Exploring the Premises and Politics of Carol Bacchi’s WPR Approach
Karlstad University, Sweden
Exploring silences in policy and problematisations at the intersection of gender, land use and climate change
Maria Brockhaus, Maria Borràs Escayola, Federica Ravera, Alizée Ville, Helga Eggebø, Aasa Kristin Lundberg, Marta Guadalupe Rivera, Mawa Karambiri, Amanda Jimenez Aceituno, Andrea Downing, Grace Y. Wong
Abstract
Over the past decades, numerous policies have been produced in domestic and international domains at the intersection of gender, land use and climate change. Recurring themes in the problematisations and proposed policy solutions are: calls for new economic incentives to stimulate ‘climate-friendly’ green growth, land/
livestock production, employment in ‘marginal’ areas, and links between development and gender equality being reduced to “educating” women for jobs in the new “green market”. Yet, what is not problematized, where are the silences in this intersection? How to think the unthought – a central question in Bacchi’s WPR approach to critical policy analysis, represents a methodological challenge. Building on four case studies from Burkina Faso, Norway, Spain and Sweden, we focus on ‘how’ each case study approaches silences. We present and organise the largely actor-centric methods employed, and discuss their strengths and limitations when identifying what is left unproblematised across time, cultures and societal ambitions. As Bacchi and Goodwin argue (2016), a comparison of cases is a powerful tool to identify combinations of practices and relations that produce problematisations and silences in specific contexts. It is also powerful in identifying and discussing different tools and novel ways in which silences can be fleshed out.