Gender and climate change adaptation in South Africa: a case study of vulnerability and adaptation experiences of local black African women to flood impacts within the eThekwini Metropolitan Municipality.
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Date
2020
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Abstract
This dissertation contributes towards the scholarly debate on gender and climate change
adaptation. This is done by exploring the vulnerability and adaptation experiences of local
Black Africans to impacts of floods within eThekwini metropolitan municipality, KwaZulu-
Natal Province, South Africa. Specifically, the discourse in the dissertation is framed within
the context of being a local Black South African woman living in rural/informal flood-prone
area of Durban and having to negotiate everyday lived experiences while adapting to impacts
of floods and other climate-related disasters. The dissertation is premised on the assumption
that local women’s experiences of vulnerability and adaptation to climate-related impacts is
significantly influenced by socioeconomic, cultural, sociopolitical, gendered, racial and other
significant factors of power relations largely operating within the local context.
The dissertation applied a qualitative case study approach to research. Primary data for the study was collected through semi-structured in-depth interviews and focus group discussions
with Black women from Inanda, Ntuzuma, KwaMashu (INK) and uMlazi localities of
eThekwini metropolitan municipality. Purposive sampling was used to select local Black
women who have had experiences adapting to flood impacts within the area. Personnel from
the Environmental Planning and Climate Protection Department, ECPCD of the eThekwini
metropolitan municipality were also interviewed. Data collection processes sought to garner
data relating to the women’s experiences of vulnerability and adaptation to flood impacts, as
well as how the municipality addresses gendered vulnerability of Black women within the
municipality to floods and other climate change-related disasters. The study adopted a thematic
content analysis and was informed by three theoretical lenses: feminist political ecology,
critical realism and the Theory of Change. These theories enabled an understanding of how gender intersects with race and class to shape Black women’s experiences as they adapt to
climate impacts, as assessed within the contexts presented in this study.
The study found that while Black women negotiate their climate adaptation experiences from
their varied individual standpoints, their overall adaptation experiences are further shaped by
factors related to poverty, lack of ‘intentionally gendered’ approach to adaptation governance
in the municipality, as well as socio-cultural normalisation of patriarchal tendencies by men
against women which heightens the vulnerability Black women experience in adapting to flood
impacts. To address the contextual vulnerability experiences of the women in the context of
the study, the study recommends a collaborative governance model that intentionally seeks to
address gendered vulnerability from the women’s varied contextual standpoints.
Description
Doctoral Degree. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban.