1st Edition

Gender and Natural Resource Management Livelihoods, Mobility and Interventions

Edited By Bernadette P. Resurreción, Rebecca Elmhirst Copyright 2008
    284 Pages
    by Routledge

    284 Pages
    by Routledge

    This book is about the gender dimensions of natural resource exploitation and management, with a focus on Asia. It explores the uneasy negotiations between theory, policy and practice that are often evident within the realm of gender, environment and natural resource management, especially where gender is understood as a political, negotiated and contested element of social relationships. It offers a critical feminist perspective on gender relations and natural resource management in the context of contemporary policy concerns: decentralized governance, the elimination of poverty and the 'mainstreaming' of gender. 

    Through a combination of strong conceptual argument and empirical material from a variety of political economic and ecological contexts (including Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Nepal, Thailand and Vietnam), the book examines gender-environment linkages within shifting configurations of resource access and control. The book will serve as a core resource for students of gender studies and natural resource management, and as supplementary reading for a wide range of disciplines including geography, environmental studies, sociology and development. It also provides a stimulating collection of ideas for professionals looking to incorporate gender issues within their practice in sustainable development. 

    Published with IDRC.

    Introduction 

    1. Gender, Environment and Natural Resource Management: New Dimensions, New Debates 

    Rebecca Elmhirst and Bernadette P. Resurreccion 

    Part I: Contextualizing Gender and Natural Resource Governance in Neo-liberal Times 

    2. Gender, Doi Moi and Coastal Resource Management in the Red River Delta,Vietnam 

    Hue Le Thi Van 

    3. Intensification Regimes in Village-Based Silk Production, Northeast Thailand: Boosts (and Challenges) to Women's Authority 

    Barbara Earth, Patcharin Lapanun, Nit Tassniyom, Benjawan Narasaj, Patcharin Ruchuwararak and Soutthanome Keola 

    4. Multi-Local Livelihoods, Natural Resource Management and Gender in Upland Indonesia 

    Rebecca Elmhirst 

    5. Women's Land Rights in Rural China: Current Situation and Likely Trends 

    Linxiu Zhang, Chengfang Liu, Haomiao Liu and Lerong Yu 

    Part II: Gender Interventions: Targeting Women in Sustainable Development Projects 

    6. Autonomy Reconstituted: Social and Gender Implications of Resettlement on the Orang Asli of Peninsular Malaysia 

    Carol Yong Ooi Lin 

    7. Do Women-Only Approaches to Natural Resource Management Help Women? The Case of Community Forestry in Nepal 

    Marlene Buchy and Bimala Rai 

    8. Gender, Legitimacy and Patronage-driven Participation: Fisheries Management in the Tonle Sap Great Lake, Cambodia 

    Bernadette P. Resurreccion 

    9. Gender, Microcredit and Conservation at Caohai: An Attempt to Link Women, Conservation and Development 

    Melinda Herrold-Menzies 

    Part III: Responding to Intervention: Gender, Knowledge and Authority 

    10. Insider/Outsider Politics: Implementing Gendered Participation in Water Resource Management 

    Kathleen O'Reilly 

    11. Gathered Indigenous Vegetables in Mainland Southeast Asia: A Gender Asset 

    Lisa Leimar Price and Britta Ogle 

    12. Religion, Gender and the Environment in Asia: Moving Beyond the Essentialisms of Spiritual Ecofeminism 

    Emma Tomalin

    Biography

    Bernadette P. Resurrección is Senior Research Fellow of the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) and adjunct Associate Professor of Gender and Development Studies at the Asian Institute of Technology, Thailand. 

    Rebecca Elmhirst is Principal Lecturer in Human Geography at the University of Brighton, UK.

    "There has been no book published in the last decade that takes a synoptic look at gender-environment issues while bridging theoretical, policy and practice concerns. This book will both fill that gap and bring the debate up to date."Melissa Leach, Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, UK 

    "I will use it in the course I teach on gender and natural resources. The book will also be excellent for more general courses on environmental or natural resource management that want to include a gender perspective."Margreet Zwarteveen, Wageningen University, The Netherlands 

    "It covers case studies from South and Southeast Asia providing rich and insightful issues in natural resource management that will be of great benefit to scholars, researchers and graduate students... It re-invigorates gender as a powerful analytical concept. In the book, the editors set out to put politics – issues of power, access and control – firmly back into gender analyses. They have been successful."Water Alternatives