The Politics of Gender Sovereignties in the Global South

The global south is ravaged by conflict, climate change induced disaster-risk and general decay in democratic functioning of rule of law (WJP Rule of Law Index, 2022). In the proposed section for the conference, we present an exploration of the notion of gendered sovereignties in the global south. Gender sovereignties are manifested through access to rights but also through access to material resources, and governance within the communities. It is not only manifested by what law permits, but also through community practices, monopolies and practical application of upholding the law. This section seeks to look beyond the notions of gender equality, intersectionality, transformative justice, and global solidarity, which seek to determine gender in collaboration with other identities. Here our interest is to explore how subjection and self-formation is consistently informed through agential interaction with mammoth systemic problems. We explore questions of gender rights in Iran and Afghanistan to understand how women’s identities are produced through experiencing systems that are increasingly political rather than inclusive. Additionally we explore how the rule of law and international development agenda are usually exploited to produce discursively abusive systemic violence. We will also explore how climatic, environmental and man-made disasters transform and challenge the systems within which gender identities are formulated. In this section, we will also review mitigation strategies and limitations of research methodologies in addressing the complex notion of gender sovereignties. In Georgia, climate change poses a significant challenge to existing gender inequalities because economic work generally associated with women such as collection of water, food and care responsibilities are increasingly affected by climate-change as limited resources become harder to access. We are better poised to explore the role gender plays in climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies, and exploring the links between gender-based violence and climate-related conflicts in order to develop inclusive and gender-responsive policy solutions. Furthermore, we explore mitigation strategies that broadly rely on ecosystem-based disaster risk reduction, as a sustainable approach for disaster risks reduction. There is a surge of DRR literature that indicates the importance of integrating ecosystem based DRR approaches into existing disaster risk reduction methods. However, this literature predominantly relies on scientific evidence generated by external stakeholders, primarily scientists employing scientific methodologies. Unfortunately, there is a notable dearth of participatory research that provides community-based evidence to support the implementation of EBDRR. There is a significant lack of participatory research that provides community-based evidence to support the implementation of ecosystem-based DRR. The section will explore how despite women’s knowledge and appreciation of ecosystem-based DRR, women are significantly opposed to the idea of implementing ecosystem-based concepts for DRR.