Unlearning Colonial Analytics: Rethinking Women in ‘Conservatism’

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In this blog, ISS Alumna, Tia Isti’anah invites us to rethink beyond the binary label of conservatism vs progressive. Drawing from decolonial feminist thinkers, it challenges the secular-liberal feminist moral world and invites readers to centre love as an act of unlearned colonial biases.

 

Image from Harmonia Pictura from Pixabay

In 2020, I was doing research with Yayasan Rumah Kita Bersama in Bekasi, West Java, Indonesia. I remember that I perceived women who joined the Islamic teaching in ‘conservative’ mosques as victims of religious doctrine. I had some categories for what I call ‘conservative’ mosques; the ones that called themselves ‘salafi’ or ‘manhanji’ and the ones whose women used the big veil which covers their shoulders and chest.

In one of these mosques, I talked to women who refused to work after getting married because they were worried about the ‘ikhtilat’. Ikhtilat refers to the gathering, mixing and intermingling of men and women in one place. I whispered to myself about how this kind of tafsir (explanation or exegesis) limits women from doing what they want. One woman I met even refused to use online booking services for transportation because it could result in her being alone with a man, although the public transportation in that area (Cikarang, Bekasi) was difficult to find. When I also joined the Islamic studies for this research in one of the mosques in Bekasi, I saw that women could only ask questions on paper by writing it down and giving it to the committee, while men could raise their hand and speak directly to the speaker in front of the audience.

As a woman who grew up in a traditional Islamic family and school, I often experienced the Islamic tafsir that justifies patriarchy and I remember feeling angry and confused listening to it. That experience made me feel the urge to save women who follow ‘conservative’ Islamic teaching which I thought of as patriarchal. This is also the reason why I am actively involved in the Islamic feminist movement in Indonesia.

Later, I found out that my analysis of putting women who accepted ‘conservatism’ teaching as merely a victim of religious doctrine is a colonial and binary approach. Chandra Talpade Mohanty called this kind of analysis a commodification and appropriation of knowledge about women in third-world countries, where we pack them as one category: oppressed, dependent and powerless, without allowing them to speak for themselves. This objectification or analysis, however, has been used by many Western and middle-class African or Asian scholars for their rural and working-class sisters. Sabaa Mahmood book’s Politics of Piety, which is the result of her anthropological research in Egypt with pious women, can be used as an entry point to unlearn this colonial analytical category and challenge secular-liberal feminist analysis. She invites us to see religious practices in their own terms, not through the eyes of other moral values.

Unlearning colonial categorization

Mahmood’s work is important because it challenges the secular-liberal feminist approach, which is obsessed with individual freedom or free will. This obsession with the norm of individual freedom stems from a secular-liberal feminist approach, which is rooted in Western history. Individual freedom, however, is inadequate for understanding the reality of pious women in Egypt, the women with whom Mahmood conducted her research. Pious women in Egypt are living in communities with significantly different norms than women in Western countries. Mahmood saw that their life goal was not individual freedom or free will, but striving for piety by following the Prophet Muhammad’s example.

I reflected on this during my own research in Bekasi. I assumed that women following ‘conservative’ teaching are backwards and in need of being saved. I thought that the ‘conservative’ Islamic doctrine, such as ‘ikhtilat’ limits their freedom.  I also considered women having to ask questions in writing in Islamic teaching as a sign of subordination, especially when the same rules do not bind men. In fact, my analysis mirrored what Maria Lazreg calls reductionism, where religion is assumed to be the main reason for gender inequality or patriarchy. By assuming this in my analysis, as Saba Mahmood mentioned in her book, I denied other realities and factors of patriarchy. This also made me reject another reality about women in Islamic teaching –  the reality that what they strive for is not about individual freedom but about striving to embody piety modelled after the Prophet Muhammad.

Mahmood’s work generated criticism, for example that the celebration of pious agency, if taken too far, could risk romanticizing the power of domination and denying the structure that is often imposed by those in power. However, her argument allows us to pause before putting other women (who, borrowing from Mohanty, are actually our sisters in struggle) in the oppressed, dependent, powerless and backward category box.

Decolonial Calling

Maria Lugones, a decolonial feminist, argued that even the gender system itself is colonial, as is the very definition of gender-oppressive. Moreover, she deepened this conversation by inviting us to practice playful ‘world‘ travelling by moving to each other’s ‘world’ with a loving rather than an arrogant eye. A world, as I understand from Lugones, is characterized as being inhabited by flesh and blood people, where meaning, ideas, construction and relationships are organized in particular ways. Loving here means that we see with their eyes, that we go to their world, see how both of us are constructed in their world, and witness their own sense of selves from their world. Only by travelling to their world can we see them as subjects and identify with them because we are not excluded and separate from them.

This made it clear to me that I have failed to love women who joined the ‘conservative’ Islamic teaching. Instead, I looked at them arrogantly, seeing them as victims and as oppressed women, while at the same time seeing myself as an educated woman who has become enlightened. I failed to understand how women in ‘conservative’ teaching see themselves within their values and their world. I failed to meet women where they are, not where I assumed they should be. I failed to see their own ways of making meaning, but rather saw them through the lens of me, who was already brainwashed by the idea of individual freedom as the only valid goal in life. By travelling to other women’s worlds, we are not necessarily endorsing what they believe, but rather learning to see their world.

Looking back, I realize that Lugones’s framework has helped me embrace contradictions and differences, to live with a loving way of being. I might not always agree with what people believe but I now try to love them. I think of a friend in Iran who is forced to wear a hijab. Because of that, she hates how religion is used as a tool to discriminate against those who are different. Her story is real and painful. Yet, by travelling to the other women’s world, I also find women who find their meaning and purpose in life from the same moral universe my friend rejects: ‘conservative’ Islam. Decolonial feminists remind us to see the plurality of women’s worlds; worlds that cannot be looked at through one single lens, especially not the lens of Western domination and power.  The journey has humbled me, enabled me to unlearn what I thought I knew ,and relearn seriously from the wisdom of other women’s worlds who are different from mine – how they seek meaning, resilience, and dignity.

 

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

About the author:

Tia Isti’anah

Tia Isti’anah is a freelance writer/researcher. She is an alumna of International Institute of Social Studies. Some of her writings can be found here: https://linktr.ee/tia.istianah (mostly in Indonesia language). Connect professionally here: www.linkedin.com/in/tia-istianah

 

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From Hands-On to High-Tech: How Dutch Care Workers Navigate Digitalization and Robotization

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Whether we embrace it or not, digital technologies and AI are here to stay, and they are fundamentally changing the human world of labour. As new technologies revolutionize the healthcare landscape, these changes are reshaping the lives and work of care workers. In this blog, Sreerekha Sathi shares insights from her research, which explores important questions about how digital technologies are reshaping care work in the Netherlands specifically: how these innovations are affecting care workers and how care homes are adapting to digital solutions and AI-assisted robotics. What specific forms of AI-assisted robotics are currently being utilized in Dutch care homes and how can we evaluate the benefits, challenges and risks associated with their implementation?

Source: Unsplash

Digitalization, robotization and the care worker

The Dutch healthcare sector faces increasing inequality in access to care, staff shortages, increasing workloads and a high percentage of aging populations. Around two thousand government-funded care homes serve the elderly, those with dementia, disabilities and other care needs.

Like other countries in Europe, the Netherlands has been experimenting with digitization and robotization in health care. Over the past two decades, AI-assisted digital tools and Socially Assistive Robots (SARS) have become more common in surgeries, patient monitoring, consultations, diagnostics, rehabilitation, telemedicine, cognitive and emotional care, especially in the post-pandemic period (Getson, C., & Nejat, G. 2021, Kang et al. 2023). Beyond Europe, countries like China and Japan lead these developments, with Sweden and the Netherlands close behind.

The use of digital solutions and AI-assisted robotics have moved beyond the experimental phase into early adoption. Current discussion focuses on opportunities for collaboration between private companies, academic institutions and healthcare providers. This pilot study involved conversations with few care workers in the care homes, innovation managers, company officials and academic scholars in the Netherlands.

Conversations with care workers show that most technologies in use are still relatively simple – medication dispensers, sensor systems and communication tablets – selected for their affordability and ease. Once prescribed, digital care tools like Compaan, Freestyle Libre, MelioTherm, Medido, Sansara or Mono Medical are introduced to clients by neighbourhood digital teams, usually via smartphone apps connected through WIFI as part of online digital care.

