local government approval and to only farm in areas zoned by a provincial committee (Uppanunchai et al. 2016). This implies a certain degree of negotiation, and perhaps lobbying will be important, requiring roles that for river and waterrelated issues have historically been dominated by men. Assuming that women are natural care-takers of environment and natural resources in this context would lead to intervention failures: on the one hand, because they do not have that special role now; and on the other hand, adding it to their list of responsibilities may just multiply responsibilities and burdens (Resurrecci´on 2013). More fundamentally, women vary greatly in the situations they find themselves in, the knowledge, skills and confidence they have, and consequently the levels of risk they find acceptable or how vulnerable they are. Thus, there is no one size fits all when it comes to communicating about risks to women (or, indeed, men) (Huynh and Resurreccion 2014). Being gender-sensitive does not imply being blind to all other important differences between individuals and the dynamic circumstances and relationships they must navigate (Nightingale 2011). Nevertheless, the gender-sensitive findings of this synthesis of past studies in Northern Thailand are important for improving climate risk management practices in at least three ways. First, men and women have similar but not identical perceptions and beliefs with respect to climate-related risks and climate change. These differences should be taken into account when designing early warning systems and communications related to longerterm measures to reduce risks or adapt to climate. Second, gender relations and associated norms have substantial influence on risk decisions and water management practices important to agriculture and
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aquaculture. This study shows these also vary substantially with eco-cultural settings, suggesting that it may be possible to shift some norms towards more equal treatment and power. Third, efforts to empower women in these societies more broadly may benefit from recognition and appreciation of women’s large contribution to the management of climate-related risks in agriculture and aquaculture livelihood activities, as well as the household portfolios of income generating activities to which these contribute. Future scholarship on the sustainability of natural resources management in a changing climate needs to consider how perceptions and management of risks are influenced by gender differences, norms, and relations (Fig. 1). Risk appraisal is often viewed as primarily analytical or cognitive; but the studies synthesised here are consistent with other experimental work that has emphasised that risk decisions often also include a significant emotional component (Loewenstein et al. 2001). In particular, this study raises some specific questions for followup studies. Do women and men combine cognitive and emotional responses to risk in the same way in similar situations? To what extent are culturally distinct social norms on gender roles in risk management beyond the level of the farm malleable, and are these influenced by gender relations within the household? Under what circumstances do levels of
acceptable risk converge and diverge between men and women?
Conclusion In the cases examined from Northern Thailand, women perceived most climate-related risks to be slightly higher than men did. Their expressed importance for responding to these risks was correspondingly higher as well, both at both the farm and community levels. Research on the roles of women in community-level water management affairs and gendered social norms, however, suggests that it will often be more challenging for women to reduce risks to their farms through action on these larger scales than it is for men. Differences in climaterelated risk management beliefs and practices could not be explained by gender differences in attitudes towards risk. Attention to emotions in risk appraisal and gender norms with respect to risk governance, proved more helpful to understanding, but still left other questions open. As gender can influence the perception and management of risks to agriculturebased livelihoods, efforts to strengthen the management of climate-related risks and to support adaptation to climate change should be gendersensitive, while not ignoring other factors that can create differences in vulnerability and capacities to adapt.
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