Course Objective:
The course aims to understand effects of climate change on different gender in South and Southeast Asia. The course will also discuss how this relates to Forced Migration and Displacements. It begins with posits that men and women are affected differently as a result of climate change and their coping mechanisms are different. In extreme cases it leads to their displacements. Even displacements affect them differently.
Learning Outcomes:
The student on completion of this course would be able to:
- Explain the different forms of climate change and its effects on gender.
- Identify international policies on climate change and disasters including the Cancun Declaration; the Sendai Framework on DRR; IPCC and the Global Compact on Migrants and SDG’s pertaining to Gender, climate change, work and forced migration.
- Formulate a basic research plan that addresses challenges in conducting a research on gender; climate change and forced migration.
Pre-requisite: none
Course Outline:
Contemporary global events of population movement triggered by wars, environmental disasters, conflict, and economic challenges merit a new understanding and new responses. Population flow has increasingly become complex in contemporary times- marked by massive movements of people across international and local borders – setting up of refugee colonies, giving rise to increased number of migrant workers, especially women migrant workers, and the forcibly displaced, movements across deserts and seas, the pandemic induced border closing- and the long march back home resulting into several hapless deaths only show us the conundrum surrounding contemporary population movement. With massive and mixed population movements taking place simultaneously, categories get enmeshed - for instance, refugees, asylum seekers, labour migrants, climate refugees, and stateless persons- all get rolled into one massive and mixed population movement signifying major shifts in the global discourse of geo-politics and social contexts of borders, boundaries and nation making.
The understanding that environmental degradation resulting in precarious climatic conditions the world over, producing not only massive global warming, but also mass displacements of particularly vulnerable population groups, is a phenomenon that is vexing all who are concerned about effects of migration. South Asia and South-East Asia encompassing a population of over 2.59 billion people is one of the densest regions of the world. Besides known for its major migratory movements both within the region and globally, South and South-East Asia also is home to large numbers of internally displaced persons induced by climate displacement. It is also the most disaster-prone areas of the world. And therefore, the number of people at risk of displacement is also extremely high. Each year thousands are displaced singularly for environmental disasters like floods, glacial lake outbursts, storm surges, droughts, cyclones, coastal erosion, groundwater depletion, sea level rise or climate change. Among those most at risk are women, children, members of LGBTQ community, and old and infirm.
- Teacher: Prof. Paula Banerjee.