The introduction of robots is slowly gaining ground. Many universities, including Erasmus University, are collaborating with private companies on new projects in robotization and digitalization in health care. Some of the robots which are popular in use currently in Europe include TinyBots (Tessa), Zorabots (NAO), Pepper, Paro and other robotic pets, and SARA, which supports dementia patients. Some care workers believe that the robots promote social contact and enhance patients’ independence, while others appreciate that robots taking over peripheral tasks can make their own work easier.

Care workers are required to learn and engage with new technologies, which directly affect their everyday lives. Although they are relatively well paid by normal standards, their workload and stress often exceed what their pay reflects. Larger, well-funded care homes have support staff who assist care workers for indirect or non-medical support at lower pay. When new technologies are introduced without sufficient involvement and inputs from the workers, they can lead to more burden on workers in terms of time and labour costs. For them, new technologies are often ‘thrown over the fence’, with insufficient training or involvement of care workers in design or decision-making, leading to frustration, resistance and underuse even when the tools are effective. They argue, ‘we don’t need fancy tools – just the right tools used in the right way.’

Many workers feel that if a robot can take on physical tasks, the workers can give clients more time and attention. When the purpose of a tool is clearly explained, and workers remain present in critical moments, clients and families are more accepting of new technology.

Gender and labour in new technologies

Feminist Science and Technology Studies (FSTS) has long shown how technologies carry gendered biases. Feminist histories of computing have highlighted women’s contribution to the invention and introduction of computers and software (Browne, Stephen & McInerney, 2023). A relevant question to explore today is would new technologies using AI assisted robotics replicate the same biases. Although new technologies are often presented as objective, they are built upon datasets and assumptions that can reproduce biases and stereotypes, based on the foundations of the feeds and accesses in-built into it (1). Robots, for instance, often reflect the idealized gendered traits. Nurse robots are designed with feminine or childlike features – extroverted and friendly – versus ‘techno-police’ styled introvert security robots as stoic and masculine.

Care work remains a heavily gendered profession, though more men are joining the field. While some men care workers face occasional client push back, they are increasingly welcomed amid shortages. Many care workers worry about being replaced by robots, yet most agree that emotional presence of caregivers – especially in elderly and dementia care – remains essential and robots may support but cannot substitute the human connection that defines good care work.

Further, workers also stress that technology must be context-sensitive: its success depends on the socio-economic profile of the area, staff availability and the lived preferences of the people receiving care. They advocate for flexible, context-based implementation rather than top-down standardization of new machines. Core to the debates on digitalization and robotization in care are ethical issues often narrowly framed as privacy concerns but extending to autonomy, emotional dignity and growing surveillance and inequality.

Insights into the future

The study observe that many attempts to introduce digital technologies or robotics in care homes stall in the pilot phase, often disliked or abandoned by care professionals or clients. Care workers need time and training to trust these devices, especially regarding the risks and uncertainties involved. They emphasize early involvement through co-design as essential for building trust, transparency and accountability. For sustainable implementation, the focus should shift from what is ‘new’ to what is ‘useful’.

Future debates will likely centre around prioritizing digitization in health care versus SARs in physical care. Persistent challenges include time constraints to software failures (Huisman & Kort 2019). As efforts to create ‘smart homes’ and support independent living continue (Allaban, Wang & Padir 2020), environmental sustainability and climate resilience must become priorities.

Another important step for exploration is to critically analyze the growing corporatization and monopolization in digitization and robotization (Zuboff, 2019; Hao, 2025). Rather than leaving healthcare innovations to monopolies or private capital, public or community-based state welfare support must retain agency in how digital and robotic tools are implemented. Finally, pushing back from military robotics towards socially beneficial technologies – such as health care or waste management – needs to be prioritized.

As a work in progress, this research is significant for understanding the social impacts of digitalization and robotization. In the next step of this study, these conversations will further bring together care workers, academics and innovative managers between the global south and the global north to foster dialogue about how these changes are reshaping the healthcare economy, care homes and the future of care workers.

 

End Note:

  1. A focus on changing forms of labour, along with the concerns around gender stereotypes and gendered knowledges attributed to social robots, is important for further exploration in the fields of AI-assisted occupations. The introduction of new machines involves the invisible human labour behind them, which is mostly the ‘ghost workers’ from the global south, whether with data work, coding or mining. What is inherent to existing social contexts, including gender, class, and racial stereotypes, are already heavily compromising the digital world.

Acknowledgements: This research was supported by a small grant from Erasmus Trustfonds for 2024-2025, I embarked on this short study to explore these questions. Although the grant period concluded in June 2025, the research continues. I would like to thank Ms. Julia van Stenis for her invaluable support in making this study possible.

 

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question

 

About the author:

Sreerekha Sathi

Sreerekha Sathi works on issues of gender, political economy, and critical development studies. Her current research explores the intersections of gender, care, and labour with digitalization, AI, and the future of work, and engages with critical debates in decolonial thought. She is a member of the editorial board of Development and Change.

 

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The politics of land: Introducing an important new collection

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Land lies at the heart of contemporary politics. As a site of contestation and negotiation, land is central to struggles that affect us all. The Oxford Handbook of Land Politics , edited by ISS Professor Jun Borras and Jennifer Franco, brings together contributions from leading scholars in critical agrarian studies, offering an invaluable guide to these debates. In this blog, Ian Scoones reflects on the book and its timely contributions.

Land is central to contemporary debates about politics. Land sustains the livelihoods of millions through farming, livestock keeping, hunting and collecting. Such livelihoods are intimately bound up with nature, and the complex and diverse ecosystems that thrive on land. Land creates a sense of identity refracted through gender, race, class and other axes of difference.  Through diverse institutions and forms of authority, land connects citizens and states, corporations and capital, and is the locus of accumulation, extraction and control. Access to land is thus contested, negotiated and claimed through multiple, competing actors, linked to a myriad of struggles. Land, in other words, connects us all through its politics. This is why the newly-published Oxford Handbook of Land Politics is so important. Across 38 chapters (880 pages), written by a veritable who’s who of the broad field of critical agrarian studies, the book offers an invaluable guide to these debates, with a stellar overview and introduction. from its editors, Jun Borras and Jenny Franco. What follows are some reflections taken from the Foreword that I wrote.

At the end of the Foreword, I ask, what are the new axes of debate, transforming our understandings of agrarian change and politics of land offered in the pages of the Handbook? There are many, but I highlight just four.

  • First is the move from seeing land as only a site of production and so accumulation, but also social reproduction, and the locus of highly gendered social and cultural relations. This suggests a much more diverse land politics going beyond class to gender, race, identity and so on. It in turn suggests a renewed focus on labour, with complex livelihoods generated from multiple sources beyond the fixed plot of land, through migration, trade and so on. The classic categories of land-based classes centred only on production are thus unsettled as new forms of livelihood are created. As a result, the dynamics of differentiation and accumulation shifts, with land politics changing as a wider appreciation emerges of Henry Bernstein’s classic questions of agrarian political economy – who owns what, who does what, who gets what and what they do with it?
  • Second, the centring of nature, environment and climate in relation to land is a theme that resonates across many chapters. Humans and nature (and so land) are inseparable yet have often become disconnected by the forces of capitalist modernity. The importance of reconnecting is central, requiring a new political ecology/economy of land. This has deep implications for how we see land; again not just as a demarcated plot, but as part of a wider living landscape and territory, within a broader planetary system. This in turn highlights the crucial connection between land and the climate crisis. Changing land use, whether through deforestation, intensive agriculture and extraction of water or minerals is a major contributor to climate change. As the regimes of extraction evolve under new frontiers of capitalism, land is central. Such regimes of food, water and energy are constituted through a contested politics and, as the imperative to switch from fossil fuel dependence and intensive, polluting systems of agriculture accelerates, new challenges emerge. In the rush to ‘net zero’, for example, alternative energy, climate adaptation and nature-based ‘solutions’ are offered, yet all these have implications for who controls the land, with land grabs increasingly justified in the name of green and climate ‘transitions’, which in turn create new land-based politics across the world.
  • Third, many chapters argue for going beyond a narrow, individualised approach to land rights, tenure security and land governance. This managerial, administrative and technocratic frame dominates policy thinking but is incompatible with the realities on the ground. As the introduction points out, such efforts to provide ‘security’ for women, Indigenous peoples and others can paradoxically lead to opportunities for dispossession, as speculation, appropriation and extraction increase in areas where ‘regularisation’ has generated legibility through demarcation and delimitation. Instead, there is a need to think about land as constituted through hybrid, mosaic forms of property relation, with property-making as a continuous, contested and negotiated process. Land is always embedded in power relations and so thinking about how authority over land is generated – through interactions between citizens, states, corporations and other actors – can help us elaborate more appropriate democratic institutions for land control and a more innovative, grounded approach to ‘land governance’.
  • Finally, the Handbook points to the importance of understanding land as a ‘regime’, situated in a wider historical political economy context. As the introduction highlights, a land regime – just as a food regime – is stabilised, perhaps only tentatively and temporarily, by a set of political-economic forces that operate within a particular phase of capitalism. But regimes change due to the intersection of local struggles and wider political forces and interests. Today these are influenced by new frontiers of extraction and accumulation, linked to globalised economic relations, changing food systems and heightening climate-environment imperatives. Meanwhile, authoritarian, populist regimes define the nation in terms of the relationship between ‘the people’ and their mother/fatherland, always in ways that act to exclude some, while incorporating others in a populist politics of land and belonging. Until we understand this wider historically situated, structural context, the attempts to address the pressing challenges of land and its use at more local levels – whether through moves to agroecology or food sovereignty, for example – will remain elusive.

