Applying intersectionality to climate hazards: a theoretically informed study of wildfire in northern Saskatchewan

ABSTRACT

Impacts and losses as a result of climate hazards are experienced unevenly across communities and can prove devastating to the health and well-being of local residents. Contextual approaches for understanding vulnerability and adaptation have focused on why diverse individuals and groups experience the effects of climate change differently, while values-based approaches place emphasis on identifying the subjective values individuals and communities wish to preserve. Both approaches contribute to locally responsive adaptation, but are rarely applied simultaneously. In this paper, we propose intersectionality as a framework that links and builds upon contextual and values-based approaches and demonstrate its efficacy through an empirical example of a major wildfire event in northern Saskatchewan, Canada. An intersectional framework identified how impacts and losses to locally significant values differed across intersections of location, race, ethnicity, gender and age and how these differences were influenced by broader social structures and power relationships, such as histories of colonization and gendered norms and expectations. Practical implications for the development of inclusive and equitable adaptation policy and planning were also identified, including the need to: (a) expand the range of impacts considered and recognize how outcomes differ across social groups; (b) enhance diverse community members’ participation in planning efforts, and (c) acknowledge and build upon what local residents are already doing in response to hazards in their communities.

Key policy insights

• Failure to consider how impacts and invisible losses are experienced across intersections of identity can lead to adaptation policy and practice that reinforce existing social inequalities.

• An intersectional analysis revealed a suite of context-specific, locally-relevant values and systems of power that shaped how communities experience, respond to, and plan for climate hazards.

• The application of an intersectional framework can provide practical direction for adaptation policy that: (1) responds to differing experiences and values across social groups; (2) recognizes agency and builds on what people are already doing; and, (3) addresses root causes of vulnerability.

KEYWORDS:

• intersectionality
• climate hazards
• wildfire
• adaptation
• inclusion
• equity

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 A period from approximately 1960 to the mid-1980s when thousands of Indigenous children in Canada were taken away, or ‘scooped’, from their communities and adopted or placed in foster care with non-Indigenous families (Sinclair, 2007).

2 A tribal council representing 12 First Nations in central and northern Saskatchewan.

3 Income was not included because many interviewees declined to provide this information.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada: [grant number 435-2016-0952].