The US Gender and Disaster Resilience Alliance (http://usgdra.org) is a US-based collaborative network committed to supporting, facilitating, and initiating research and applied projects on gender relations in disaster contexts. This network also encourages members from academic, non-profit, business, faith-based, volunteer, educational, community-based, governmental, and non-governmental organizations to share educational and applied resources, and collaborate across organizational and disciplinary boundaries with the aim of documenting and analyzing both women’s and men’s experiences before, during, and after disasters.

In line with these goals, the US Gender and Disaster Resilience Alliance is pleased to announce its third annual Gender and Disasters Graduate Student Paper Competition.

This competition was created to recognize the interdisciplinary nature of gender, hazards, and disaster research as well as showcase up-and-coming scholars and their work in the field. This is not just a competition, but an opportunity to become part of a national forum for discussion, information-sharing, and networking.

Submissions for this competition can be theoretical arguments, case studies, literature reviews, applied projects, or analyses of research results, but topics must be on gendered aspects of hazards and disasters in the United States. Eligible topics include, but are not limited to, issues of inequality, vulnerability, resilience, physical and mental health, violence, variables intersecting with gender in disasters (ex: race, class, education), warning systems, risk communication, research related to US specific disasters (ex: Hurricane Katrina), disaster preparedness, hazard mitigation, disaster response, short-term and long-term recovery, emergency management, the role of organizations (non-profit, volunteer, for-profit, governmental, etc.), the role of the United States in international response and recovery efforts, and other topics related to gender, hazards, and disasters. Submissions can cover a diverse range of topics so long as the overarching focus is on gender, hazards, and disasters in the United States.

Papers will be judged on originality, organization, and knowledge of the topic. The graduate winner will receive recognition on the US Gender and Disaster Resilience Alliance website and may elect to have their paper posted there. They will also receive an invitation to act as a guest judge on the competition for the following year. This not only provides participants with opportunities to network within the gender and disaster communities, but showcases their cutting edge work as future scholars in the field.

Eligibility and Criteria

• Author(s) must be enrolled as a graduate student(s) for at least one term in an accredited graduate program in the 2011-2012 academic year.
• Authors can be from any country as long as the submission focuses on research in the United States.
• Papers must be authored by one or more students and cannot be co-authored by faculty or colleagues who are not students.
• Papers cannot be under consideration or accepted for publication at the time of submission.
• Papers presented or submitted for presentation at professional meetings or for other competitions are allowed for submission.
• Papers must be less than 30 pages, in 12 point font, Word or plain text documents with 1" margins, double spaced, including notes, references, tables, and other figures. Submissions that do not follow this format will not be considered. Winning submissions will be edited by the author(s) and student paper competition committee judges before publication.
• Applicants should include a cover letter detailing the author’s name, academic affiliation, major, mailing and e-mail addresses as well as the title of the paper, a 100-150 word abstract or summary, a list of keywords, and the citation style used.

Judging

Papers will be blind reviewed and judged primarily on originality and content by three PhDs, appointed academics, or practitioners, as well as the past year's competition winner (or a current graduate student). Well-organized arguments that exhibit new research and demonstrate author knowledge and ability to integrate a broad scope of resources will be favored.

Academic Integrity

Student authors are expected to adhere to a general Academic Honor Code, which strives to support and respect differing ideals and opinions; cultivate integrity, moral and ethical conduct; and develop a sense of trust among its members. Students are encouraged to use in-text citations, footnotes, and/or endnotes to reference information sources.

Award

The graduate winner will receive recognition on the US Gender and Disaster Resilience Alliance website and may elect to have their paper posted there. They will also receive an invitation to act as a guest judge on the competition for the following year.

Submissions and Deadline

A call for papers will occur in February 2012. The deadline for submission will be in May 15, 2012.

For questions, please contact Emmanuel David (emmanuel.david at villanova.edu).

Submissions will be reviewed and winners notified by June 15th, 2012.

Don't forget to celebrate the 2011 winner HERE

General analyses of the COP 17/CMP outcomes have neglected to mention the prominent role that gender played at this year’s negotiations.  Although “success” with regards to gender and climate change in the UNFCCC process has thus far been measured in terms of gender sensitive language in the negotiating texts, the prominence gender gained at COP 17 as a topic in side events, civil society organizing, and formal processes is noteworthy.  This increased prominence is also opening new spaces for debate and discussion about the current efforts and challenges to promote gender justice in climate change adaptation and mitigation issues.