The Handbook is a rich, diverse and deeply informed collection, mixing theoretical perspectives and grounded reflections. By going beyond a narrow Marxist canon to encompass a wide array of perspectives, no particular line is taken. The introduction encourages readers to find their own way, to read across conceptual framings and reflect on different dimensions – in other words to generate a critical sensibility to agrarian studies and land politics.

For any student of land, or indeed politics more generally, as well as activists and practitioners grappling with the challenges of land politics, this Handbook is an enormously valuable and vital resource.

 

Note: There are two publication dates mentioned on the website of the Handbook: 2022 was the year when the Handbook project formally got started; 2025 was when the Handbook was actually completed and published as a whole.

This blog was first published by Transnational Institute

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

About the author:

Ian Scoones

Ian Scoones is a professor in the Resource Politics and Environmental Change cluster. He was co-director of the ESRC STEPS Centre at Sussex (2006-21) and the principal investigator of the ERC Advanced Grant project, PASTRES (Pastoralism, Uncertainty and Resilience: Lessons From the Margins, (2018-2023).

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Rain or shine, the gig must go on – Platform workers navigate climate extremes

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                                     Image by Unsplash

Precariousness is an underlying factor in the gig economy. When combined with the climate crisis, this becomes an even bigger burden on gig workers. These ‘flexible workers’ are often not equipped to be flexible to the changing environment. They face the dilemma of navigating between algorithms and climate extremes, often forced to choose earnings over health. In this blog, Anna Elias explores how the vulnerabilities of the workers are amplified in the context of climate crisis. 

‘Our economic system and our planetary system are now at war. Or, more accurately, our economy is at war with many forms of life on earth, including human life. What the climate needs to avoid collapse is a contraction in humanity’s use of resources; what our economic model demands to avoid collapse is unfettered expansion. Only one of these sets of rules can be changed, and it’s not the laws of nature.’ Naomi Klein (This changes everything: Capitalism vs. the climate).

Most parts of India suffered from extreme weather conditions this year. While the temperatures soared up to 50℃ in some cities, the monsoons that followed caused extreme havoc in others. The United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP) report  predicts that India will lose 5.8 per cent of its working hours by 2030 due to extreme heat. What does this mean for a gig worker, for most of whom the city is their workspace, and for whom navigating the city constitutes a substantial part of their everyday life?

App based platforms have revolutionized the way urban dwellers travel, eat and purchase. While the gig economy has created numerous flexible jobs, it is also criticised for not effectively dealing with various issues such as workers’ wellbeing and social protection.

Flexible workers are not equipped to be flexible to the changing environment. In current research and policy discourses on gig work, the impact of climate change on the worker is often overlooked. While climate change has significant consequences to both their lives and livelihoods, it is only one among the many vulnerabilities they face. Gig workers already suffer from casualised, low-paid working conditions without access to long-term security, formal social protections and welfare. The pressure caused by these precarious conditions is further exemplified by extreme weather events. Beyond the immediate physical dangers posed by heatwaves or flash floods, these conditions increase the susceptibility of road accidents, thereby heightening the risk of traffic-related injuries.

As research has shown, in the gig economy, climate change is poised to act as a ‘wicked multiplier’ intensifying the vulnerabilities experienced by workers in developing countries. Gig workers in these countries are exposed to extreme weather conditions and endure long hours while navigating hazardous roads and traffic during heatwaves, storms, and floods. Those using two-wheelers to get around face additional challenges such as dust inhalation, impaired vision due to harsh sunlight, heatstroke, and the lack of shade on the roads. These conditions, along with algorithmic management and the promise of ‘lightning fast’ services, make gig workers vulnerable to exhaustion, dehydration, and severe health risks. That their earnings are dependent on the satisfactory execution of the gig exacerbates the precariousness of their situation.

Amidst this crisis, the responses from app-based companies are noteworthy. A prominent Indian food delivery platform issued the following statement: ‘please avoid ordering during peak afternoon unless absolutely necessary’. Yet in the platform economy, lower order volumes correspondingly diminish workers’ earnings. So, this seemingly well-intentioned request to customers aimed at reducing the delivery workers’ exposure to the intense afternoon heat, neglects the dilemma the workers face between making viable earnings and risking their immediate and long-term health. Another example is of a ride-hailing platform that introduced a ‘weather fee’ in Vietnam, which imposed an extra charge on an order whenever the local temperature hit 35℃. This was counter-intuitive, as it incentivized the already precarious worker to work extra hours regardless of the weather conditions, thus putting their lives at risk.

A common misconception is that extreme environmental situations affect only two -wheel drivers. Beyond the physical discomfort to themselves, even auto and taxi drivers face additional challenges of managing customer expectations and interactions on topics that are related to climate change.  For example, a common conflict between drivers and customers, especially during warm day-time hours is the driver’s reluctance to switch on the air conditioning, fearing higher fuel consumption. An Uber driver in Mumbai shares his experiences and strategy in coping with climate change:

”I don’t want to turn on the air conditioner in my car throughout the day. All the money I make goes on fuel charges. Over time, I realised that during the summer the best I can do is drive only during the night. The customers usually don’t insist on travelling with the AC on at night. Of course, I lose sleep and it affects my health. But I don’t have any other choice”. (Fieldnotes, Mumbai 2023).

Apart from highlighting the precarious nature of the work, these cases illustrate the importance of engaging all key stakeholders when developing solutions. Specifically, they emphasize the need to recognise the gig worker as an important stakeholder in the gig economy. They make clear that addressing climate challenges in the platform economy requires a collaborative effort from companies, workers, and the government.

App based platforms were once considered part of the sharing economy and hailed as harbingers of sustainability and collaborative consumption. However, with rapid expansion, they are now criticized for their significant environmental and social costs and for increasing road congestion and intensity.

Conversely, emerging research highlights the potential of platforms to be part of the solution, positioning them as essential stakeholders in sustainability efforts, emphasizing the need for collaborative approaches that integrate labour rights and climate justice. Platform companies have the best of technology and resources at their disposal to craft solutions that benefit their customers, workers and investors alike. For this, they need to view all stakeholders as equally important, create avenues for dialogue between them and work with them to incrementally build equitable solutions for both people and the planet.

Bibliography

  1. Economic survey of Asia. (1991). Economic and Social Survey of Asia and the Pacific. Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific. https://www.unescap.org/kp/2024/survey2024
  2. Vu, A. N., & Nguyen, D. L. (2024). The gig economy: The precariat in a climate precarious world. World Development Perspectives, 34, 100596. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S245229292400033X
  3. https://x.com/zomato/status/1797179156528005204
  4. Dwivedi, Y. K., Hughes, L., Kar, A. K., Baabdullah, A. M., Grover, P., Abbas, R., … & Wade, M. (2022). Climate change and COP26: Are digital technologies and information management part of the problem or the solution? An editorial reflection and call to action. International Journal of Information Management, 63, 102456. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0268401221001493

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

                       About the Author:
                                Anna Elias

Anna Elias is a PhD researcher at International Institute of Social Studies (ISS), Erasmus University Rotterdam. Her research explores socio economic transitions brought about by digitisation, particularly its effect on livelihoods in the informal economy. With a strong professional background in the social impact sector, her expertise lies at the intersection of evidence-based research and evaluation, digital innovation, and sustainability.

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UNFCCC Conference 2024 | How a feminist approach to climate change can help bring together animal welfare and gender equality agendas

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Source: AI Generated Photo
Source: AI Generated Photo

Attending the UNFCCC (SB60) Conference in Bonn in June this year as a representative of the World Federation for Animals (WFA) was a remarkable experience for ISS PhD researcher Irma Nugrahanti, most of all because it visibilized the striking parallels between climate change-related issues faced by women and animals and the crucial role of these two advocacy groups in fighting climate change. In this blog article, she reflects on different conversations that took place at the conference and how this reaffirmed the significance of a multifaceted approach to climate issues.

At the recent UNFCCC conference, observing dialogues on animal welfare, gender, and climate change enhanced my understanding of how these topics are interlinked and what this means for climate action. Each conversation opened my eyes to the rich tapestry of perspectives, revealing how interconnected and parallel these issues are, like chain links, impacting one another and forming an intricate and powerful network of interactions. Reflecting on the discussions at the UNFCCC conference and beyond, it is evident that embracing the intersectionality of feminism and animal welfare is essential for creating a just, sustainable, and resilient world for all living beings — and for tackling climate change.

Author at the UNFCC (SB60) Conference

A step in the right direction

While preparing for the UNFCCC side event focused on the crucial role of animals in climate change mitigation strategies, I reviewed the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) of various countries. I observed the notable failure to acknowledge the contribution animals can make to climate resilience. However, from different discussions at the conference, I observed a positive shift towards recognizing the role of both human and non-human actors in environmental protection. For example, the crucial role of the social sciences in understanding indigenous communities and the human-nature relationship, particularly within the context of ocean-climate dynamics, was acknowledged.

Additionally, there was a strong emphasis on engaging local governments, advocating for locally-led solutions tailored to community needs, and advancing the implementation of global stocktake suggestions. These recommendations include incorporating animals into the Loss and Damage (L&D) matrix, allocating resources to scientific research and data collection, and ensuring that the contributions of animals are acknowledged in IPCC reports and NDCs. These discussions highlight the need to move beyond an anthropogenic view of humans as the central to climate solutions and to embrace a plurality of perspectives that value different types of knowledge and practices, the diversity of life, and its intrinsic values.

As these conversations advanced, it became evident that while progress was made in embracing different perspectives, the commonalities between the experiences of women and animals in relation to climate change have not been sufficiently acknowledged. And they should: women and animals, while vulnerable to the effects of climate change, both play a pivotal role in mitigation efforts. Thus, furthering the role of women in climate change action and strategies and protecting animals are intertwined objectives. This recognition is crucial because caring for animals transcends compassion; it is a profound expression of feminism.

Recognizing the shared challenges faced by both women and animals in the context of climate change could help broaden our understanding of vulnerability and resilience, so that we can transform existing policies that often overlook these marginalized groups. In doing so, we must also recognize and confront the existing power dynamics that influence climate policies. As many studies have shown (see here, here and here), in the climate change domain, men have a dominant presence, namely in research, policy, implementation, and activism.

What women and animals have in common

1. Both women and animals face substantial obstacles stemming from oppression, violence, and objectification.

The connection between patriarchal gender relations and the exploitation of animals reveal how sexism and speciesism come from the desire to dominate inferior groups; this mindset, rooted in patriarchal values, shapes people’s attitude toward women and animals, as Ashley Allcorn and Shirley M Ogletree have noted. Women in countries with a strong patriarchal culture experience multifaceted oppressions, which results in limited possibilities for accessing education and economic opportunities, as well as in exposure to growing harassment and violence. This systematic marginalization is embedded in legal frameworks that hinder gender equality. Likewise, animals endure exploitation and cruelty, being seen as simple commodities rather than sentient beings.

2. The economic value of animals and women in mitigating climate change is underrecognized.

Moreover, although women’s environmental care work plays a crucial role in climate change mitigation, economic assessments often overlook their value. Conventional economic indicators, including the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), fail to include the unpaid care work performed by women in the form of managing natural resources and supporting their communities. This omission underestimates their valuable efforts and maintains ongoing gender disparities. Likewise, the ecological benefits offered by animals, such as carbon sequestration and biodiversity preservation, are rarely accounted for in economic analyses. This omission results in the insufficient protection of animals and a lack of investment in animal welfare. Integrating economic analysis using a gender lens, such as gender-responsive climate budgeting, and the direct valuation of animal welfare in environmental economics may help to ensure adequate resources and appropriate valuation for both women and animals.

3. Both women and animals play a pivotal role in protecting the environment and combating climate change.

Women’s knowledge of sustainable agriculture, water management, and biodiversity conservation is invaluable. Thousands of women-led initiatives around the world serve as proof. For instance in Peru, the indigenous women-led initiative Asociación de Mujeres Waorani de la Amazonía Ecuatoriana (AMWAE) is dedicated to preserving the Amazon rainforest. These women use indigenous knowledge to combat deforestation and advocate for sustainable land use, making a substantial contribution to carbon sequestration and the preservation of biodiversity. Similarly, women play a critical role in community-based conservation efforts. In Kenya, the Green Belt Movement, founded by Nobel laureate Wangari Maathai, has empowered women to plant trees, combat deforestation, and restore ecosystems. This initiative not only mitigates climate change but also improves local livelihoods and promotes gender equality.

In a similar vein, the preservation of an ecological balance and the promotion of biodiversity depend on the existence of healthy animal populations. For instance, African forest elephants make significant contributions to natural carbon capture. They reduce competition and facilitate the growth of larger trees that store more carbon by trampling young trees as they move through the rainforests. This would increase carbon capture equivalent to over 6,000 metric tons of CO2 per square kilometre if their population were to be restored to its previous level, which highlights their critical role in climate regulation.

Why an ecofeminism lens is useful

Ecofeminism, a branch of feminist theory, offers a critical analysis of the dominance of nature and animals imposed by patriarchal systems, drawing parallels with the oppression experienced by women and marginalized populations. Carol Adams and Lori Gruen in their 2022 book Ecofeminism: feminist interaction with other animals and the earth explain the notion of the “logic of domination”. This concept highlights the shared struggles women and animals experience: they are subjected to hierarchical dualisms that diminish their worth, objectify them, and dismiss their individuality and intrinsic value. On objectification, women are often valued according to their appearance or reproductive capabilities, while meats and dairy products have been deeply valued and integral to human diets in most cultures for thousands of years.

Another example of using a feminist lens is incorporating multi-species justice in climate change action. Multi-species justice theories advocate for the recognition of rights, welfare, and interconnectedness between human and non-human beings. It calls for rethinking justice systems for the impacts of human actions on non-human entities and the environment. Sue Donaldson and Will Kymlicka in their book Zoopolis: A Political Theory of Animal Rights for example advocate for a political framework that recognizes animals as co-citizens and grants them rights and protections. This viewpoint challenges the traditional concept of justice by advocating for a political framework that acknowledges animals as co-citizens. Their ideas extend the concept of justice, commonly applied to humans and challenging the anthropocentric bias in political ideologies.

Lastly, the feminist and animal rights movements are both grounded on ethical issues. Lori Gruen emphasizes the objective that ethical veganism and feminism have in common, namely to put a stop to the exploitation of the powerless by those in positions of power. This ethical position challenges the prevailing systems of oppression and exploitation, promoting a society that is more compassionate and just.

Toward an ethics of care

Ecofeminism offers a framework for defining an ethics of care that transcends human interactions and includes every living being and the environment. It emphasizes care as an essential component of our interactions with others, both human and non-human. Its relational and caring approach not only criticizes current power structures but also suggests a paradigm shift toward inclusive and compassionate behaviours, especially those related to animal welfare. In her book In A Different Voice, Carol Gilligan critiques anthropocentric and patriarchal structures through her definition of ethic of care by promoting a caring and attentive connection with nature, akin to a mother’s care for her child. This entails actively listening to and caring for nature in a non-hierarchical manner, promoting a transition from unequal power dynamics to ecologically responsive relationships.

The ethics of care promotes a deep appreciation for natural environments, including animals, which contribute to the process of carbon sequestration and the conservation of biodiversity, which is essential for the ability of ecosystems to face the impacts of climate change. Therefore, in our ecological relationship, it is important to reflect on the way we are being, doing, and seeing to be more environmentally conscious and honour the interconnectedness of all living beings. I believe the common task for posthumanist feminist scholars and policymakers now is to translate this concept into policy and legal frameworks, a complicated but important mission to achieve.

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

About the author

Irma Nugrahanti

Irma Nugrahanti is a PhD researcher at the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS), focusing on the intersection of gender, climate change, and public finance management. Her research highlights the importance of integrating a gender lens into climate budgeting policies and practices, particularly at the national and regional levels of public expenditure management. With a background in the non-profit sector, Irma has extensive experience in finance, program management, and policy advocacy, striving to bridge the gap between research and practice to create inclusive and sustainable climate policies.

