“We Are Prisoners in Our Own Homes”: Connecting the Environment, Gender-Based Violence and Sexual and Reproductive Health Rights to Sport for Development and Peace in Nicaragua

Lyndsay M C Hayhurst,Lidieth Del Socorro Cruz Centeno

doi:10.3390/su11164485

Abstract

This paper draws on postcolonial feminist political ecology theory, feminist theories of violence and new materialist approaches to sport and physical cultural studies—combined with literature on the role of non-humans in international development—to unpack the connections between gender-based violence and the environment in sport, gender and development (SGD) programming in Nicaragua. To do this, postcolonial feminist participatory action research (PFPAR), including visual research methods such as photovoice, was used to better understand, and prioritize, young Nicaraguan women’s experiences of the environment and gender-based violence as they participated in an SGD program used to promote environmentalism and improve their sexual and reproductive health rights. To conclude, the importance of accounting for the broader physical environment in social and political forces was underlined as it shapes the lives of those on the receiving end of SGD interventions.

Highlights

“In the Nicaraguan climate change discourse, women end up bearing most responsibilities in the fight against climate change, making this gendering an oppressive process that constructs women with particular traits, considered as immutable.” [1] (p. 175)
This study explores the following four research questions: (1) How can we be more mindful of the manner in which climate change and sustainability practices become gendered, and more vigilant of the processes that reinforce gendered hierarchies; (2) What is the role of SGD in lessening, augmenting, and/or exacerbating environmental degradation and its related inequalities; (3) How might SGD be used to prevent gender-based violence (GBV) and violence to our environment? (4) What is the role of the physical environment in lessening, augmenting and upholding inequality in relation to gendered climate change politics and how might such politics impact GBV and sexual and reproductive health rights (SRHR)-centered programming through SGD?
We suggest that there is a clear gap in the sport for development and peace (SDP) literature and a need to critically examine the ways in which the physical environment, in relation to climate change and pollution, enmeshes with, and impacts, SGD programming, initiatives that are focused on GBV prevention and SRHR promotion for young women

Summary

Introduction

“In the Nicaraguan climate change discourse, women end up bearing most responsibilities in the fight against climate change, making this gendering an oppressive process that constructs women with particular traits, considered as immutable.” [1] (p. 175). The purpose of this paper is to use empirical work from a study undertaken in Nicaragua to critically consider the nexus of climate change, gender-based violence (GBV) prevention, and sexual and reproductive health rights (SRHR) promotion within the broader field of sport for development and peace, and vis-à-vis SGD programming To pursue this objective, this study explores the following four research questions: (1) How can we be more mindful of the manner in which climate change and sustainability practices become gendered, and more vigilant of the processes that reinforce (naturalized) gendered hierarchies; (2) What is the role of SGD in lessening, augmenting, and/or exacerbating environmental degradation and its related inequalities; (3) How might SGD be used to prevent GBV and violence to our environment? We suggest that there is a clear gap in the SDP literature (and practice) and a need to critically examine the ways in which the physical environment, in relation to climate change and pollution, enmeshes with, and impacts, SGD programming, initiatives that are focused on GBV prevention and SRHR promotion for young women

Objectives

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion