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Accepted Paper:
Gender transformative approaches to rural development in the Anthropocene
Rochelle Spencer
(Murdoch University)
Jane Hutchison
(Murdoch University)
Huong Ngo Thi Thanh
By placing women’s relationships at the heart of how development can be practised, might we consider gender transformative approaches and feminist participatory action research as development tools and ways of working to address Anthropogenic impacts?
Paper long abstract:
Feminist theory has long been concerned with the anthropegenic impact of human development on the environment. This paper draws on gender research in northern Vietnam with Thai ethnic minority coffee farmers. We reflect on the use of gender transformative approaches (GTAs) and feminist participatory action research (FPAR) as tools that center gender and women’s experiences both theoretically and practically in rural development; that place women’s relationships at the heart of how development in this age of the Anthropocene can be practised. We offer insights about how gender transformative approaches to rural development actively examine, question, and seek to change unequal gender norms as a means of achieving sectoral (productivity, food security, market access) and gender equality outcomes. GTAs are arguably a feminist response to the techno-normative approaches to development at a time when poverty and inequality continue to increase with the surge in extreme weather events. We also introduce and reflect on using an FPAR conceptual framework for its attempt to blend feminist theories and research with participatory action research. We pose that GTAs and FPAR could very well contribute to an 'Anthropocene Feminism' to highlight the alternatives a feminist lens can offer us for thinking relationally about achieving progress in gender equity.