Contextualizing gender in climate change adaptation in semi-arid Zimbabwe

Abstract

PurposeClimate change impacts tend to coalesce with everyday vulnerability and affect different socio-economic groups in different ways. In this regard, this study aims to contribute to studies that make gender critical to understanding the way that climate change is experienced. Socially constructed gender differences have a bearing on the extent of exposure to climatic shocks, leading to various patterns of vulnerability to these shocks.Design/methodology/approachThis study uses both qualitative and quantitative methodologies to collect data.FindingsThe study finds that there is an inherent potential within the study area for equal opportunities for both men and women to address levels of vulnerability to climatic shocks and, by implication, potential to challenge patriarchal structures that tend to characterize these study areas. The contextualization of gender analysis remains elusive in the face of increasingly shifting gender roles that traditionally defined women as victims to everyday vulnerability and more recently in conjunction with climatic shocks.Originality/valueIn this regard, this research contributes to emerging perspectives on the potential role of ‘woman as heroine’ and challenges the perception of ‘woman as victim’ in environmental management. Considerations for mainstreaming adaptation responses to climate change do not necessarily have to consider women as a special social group in isolation but, rather, implications for both men and women and caution that embeddedness remains key for gender considerations in any rural context.