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“Happy cows without happy workers?” How Migrant Justice is fighting for improved labour conditions in the US’ dairy industry

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Dairy production often relies on poorly paid and precarious migrant labour, but while the welfare of animals in the dairy sector is increasingly emphasized, that of the people working in the sector receives less attention. In this blog article, Hammal Aslam and Karin Astrid Siegmann discuss the efforts of migrant dairy workers’ organization Migrant Justice to highlight the precarious labour conditions migrant dairy workers face and to push for the sector’s transformation. The organization’s approach combines the expansion of workers’ associational capacity and the forging of alliances with other actors — a successful strategy that can inspire other movements.

Migrant workers formed more than half of the total work force in the US’ dairy sector in 2014. According to the farmworker solidarity organization Farmworker Justice, “[…] if this work force were to disappear, US dairy production would decrease by 48.4 billion pounds while the cost of milk would increase by an estimated 90.4%.” This suggests that the low prices of dairy are subsidized by the workers of the sector, a result of their systematically suppressed human and labour rights. In practical terms, downward pressures on dairy prices translate into a range of exploitative arrangements including but not limited to long working hours, low wages, and frequent exposure to occupational hazards.

The development of more complex global and regional production networks in and beyond agri-business has raised pressing concerns about labour rights. Therefore, marshalling public support and fostering connections between various segments and actors in society seems to be a viable alternative for promoting social justice, given the erosion of power of labour unions caused by neoliberal processes. In this blog article, we talk about Migrant Justice, a Vermont-based migrant workers’ organization that is seeking to change the US’ dairy industry from the inside out.

Pursuing dignified working conditions

In Vermont, a state in the northeastern US in which dairy sales represent more than two thirds of agricultural sales, a coalition of dairy farm workers, labour activists, and consumers have encouragingly tackled some of these long-suppressed issues after the death of a young Mexican farmworker, Jose Obeth, in a preventable accident in 2009. Organized under the banner of Migrant Justice, Vermont’s migrant dairy workers — many of whom are undocumented — and their allies in civil society have been campaigning for migrant workers’ rights.

The Milk with Dignity program that Migrant Justice implemented in 2018 has sought to engender corporate responses that assume some responsibility for injustices and to guarantee decent labour conditions in the dairy chain. The programme incentivizes improved working conditions at the farm level through a premium paid by upstream buyers for milk produced under conditions that comply with an agreed labour standard monitored by workers and a third party, the Milk with Dignity Standards Council.

In a legal context hostile to workers in the agricultural sector and to migrant labour in particular, and in the absence of collective bargaining power, labour rights activists associated with Migrant Justice have adopted a multi-pronged approach to address abuses in the dairy value chain. They mobilize popular support from civil society to pressure commercial buyers of milk such as the supermarket chain Hannaford for more dignified labour conditions. This advocacy has led to the Milk with Dignity program’s institutionalized mechanisms for settling workers’ grievances.

The expansion of associational capacity for workers and the formation of coalitions with other actors have also catalysed the passing of progressive legislations. Especially the recent landmark passing of Vermont PRO Act not only widens workers’ collective action rights but also extends bargaining rights to domestic workers, a group of workers devoid of labour rights since 1940s. Previously, Migrant Justice also lobbied for the Education Equity for Immigrant Students bill, which now ensures that migrants have access to higher education regardless of their legal statuses.

By holding accountable corporate actors and positioning workers centrally in their programs, Migrant Justice’s approach goes a step ahead of typical consumer-focused conceptions of ethical consumption and corporate social responsibility.

Lobbying the big players

When a delegation of Migrant Justice arrived at the ISS for a conversation on “Lobbying Ahold for Milk with Dignity” this April, they had just returned from an action in Amsterdam. The delegation had travelled from the US at the occasion of the Annual General Meeting of Dutch–Belgian multinational Ahold Delhaize to highlight human rights violations in their dairy chain, where the executives of the company convened to celebrate € 88.65 billion in 2023 sales. Ahold Delhaize’s subsidiary, the Hannaford chain of supermarkets in the northeastern US, sources dairy from farms in Vermont, where workers originating from Mexico and Central America work in inhumane conditions.

Building a counterhegemonic current

A Migrant Justice delegate opened the conversation at the ISS with the remark that “[w]e might have happy cows, but without happy workers.” His remark showed that in the dairy industry, corporates actors often talk about happy cows, but that the working conditions of the labourers are rarely part of the agenda. The conversation was a lesson in how modern-day global value chains have evolved, how they lock in cheap and exploited labour and continue making enormous profit, and what creative and effective strategies are needed to defend human and labour rights in such conditions.

Celebrating successes

So far, Migrant Justice has celebrated several successes:

  1. The expansion of associational capacity for workers and the formation of coalitions with other actors, including civil societyactors, employers, and public representatives, has been one successful strategy in Vermont.
  2. While global ice-cream manufacturer Ben & Jerry’s is the only company who currently participates in the Milk with Dignity programme, this nevertheless means that one fifth of Vermont’s dairy industry is covered by the programme.
  3. Five years into the programme, over US$ 3 million has been invested in boosting workers’ wages and bonuses as well as in improvements to their labour and housing conditions.

Migrant Justice members showed us that improved outcomes for workers have been made possible by building a broad-based counterhegemonic current and articulating demands through both cooperation and contestation. Their experience is an encouraging example for innovative ways to achieve justice at work and making small, yet meaningful gains for workers and their families at the bottom of the ladder. They can prefigure significant change that places those currently constructed as social, political, and economic ‘nobodies’ at the centre of an alternative vision of agri-food chains.

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

Authors:

Hammal Aslam

Hammal Aslam is a PhD researcher at ISS. In his doctoral work he is focusing on rural transformations in Balochistan, Pakistan. Previously, he worked as a university lecturer and was actively involved with organizations that advocate for the rights of Afghan refugees in Pakistan.

Karin Astrid Siegmann is an Associate Professor in Labour and Gender Economics at ISS. In her research, she seeks to understand how precarious workers challenge and change the social, economic and political structures that marginalize labour.

Karin Astrid Siegmann

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How artisanal fishers across the world are trying to turn the tide by adapting to climate and anthropogenic change

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Artisanal fishers across the world are facing change from all sides. While these changes have been well documented, the intricacies of the adaptation strategies they are forced to assume remain underexplored. A group of researchers met at a workshop held at the ISS in December last year to discuss the challenges artisanal fishers face and what we can learn from their responses. In this blog article, Ilaha Abasli, Nina Swen, and Oane Visser highlight the key takeaways of the workshop, showing that while artisanal fishers are trying to turn the tide by adapting, the challenges they face at times may seem unsurmountable.

Artisanal fishing is a profession and livelihood profoundly impacted by climate and other anthropogenic changes (Mills, 2018; Ojea et al., 2020; Otero et al., 2022). Fishers across the globe are facing declining fish stocks, biodiversity loss, and shrinking spaces caused mainly by environmental pollution, changing sea temperatures, and fish migration, combined with increasingly restrictive ecological conservation policies. They are forced to adapt their practices, for example by changing how and where they fish.

The adaptation practices of artisanal fishers remain under-researched, however, which prompted a group of researchers at the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS) to organize a workshop in December last year titled ‘Artisanal fisheries, climate change and knowledge for adaptation’, which sought to bring together junior and senior researchers from the Netherlands and beyond who work on socio-ecological aspects of fisheries, climate change, and marine anthropologies.

We as workshop organizers focused on the following questions: How do fishers adapt to the changes they face? What role do collaboration and new technologies play? The first part of the workshop comprised a panel discussion among early-career researchers centred around artisanal fisheries, knowledge, and technology in the context of climate change adaptation. The second part of the workshop featured a plenary session where senior researchers discussed their research on artisanal fisheries. This was followed by a roundtable discussion with representatives from academia and beyond. This blog article shares the workshop’s key takeaways.

Is climate change the only cause of the challenges fishers face?

Artisanal fishers are among the first to notice climate and other anthropogenic changes, including fluctuations in sea levels and temperatures and changes in the quantity and quality of available fish, altered fish migration patterns, and the appearance or extinction of species.

Climate change and anthropogenic activities heavily impact artisanal fisheries. Ilaha Abasli, Nina Swen, and Oane Visser of the ISS showed that fisheries situated along the coast of the Caspian Sea for instance are threatened by oil and gas extraction that causes pollution, disrupts fish migration, and affects fish populations. Vitor Renck of Wageningen University & Research demonstrated that Brazilian artisanal fishers in Bahia face overfishing by larger vessels and inadequate regulation of fishing activities. And Yasmine Ahmed Hafez of SOAS University of London noted that at Lake Victoria, strict quota systems and environmental conservation measures exacerbate the negative impacts, limiting their access to certain areas and types of fish.

