Lisa Segnestam

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Culture and capacity

THIS DISSERTATION INTERPRETS gender-differentiated vulnerabilityto drought within a rural community located in the dry zone,la zona seca, of Nicaragua, a region that has been identified bythe government and NGO sector as suffering from prolongedand, since the 1970s, more frequent droughts. A combination ofgender, capitals, and vulnerability demonstrates the value in usinga multidimensional perspective to look at the socioeconomic andcultural contexts that form the capacity individuals have had toreduce their long-term vulnerability to drought in Nicaragua. Dueto the place-based characteristics of gender as well as vulnerabilitythe analysis is mainly based on people’s stories about the historyof their lives. Based on these stories a local level picture is createdof the households’ situation over time, how their work strategiesand management of resources have varied, and how they perceivedchanges in capacity and vulnerability in relation to continuityand change in the climate. The issue of adaptive capacity, whichcurrently is less covered in research on gender and vulnerabilityand recognized in the literature as in need of more attention, andhow it distinguishes itself from coping capacity in relation tovulnerability, is placed at the center of analysis. In an additionalanalysis of how Nicaragua’s hazard management policies look uponthe role and importance of interaction among societal levels andactors in reducing hazard vulnerability I show how the discoursehas moved from emergency response to risk management with anincreased emphasis on capacity building. However, the recognitionto differentiated vulnerability is lacking which risks hampering asuccessful vulnerability reduction.Lisa Segnestam is a Research Fellow at the StockholmEnvironment Institute. She has pursued her postgraduate studiesat the Department of Economic History at Stockholm University,Sweden. Culture and Capital is her doctoral dissertation.

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