GENDER RESPONSIVE CLIMATE ADAPTATION: AN INTERSECTIONAL ANALYSIS IN ITALY AND SWEDEN

Climate change deepens existing social inequalities, and the ways communities perceive and interpret these inequalities shape both expectations of fairness and responses to climate policy. While international and European frameworks increasingly call for gender-responsive adaptation, their translation into local governance often remains partial and uneven. This study investigates how gendered and intersectional inequalities are understood, negotiated, and emotionally interpreted in the pre-policy stages of municipal flood adaptation in Italy and Sweden. Focusing on informal processes where meanings of justice, inclusion, and responsibility are formed, the research examines how everyday governance practices—long before formal policy design—shape perceptions of vulnerability and influence adaptation priorities. The project departs from the observation that gender responsiveness is frequently treated as a technical exercise of policy integration rather than as a relational and contested process grounded in local contexts. By analyzing how municipal actors, civil society groups, and residents interpret climate risks and fairness, the study identifies how emotional and moral economies emerge around adaptation decisions. These affective narratives—linked to trust, legitimacy, frustration, or resignation—play a central role in determining whose vulnerabilities become visible, whose knowledge is valued, and which adaptation strategies gain traction. The research employs a comparative qualitative design across four flood-exposed municipalities: Bologna and Naples in Italy, and Karlstad and Gothenburg in Sweden. This Most Different Systems Design enables exploration of how distinct institutional cultures, socio-economic conditions, and participatory traditions shape interpretations of inequality and justice. Through discourse analysis of national and municipal climate plans and semi-structured interviews with municipal officers, NGOs, and residents, the study maps how gendered vulnerabilities and justice claims are framed and practiced. Feminist Political Ecology provides a lens for understanding relational power and everyday governance, while Procedural Justice offers an evaluative framework to assess access, representation, influence, transparency, and empowerment. Preliminary findings suggest that Swedish municipalities exhibit more structured mechanisms for recognizing gendered vulnerability, whereas Italian contexts rely heavily on informal civic agency, producing different emotional and moral responses to adaptation. By foregrounding how inequality is perceived and felt in adaptation governance, this research contributes to debates on climate justice, highlighting the need to understand adaptation not only as a technical challenge but as a deeply social and affective one.