Abstract
Mainstreaming gender in water governance through “how to do gender” toolkits has long been a development focus. It has been widely argued that such toolkits simplify the complex, nuanced realities of inequalities by gender in relation to water and fail to pay attention to the fact that the proposed users of such gender-water toolkits, i.e. mostly male water sector professionals, lack the skills, motivation and/or incentives to apply these toolkits in their everyday work. We adopt a feminist political ecology lens to analyse some of the barriers to reduce social inequalities in the management of global commons such as international rivers. Our findings highlight the leap of faith made in the belief that gender toolkits, as they exist, will filter through layers of a predominantly masculine institutional culture to enable change in ground realities of complex inequalities by gender. Analysing the everyday workings of two hydropower development organisations in India, we show how organisational structures demonstrate a blatant culture of masculinity. These two organisations, like many others, are sites where hierarchies and inequalities based on gender are produced, performed and reproduced. This performance of masculinity promotes and rewards a culture of technical pride in re-shaping nature, abiding by and maintaining hierarchy and demonstrating physical strength and emotional hardiness. In such a setting, paying attention to vulnerabilities, inequalities and disparities are incompatible objectives.
Highlights
In the late 1990s, following pressure by diverse civil society institutions and actors, the World Bank commissioned an independent, multi-actor global evaluation of large dams
A recent study in Lao People’s Democratic Republic (Laos) and Vietnam led by Hill et al (2017) indicates that while Oxfam’s Gender Impact Assessment (GIA) manual might be useful in minimising the unequal spread of risks and losses to local communities, the biggest need is for key s takeholders to understand how gender inequalities crosscut class, ethnicity and other divides at scale, including in planning and decision-making processes (Rai 2008)
A feminist political ecology perspective adds the dimensions of space and the materiality of nature to such analyses, interrogating how everyday practices in organisations relate to the physical characteristics of the environment where d ifferent types of staff work and how in turn such characteristics reinforce hegemonic masculinities
Summary
In the late 1990s, following pressure by diverse civil society institutions and actors, the World Bank commissioned an independent, multi-actor global evaluation of large dams. Narratives that reposition large dams as clean and green conceal complex controversies relating to dam development across the Global South and essentially justify the commodifying of global commons such as international rivers and forests, which pose huge social, environmental and economic risks to local populations whose identity, sense of place and livelihoods are deeply rooted in these aquatic and forest ecosystems (Goldman 2001). A recent study in Laos and Vietnam led by Hill et al (2017) indicates that while Oxfam’s GIA manual might be useful in minimising the unequal spread of risks and losses to local communities, the biggest need is for key s takeholders (hydropower developers, government and gender experts) to understand how gender inequalities crosscut class, ethnicity and other divides at scale, including in planning and decision-making processes (Rai 2008). Looking inside the organisations that implement hydropower projects, our findings draw on the theorisation of ‘hegemonic masculinities’ (Connell 1995; Collinson and Hearn 1996; Connell and Messerschmidt 2005) and performativity (Butler 1990), which we discuss below, alongside empirical data which gives shape to the theories and concepts used
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