Team Member

• Teresa Retno Arsanti,
• Maora Rianti M.,
• Adryan Sasongko,
• Esy Gracia,
• Rickdy Vanduwin

Background

The voices of people who claim non-normative gender and sexual (NNGS) identities have long been silenced, unheard or, at best, insufficiently heard when it comes to designing policies and actions geared towards adapting to climate change. NNGS groups gather people who do not identify within the heteronormative and/or Western woman-man binary. These groups include LGBTIQ+ minorities as well as non-Western gender identities such as Vaka sa lewa lewa in Fiji, Fa’afafine in Samoa, Waria in Indonesia and Bakla in the Philippines.

Recent research, especially by the proponents of this proposal, has indicated that the members of diverse NNGS groups face unique challenges in dealing with climate change as well as other hazards. These largely mirror identities and roles within society that do not fit within the normative structure of policies and organisations (including government agencies and non-government organisations) supporting climate change adaptation (CCA). These challenges materialise in lack of access to resources, including information, and means of adaptation that are otherwise available to other groups in society. They also show in discrimination and violations of human rights in both everyday life and in dealing with the effect of climate change.

Aims and Objectives

The voices of people who claim non-normative gender and sexual (NNGS) identities have long been silenced, unheard, or, at best, insufficiently heard when it comes to designing policies and actions geared towards adapting to climate change. NNGS groups gather people who do not identify within the heteronormative and/or Western woman-man binary. These groups include LGBTIQ+ minorities as well as non-Western gender identities such as Vaka sa lewa lewa in Fiji, Fa’afafine in Samoa, Waria in Indonesia, and Bakla in the Philippines. Recent research has indicated that the members of diverse NNGS groups face unique challenges in dealing with climate change as well as other hazards. Therefore, this research underlines the objective to open up and facilitate a transcultural dialogue on CCA between people who claim NNGS identities and between NNGS groups and other stakeholders of CCA by conducting a series of three workshops.

The context of the workshop will emphasise and promote gender equality as well as the importance of recognising and promoting the rights of NNGS groups in CCA. The workshop participants will reflect similar diversity and will be approached by local CSOs in in Fiji, Samoa, Tonga, Indonesia and the Philippines. RDI is one of the local CSO appointed to approach and engage NNGS communities in Indonesia. The workshops will be designed around activities that facilitate the contribution of all participants in a convivial, fun and sensitive atmosphere and will be culturally appropriate and make use of flexible tools usually associated with participatory toolkits, e.g. storytelling, one-word, Johari window, carousel, matrixes, scoring and ranking, energisers and games.

Geographical Scopes

The project focuses on island Southeast Asia and the Pacific where initial research on NNGS groups regarding climate and other hazards, including poverty, has been conducted by the proponents of this proposal. We particularly focus on male and female assigned at birth non-Western gender identities (such as Bakla, Waria, Fakaleiti, Fa’afafine and Fa’afatama), women with diverse sexuality who are often less visible in LGBTIQ+ activities, and other people with diverse sexualities and sex characteristics.