Climate and anthropogenic change is fundamentally changing how small-scale fisheries are operating.

 

The combination of climate and anthropogenic impacts on these water bodies lead to fundamental changes in the practices and livelihoods of small-scale fisheries. They are unable to maintain the same level of fishing in quantity and quality as they did previously and have to go further offshore in vessels that are ill suited to withstanding harsher conditions, risking their lives. These changes often affect their practices, income, and food sovereignty.

For instance, fishing communities must adapt to unfamiliar species, such as the invasive round goby in the Eastern Baltic Sea. Guntra Aistara of the Central European University talked about how such invasive species transition from being perceived as threats to becoming a valuable food source. It exemplifies how communities rapidly recognize their nutritional and social significance.

By sharing their skills, knowledge, and technology with each other, fishers are learning more about adapting.

Many of the case studies discussed during the workshop highlighted the exchange of knowledge and technology as a key adaptation strategy. Workshop participants drew on their research to discuss its definition and the ways in which it manifests. Artisanal fisheries in the Caspian Sea for example adapted to change through collective initiatives; these include pooling resources to acquire affordable technologies like GPS trackers and life vests, which facilitates navigation in deeper waters, and sharing skills, for example teaching others how to swim and how to repair and refurbish old technology and boats.

Along the Caspian coast, communication platforms and tools such as WhatsApp groups and gatherings at tea houses (cayxanas) served as a way of sharing information on weather events, fish migration patterns, and recipes for preparing fish previously considered “poor man’s food”. Aistara noted that fishers from the Eastern Baltic and Caspian Seas share a Soviet history that enable them to compare adaptation strategies. Both groups have adapted to the new conditions of the seas by becoming skilled in repairing, constructing, and repurposing materials and other existing technologies.

Knowledge- and technology-sharing practices are influenced by social norms and values.

Such cases reveal that while knowledge and technology sharing are widespread, these practices are influenced by community social norms and values. In specific communities, people for example uphold and respect territorial boundaries agreed upon by fishers and refrain from crossing into each other’s parts of the sea, even if it means catching fewer fish.

Ahmed Hafez highlighted the bottom-up adaptation process taking place at Lake Victoria and Egypt’s Nile Delta by reflecting on internal dynamics that (re)shape social norms and values such as race, migration, and gender. She explicitly focused on patriarchal norms, as men in the communities mostly dominate fisheries. Iddrisu Amadu and Ingrid Boas of Wageningen University & Research talked about how nomadic Fante fishing communities in Senegal and Gambia are adapting, focusing on the entanglements between social and material elements across land-sea spaces (1). They also stressed that mobilities and their challenging encounters within fisheries during adaptation transcend fixed land-sea boundaries.

Traditional knowledge driving local adaptation needs to be incorporated into official adaptation strategies.

Artisanal fishers in Bahia have successfully adapted technologies, actively using advanced GPS technology and various nets combined with traditional knowledge to navigate changing waters. Renck observed that the significance of adaptation to fishing communities (in Siribinha and Poças) extends beyond preserving fisheries; they are also actively involved in mangrove preservation initiatives in Brazil. Workshop participants agreed that documenting and incorporating the traditional knowledge of local fishers into adaptation strategies is of critical importance for fostering a dialogue between scientific and indigenous and local knowledge systems amidst environmental and anthropogenic changes.

Contextual factors have a bearing on collaboration but does not prevent it.

In several fishing communities, collaboration among fishers is facilitated or constrained by the geographical, political, legal, technological, cultural, and social context they live in.  Cornelie Quist of the International Collective in Support of Fishworkers (ICSF) for example shared that despite their diversity, artisanal fishing communities have mobilised nationally and globally in manifold ways to push for recognition and prompt political change through policies and treaties. The most significant achievement in this respect is the endorsement in 2014 of the International Guidelines for Securing Sustainable Small-Scale Fisheries in the Context of Food Security and Poverty Alleviation following their lobbying efforts. Quist noted that these guidelines are important for promoting a human rights approach in fisheries policies.

Fishers are adapting, but what does the future hold?

A critical reflection followed on the limitations of adaptation to climate change. Participants highlighted unease among fishers in the adaptation process, particularly because of its high costs for artisanal fisheries already unacknowledged by governance regimes and crowded out by industrial aqua fisheries. And despite pooling resources, adaptation through technology and collective action is only sometimes feasible due to ecological and governance limitations.

For instance, at Lake Victoria and in the Nile Delta, artisanal fishers are forced to abandon their fishing grounds due to resource depletion and relocate further along the river. Similarly, in the case of the Caspian Sea, some artisanal fishers have abandoned their vessels and have become taxi drivers to provide for their families. Joeri Scholtens of the University of Amsterdam commented that fishers working in the Indian Ocean are subjected to a shrinking space for adaptation, with smaller fisheries being outcompeted by bigger industrial vessels.

Additionally, adaptation practices are influenced and disrupted by evolving border regulations and stricter governmental policies prioritising environmental preservation or industrial activities, such as imposing quotas, fines, and territorial markings. Scholtens demonstrated how the Indian government’s Blue Revolution and Blue Economy policies from 1960 to 2020 squeezed out many of the small fisheries and reinforced the pre-existing vulnerabilities of these groups.

We need to work towards preserving traditional knowledge systems and better understanding and recognising their role in modern adaptation strategies.

All in all, the workshop sparked extensive discussions and highlighted the cultural, economic, and social importance of artisanal fishing. Moreover, it highlighted the significance of fishers’ knowledge in addressing the challenges posed by climate and anthropogenic change. The conversation also discussed the interplay between moral and legal boundaries and associated imaginaries. As Aistara aptly summarised, the future holds manifold uncertainties for artisanal fishing, influenced by climate and economic changes and conditioned by political regimes and internal dynamics.

(1) This case explored the intricate ways that fluid relations binding mobile fishery practices (including women involved in market and land practices) of the Fante on land and sea in a transnational context enable adaptive strategies, challenging conventional understandings of cross-border land and sea-based fishery mobilities.

 

We would like to thank all participants for their thoughtful and engaging contributions:

  • Callie Berman (PhDResearcher, Cambridge University);
  • Cornelie Quist (Sociologist; Member of the International Collective in Support of Fishworkers);
  • Guntra Aistara (Associate Professor, Department of Environmental Sciences and Policy, Central European University);
  • Ilaha Abasli and Nina Swen (PhD researchers, International Institute of Social Studies);
  • Joeri Scholtens (Assistant Professor, Department of Geography, Planning and International Development Studies, University of Amsterdam);
  • Ingrid Boas and Iddrisu Amadu (respectively Associate Professor and PhD researcher, Environmental Policy Group at Wageningen University);
  • Matteo Lattuada (Post-Doctoral researcher, Technische Universität Braunschweig);
  • Oane Visser (Associate Professor, International Institute of Social Studies);
  • Per Knutsson (Senior Lecturer, Director of Center for Sea and Society, University of Gothenburg).
  • Vitor Renck ( Post-Doctoral researcher, Federal University of São Paulo and Wageningen University); and
  • Yasmine Ahmed Hafez (PhD researcher, SOAS University of London).

List of presentations:

Abasli, I., N. Swen, N & O. Visser (2023) ‘Climate change in  Caspian Sea, small-fisheries and climate adaptation’. Presentation at the ISS Workshop ‘Artisanal Fisheries, Climate Change and Knowledge for Adaptation Workshop’, 8 December 2023.

Ahmed Hafez, Y. (2023) ‘A lakeview on Nile politics: A socio-environmental analysis of fishing in Lake Victoria and the Egyptian Delta lakes’. Presentation at the ISS Workshop ‘Artisanal Fisheries, Climate Change and Knowledge for Adaptation Workshop’, 8 December 2023.

Aistara, G. (2023) ‘ “The ugly guest who’s come to stay”. Round Goby from foe to food on the Eastern Baltic Coast’. Presentation at the ISS Workshop ‘Artisanal Fisheries, Climate Change and Knowledge for Adaptation Workshop’, 8 December 2023.

Amadu, I. and I. Boas ( 2023) ‘Fisherfolk navigating west African borderland in the context of changing environments’. Presentation at the ISS Workshop ‘Artisanal Fisheries, Climate Change and Knowledge for Adaptation Workshop’, 8 December 2023.

Quist, C. (2023). Roundtable Discussion, ‘Artisanal Fisheries, Climate Change and Knowledge for Adaptation Workshop’, 8 December 2023.