Each COP/CMP meeting has had a particular issue or set of issues that feature prominently in the language of the meeting.  The “hot topic” issues of Durban were: technology transfer, financing, and gender.  Starting with a pre-conference, hosted by Women for Climate Justice, 26 side events were dedicated to gender-related topics.  One of the most notable events included the Women and Gender Constituency receiving full status as an official NGO constituency within the UNFCCC process. The Constituency can be influential in the negotiation process by drafting and presenting statements for working groups and subsidiary bodies that provide advice to the COP with regards to such matters as finance and the overall implementation of the Convention.  And, despite the increased focus on women roles in agriculture, the Global Alliance of Waste Pickers brought attention to how CDM supported waste-to-energy projects have the potential to undermine their livelihoods. During an event at the US Center, titled “Unlocking the Potential of Women to Combat Climate Change: Moving from Words to Action,” women representing a waste picker organization from India noted that 80 percent of waste pickers in India are women.  Consequently, they asked the panel if there is any space for waste pickers in the Green Climate Fund?  Although the answer remains unclear, the importance of addressing the range of gendered livelihoods affected both by climate change and climate policy has never been more apparent.

 As was reiterated time and again, incorporating women into adaptation and mitigation projects is insufficient.  Only through a concerted effort to sensitize everyone to the gendered nature of climate impacts and responses will gender justice be realized.

USGDRA: We hope in future to engage GDRA more in US-based work around climate change as the issues are so closely joined with disaster resilience.

Hello USGDRA Members,

As you may have noticed, we are in the process of updating our website and making it more user friendly with additional resources and participation opportunities. Please be patient and check back often to see our most recent updates. One exciting new feature will be our emphasis on what our members are doing on the ground. PLEASE keep us updated with your most recent projects! Feel free to email any materials you would like us to highlight to Jennifer at: tobingurley@gmail.com or usgdra@gmail.com.

Jennifer Tobin-Gurley is our newest member and website manager. She is currently a graduate student at Colorado State University and is excited to be involved with USGDRA. She will be hosting the Gender and Disaster Roundtable at the 2012 Natural Hazards Workshop. For those of you planning on attending this event, please take some time to introduce yourselves via email to start a dialogue about what you would like to accomplish at this meeting. If you are a member, but not attending the workshop, also feel free to email Jennifer with any ideas, comments, questions, suggestions, etc. that you may have about the future of USGDRA. Email address: tobingurley@gmail.com.

Thank you all for a wonderful year!

One world, one movement: Remarks by Jacqueline Patterson in a tribute to Wangari Maathai

GDRA member Jacqui Patterson kindly shares remarks made at a tribute to Wangari Maathai

Good Evening. On behalf of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, we thank the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance and most especially Mithika Mwenda and Augustine Njamnishi for the honor of inviting us to participate in this tribute. The NAACP was founded in 1909 out of the struggle for equal rights of black people in the US, who were transported in the hulls of ships from here, the continent of Africa, to North America. We therefore share and embrace a common ancestry. 

It is my great honor to stand arm in arm with my sisters and brothers here to pay homage to a Sister Wangari Maathai whose legacy embodies the struggle for earth rights and for human rights for all.

When I hear the stories and see the pictures of the anti-apartheid movement I see parallels with our ongoing struggles for dignity and equal rights as African Americans. When I see the ongoing housing segregation here and the continued struggle for economic rights, I see a parallel struggle to what we are experiencing in the US. When I hear of coastal erosion and displaced communities in Cameroon and Benin, I think of Inuit communities and African American communities in Alaska and Louisiana respectively. When I hear of the deadly storm that took lives and destroyed homes, primarily of black people in Durban last week or the flooding last year in Madagascar, I think of the lost lives and homes of black people in Mississippi, Texas, and Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina. When I think of oil soaked coasts in Nigeria, I think of oil soaked fields in the bayous of Alabama, Louisiana, and Florida after the BP Oil Drilling Disaster. When I think of the extractive practices of mining for profit at the expense of people from the Congo to Swaziland, I think of our indigenous brothers and sisters in New Mexico and Nevada whose lands are desecrated and whose environment is being contaminated with no regard for their wellbeing.

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Call for Papers:

Session Title: Disaster Vulnerability: New Research on Intersectionality
Session Type: Formal Paper
Session Organizer: Adelle Monteblanco (adelle.monteblanco@colorado.edu)
Conference Theme: Intersectionalities and Inequalities: Knowledge and Power for the 21st Century.
PSA Annual Meeting Date and Location: San Diego, March 22-25, 2012
Deadline for submission: October 15
More information can be found at http://www.pacificsoc.org/2006/08/2012-annual-meeting.html