Intersektionalitet för klimatsolidaritet - Om klimatdiskussionen i Bolivia och vikten av analytisk komplexitet

Abstract

Climate change illustrates the entanglement of “society” and “nature”, and the problems associated with this binary division. For humans, climate change plays out on a social arena. In light of climate change, pre-existing power structures based on categorizations such as gender, class and ethnicity may be reinforced or challenged. I argue that intersectionality, developed within feminist theory, is a useful tool for analyzing the power dynamics of climate change. Feminist research on climate change is still small, and an intersectional perspective has not been applied to the topic to any significant extent. The intersectional framework that I propose is constructivist; even though social categories are highly relevant in their specific contexts, they are subject to constant reconstruction and negotiation, and thereby inherently fluid. This stance enables identifying social categorizations as crucial for how people relate to climate change, comprehending how climate change may (re) construct social categorizations and power dynamics, and finding motivation for engagement and solidarity beyond identity politics. To illustrate how an intersectional perspective is useful in this regard, I present the example of Bolivia. Bolivia is an interesting case because of its recent political development, in which a left-wing assembly of indigenous movements and workers’ unions has reached government power, and because of the vivid debate on climate change within the country. The government has promoted a radical discourse in international climate negotiations, but in turn been criticized by their own supporters for not living up to their high moral standards domestically. In these debates, climate and environment issues have been framed mainly in relation to the categories of ethnicity and class, while for instance gender has until recently remained quite invisible. Climate change and environment debates have thus become a stage for construction and negotiation of social categories in Bolivia. In my article, I provide an analysis of this situation, based on an intersectional understanding.