Renck, V. (2023) ‘Varieties of expertise in local communities. Insights from artisanal fishing villages in Brazil’. Presentation at the ISS Workshop ‘Artisanal Fisheries, Climate Change and Knowledge for Adaptation Workshop’, 8 December 2023.

Scholtens, J. (2023) ‘Blue revolutions, shrinking spaces and adaptation of small- scale fishers in the Indian Ocean Region.’ Presentation at the ISS Workshop ‘Artisanal Fisheries, Climate Change and Knowledge for Adaptation Workshop’, 8 December 2023.

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

About the authors:

                                                                          

Oane Visser is an associate professor, Political Ecology research group, ISS) studies the role of technology in agrifood and the environment, for instance in precision agriculture, greenhouses  and urban agriculture.

Ilaha Abasli is a PhD researcher at the International Institute of Social Studies (Erasmus University Rotterdam). Her research interests include the circular economy in the Global South, especially its social dimension, and fostering sustainability through science-driven and participatory policies.

Nina Swen is a Ph.D. researcher at the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS). Nina’s research focuses on knowledge, technologies, and human-environmental relations in contexts of pollution and extractivism, with a regional focus on the Amazon.

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What can the frugal innovation debate learn from the Norm Life Cycle debate?

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There is a strong case for making innovations more frugal. The world needs innovations which are sparing in the use of resources and affordable by poor people. They matter especially in poor countries but also for people in rich countries, as frugal innovations can help us to push towards a more sustainable future. Frugal innovations are therefore relevant for most of the world’s population. The problem is that frugal innovation so far remains a fringe phenomenon.  The question addressed in this blog is how frugal innovation can become the norm rather than remain the exception.

Norm Life Cycle Illustration

To address this question, we draw on the Norm Life Cycle framework because it helps us to unpack the time dimension. It creates the mental space for detecting insights into process and sequence. This blog shows how the Norm Life Cycle framework helps to understand how idealistic and committed actors – going against the tide – can bring a new norm towards a tipping point. Once it reaches this tipping point, it starts to become the new normal. Then also those who earlier dismissed this new norm will start to adhere to the new norm, even if with fits and starts. A final stage is when such a new norm becomes internalised in a society through policy and law making.

Norm life cycle based on Illustration in Savarimuthu and Cranefield(2019)

In what follows we present the Norm Life Cycle framework in more detail and then indicate how it can move us forward.

Three stages 

The framework was developed by Martha Finnemore and Kathryn Sikkink in their article International norm dynamics and political change. It investigates how the norms for what is acceptable behaviour in a society change over time. Its key propositions are as follows. In the first stage of norm emergence, altruism, empathy, idealism and commitment are seen as the main motives for so called ‘norm entrepreneurs’ to push for a new norm. This new norm goes against the tide of ‘how things have always been done’ and is initially dismissed by mainstream stakeholders as going against common sense and the interests of the elites, being impractical, going to drive up costs, etc. An often-used example is the abolition of child labour. While child labour was once considered a normal and convenient practice in many societies in earlier centuries, at some point ‘enlightened’ activists began to rally against child labour. In the early stages these activists fought an uphill battle, and it took them lots of effort and perseverance to get the upper hand and reach what in the Norm Life Cycle framework is called the tipping point when such a new norm becomes mainstreamed.

This is called the second stage of norm cascading where it becomes ‘the right thing to do’ for more mainstream stakeholders beyond the idealistic norm entrepreneurs. Even less convinced stakeholders may start claiming they adopt the new norm in order to minimize the risk of being considered a laggard or ‘out of touch with the new reality’. Effectively, the societal license to operate has tipped and a new norm has become established. Another typical dimension of an established new norm is that it becomes difficult to imagine that such a norm did not exist before, like in the case of the broad conviction that child labour should never have been allowed.

The third and final stage is norm internalization. This is when the new norm becomes consolidated in policy and law making as it is considered to represent a generally accepted minimal level of legitimate behaviour. Here it is important to note that this implies that policy and law makers tend to follow norm setting in society instead of spearheading the establishment of new norms.

The key actors 

What does this imply for the frugal innovation debate? In order to show how this framework helps us with mainstreaming frugal innovation thinking, we need to populate these stages with actors. We distinguish between two types of actors. Those who develop frugal innovations and those who facilitate the process.

Amongst those who actually develop frugal innovations, we can identify three types of norm entrepreneurs. The first group consists of people trying to creatively solve a bottleneck in their own community. They are not primarily motivated by the prospects of subsequently making a business based on their innovation. They recognise a problem and see a technical or organizational solution, which is affordable and saves energy or other resources. The second category are social entrepreneurs and NGOs who develop frugal innovations – sometimes with local stakeholders – to help address a Sustainable Development Goal, like access to electricity through a solar-panel driven local mini-grid. These two types of norm entrepreneurs embrace frugal innovation thinking as a way to tackle developmental challenges. The third type of entrepreneurs develop frugal innovations to enhance their competitiveness and profits. They may do this through, for example, simplifying and stripping products, services and systems from superfluous frills, using fewer and possibly more renewable resources.

Next to those actors who actually develop frugal innovations, we identify four types of facilitators. These are researchers, educators, early adopters and policy makers.  Let us start with the researchers. An increasingly multi-disciplinary academic debate is emerging among researchers about the importance and relevance of frugal innovation. A recent example is a multi-disciplinary Handbook on Frugal Innovation, published by Edward Elgar. Educators further spread the message further, for instance business schools which offer case studies of frugal innovation in their courses for future executives. Another example is the popular module on Frugal Innovation for Sustainable Global Development offered to bachelor students from Leiden-Delft-Erasmus Universities in the Netherlands. This module presents frugal innovation as a crucial component in broader sustainability thinking for the next generation.

The third category of facilitators are so-called early adopters, a term that comes from marketing science. They make frugal innovations fashionable, demonstrating a lifestyle that others can then aspire to. Typically, they are younger people with high levels of income and education, for whom greener and more frugal consumption patterns are already a more established norm. A final facilitating actor are law and policy makers. In the basic Norm Life Cycle framework, they come to prominence only in the final stage of internalisation, where they further consolidate a new norm in the law and in policies. In principle, however, they can also play a role earlier in the process, as discussed in the next section.

Moving forward 

What stage are we currently in? De facto we are in the norm emergence stage. However, advertising creates the illusion that we are already in the norm cascading stage. ‘Responsible resource use’ may be ubiquitous in advertising but not yet in reality. In this concluding section we indicate how the various actors can help the progression from norm emergence to norm cascading.

In the present norm emergence stage, norm entrepreneurs that actually develop and implement frugal innovations are crucial to show how such innovations benefit poorer people while being sparing in the use of resources. The facilitating actors are also crucial as their role is to showcase these examples and create the conditions for the broader public and policy makers to grasp the importance of frugal innovations. The research community, one of the facilitating actors, showed recently an encouraging sign of getting closer to the tipping point towards norm cascading. In its December 2023 editorial, the journal Nature apologizes for neglecting frugal innovation research and encourages policy makers, scientists and journal editors to ‘not just to make do, but to make amends’ and make frugal innovation a mainstream concern. (Nature, Vol 624, 7 Dec 2023, p. 8).

The question is how to achieve this. Here we benefit from the step taken in the previous section in which we populated the Norm Life Cycle framework with the relevant actors.  Now we need to take this one step further and consider these actors not in isolation but as potential collaborators in a common project. The relevance of doing this was stressed in our previous blog which emphasized the role of coalitions in promoting renewable energy.

There are signs that some policy actors (facilitators of frugal innovation!) are starting to join hands and build alliances with like-minded stakeholders. Some policy makers at the provincial and European levels have been pro-active in generating interest in frugal innovation thinking, and in trying to convince their colleagues and political chiefs of its importance. Such frontrunners are important allies in attempts to weld stronger coalitions with like-minded norm entrepreneurs and other facilitators to push towards the key tipping point towards norm cascading.

Still, as a diverse community of facilitators, we need to become more strategic about the need to really act in tandem as norm entrepreneurs. As shown in our previous blog mentioned above, one can go further and build selective and temporary coalitions with stakeholders who may well have other ulterior objectives but would lend support to the initiative in question. This also applies here. While actors may have very different motives for promoting frugal innovation, we need to pragmatically form alliances to create critical mass.  For example, actors whose prime concern is the fostering of local economic development or the promotion of Small and Medium Enterprise could become allies in supporting frugal innovation projects and policies. Operationally, we can start with developing a set of appealing pitches for various audiences of why and how frugal innovation will help to address some of the grand challenges of our time. Further sector- and region-specific research is needed to substantiate and concretize such pitches.

There is an alternative route from norm emergence to norm cascading in which early adopters play the key role. Let us explain. So far, we have assumed that the norms emerge in the context of poor communities. Indeed, frugal innovation research has tended to unearth examples of innovations which are resource saving and are affordable by the poor from the start. However, we need to recognise that some innovations are expensive to start with and become affordable by the poor later in the product life cycle. This is why we introduced the category of early adopters as facilitators of frugal innovation. These early adopters tend to be young, rich and well-educated, and they demonstrate a sustainable lifestyle and make it fashionable. This matters because the more others aspire to such lifestyles the faster the decline in prices and the greater the affordability by the not-so-well off. Researchers can contribute by showing examples of communities where frugal innovation thinking – taking this route – has become the way to move forward. In other words, a concern with the dynamics of frugal innovation leads us to also consider this route from norm emergence to norm cascading.

As stressed in the beginning, the Norm Life Cycle framework helps us to unpack the time dimension and creates the mental space for exploring processes and sequences. We have seen that bringing about a cascading effect is a huge challenge. Once frugal innovation reaches the norm cascading stage, policy and law makers are crucial to further consolidate this in the norm internalization stage. Moreover, the early adopters can pave the way towards norm internalization by setting the example of more frugal consumption patterns, out of choice, not necessity. For this norm internalization to occur it would benefit from a vision that is aspirational and expresses both the resource saving and affordability of our ambition. We propose ‘frugal prosperity for all’ as the vision to strive for.

This article was first published here

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

About the authors:

Hubert Schmitz is a renowned development economist specializing in sustainable industrialization, investment politics, and green transformations with 40 years of expertise.

Peter Knorringa, is a Professor at Erasmus University Rotterdam, and specializes in the multifaceted influence of businesses on development.

 

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Four ways to boost investment in women-led small businesses

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Oxfam’s conversations and projects with entrepreneurs across the globe reveal a big gender gap in access to finance, says Windy Massabni. Women in business tell us that better support for them will include loan guarantees, alternative credit scoring systems and building the gender awareness of lenders.

Women selling mangos on the streets of Oyam, Uganda (picture: Windy Massabni)

“In Uganda where I come from, women still do not have the right of inheritance. All the assets and properties go to the male heir,” explains Marion Etiang, the founder of the Shea Care company in Uganda. “It’s up to men to give what they deem fit to the female in the family. Typically, when a woman goes to the bank to seek a loan for her business, the bank would require collateral which is often asset-based, even if she has the cash flow.”

Marion highlights a major root cause that holds women-owned businesses back: discriminatory gender norms over inheritance capital, capital that is therefore only available to men, not women, to grow their businesses. Such regressive gender norms lie behind the glaring gender gap in access to business finance.

BRINGING INVESTORS CLOSER TO WOMEN-LED SMES

In the realm of entrepreneurship, there’s often a disconnect between investors and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). While much effort is dedicated to making women-led SMEs “investment-ready”, little attention is paid to fostering “SME-readiness” or openness among investors or financial institutions. This oversight perpetuates inequalities in access to finance, particularly for women entrepreneurs.

But what if we could bring investors closer to women-led SMEs? In a survey conducted as part of Oxfam Novib’s project to support SMEs, the Impact SME Development programme, lack of collateral or assets was cited by women-owned businesses as a major obstacle. We also found that while 57% of businesses owned by men and 68% with mixed gender ownership sought external finance, only 46% of female-owned businesses did so.

Interestingly, women-owned SMEs had a 95% success rate in securing external funding, compared to 77% for male-owned and 93% for mixed-gender-owned businesses. This suggests that women entrepreneurs may be more reserved in seeking external funding. This is backed up by research by the Financial Alliance for Women, which found that women who are customers of financial service providers were more “risk conscious” then men, and more likely to sacrifice a potential upside in exchange for lower risk or less debt.

So how can we support women entrepreneurs to get the finance they deserve and that can help their firms thrive? Tackling root causes such as sexist inheritance customs and laws will of course be crucial for long-term change – but alongside this the women we talked to pointed out how NGOs and other support organisations can take action now to help them in four broad areas.

1. LOAN GUARANTEE SCHEMES

Many women emphasised the potential effectiveness of long-term guarantee schemes and partnerships. These local guarantees effectively protect financial institutions from losses if borrowers default, incentivising them to lend to women-owned businesses, even without collateral.

Abrar Shahriyar Mridha, Enterprise Development Project Manager at Oxfam GB, oversees a multi-country programme providing access to sustainable capital to help SMEs grow, and says such loan guarantees can transform the prospects for women-owned enterprises. “Partnering with banks and financial institutions gives us leverage to access women-led MSMEs, making them more bankable. These enterprises have created almost 18,500 jobs for women and reached 55,000 farmers, with 49% women in leadership positions.” Abrar’s example vividly illustrates the transformative effect that guarantee schemes can have on women-owned enterprises, fostering economic empowerment and gender equality.

2. ALTERNATIVE CREDIT SCORING – AND INCLUDING “SOCIAL PERFORMANCE”

Women are more reliable borrowers then men. Financial Alliance Women found that men are far more likely to be failing to keep up with repayments than women. Yet women continue to be underserved when it comes to accessing loans.

Different ways of assessing credit-worthiness  can help. That means analysing cash flow and business performance, rather than relying solely on traditional collateral-based assessments.

What could make a big difference is looking not just at conventional metrics but at the social capital created. Hassan Hajam, the Executive Director of Platform Impact, the Impact SME programme’s main partner in Cambodia, says: “Investors should design innovative, alternative financial instruments for impact-driven SMEs We have to move away from the typical balance sheet, profit-and loss statement, cash flow etc.. by integrating social and environmental dimensions at the end of the profit-and-loss statement if we want to see real impact thrive.”

By prioritising investments in businesses that can show such “social performance” – supporting gender equality and empowering women economically – investors can address disparities in access to finance.

3. FLEXIBLE PRODUCTS WITH SMALLER LOANS

An often-overlooked aspect of addressing gender inequality in access to finance is reassessing the size of investments. Many investors typically focus on offering large loans, often exceeding $1 million, which may not align with the needs of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), especially those owned by women. These businesses frequently require smaller investments ranging from $100,000 to $500,000 to scale effectively.

Recognizing this disparity, initiatives such as our newly launched Pepea Fund aim to bridge the gap by providing smaller loans with a gender-lens tailored to SMEs, in this case with a focus on climate change mitigation. While we acknowledge that smaller investments may pose higher costs for investors, it’s imperative to take account of the social impact of such investments alongside the financial returns. We offer “mezzanine” loans, flexible loans with flexible terms that do not necessarily require tangible assets as security. This flexibility makes them more accessible to women entrepreneurs who may lack traditional collateral, such as property or equipment.

4. GENDER DIVERSITY AND GENDER AWARENESS IN FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS.

Ensuring lenders have a gender-diverse team is also crucial in addressing the biases and barriers faced by women entrepreneurs. This requires gender balance at all levels of a financial institution – from the executive level to front line staff.

At the ANDE x Sasin Business School Women Impact Entrepreneurship Day 2024, one business leader shared her experience of intimidation while applying for a loan at a bank.

As the head of a sustainable packaging company in Thailand, she had all the necessary documentation for the loan and met all the requirements, yet faced extensive questioning from the predominantly male staff. She felt compelled to prove her legitimacy, showcase her qualifications, and justify her ability to manage her business alongside motherhood.

This unsettling encounter underscores the need both for gender balance and for gender-sensitivity training for bank staff so they can better serve women. Alongside this lenders  will need a gender-lens investment strategy, fostering an environment where women entrepreneurs feel respected and supported, without encountering undue scrutiny or bias.

BUT WE ALSO NEED TO KEEP CAMPAIGNING ON ROOT CAUSES

Initiatives such as guarantee schemes, alternative credit scoring methods, and promoting gender diversity in fund management teams are essential steps in bridging the gender gap in SME financing. However, while these efforts do help alleviate immediate barriers, they do not address the root causes of gender disparities.

NGOs such as Oxfam and enterprise support organisations have a crucial role to play, not just in providing support through initiatives like those above, but also in advocating for policies and practices that tackle root causes, that change norms and systems and lay the foundations for true gender equity in access to finance.

This article was first published on Oxfam’s Views & Voices blog

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

About the author:

Windy Massabni is an Impact SME development specialist based at Oxfam Novib in the Hague. She coordinates the influencing, learning and training component of the programme in all countries.