The Gender Responsive Resilience and Intersectionality in Policy and Practice (GRRIPP) project will connect experts, academics, policymakers and practitioners from the UK, Africa, South America and South Asia.
It will look at the theory, policy and practice of dealing with global disasters and conflicts with a gender-responsive approach.
For example, the provision of emergency shelters during a disaster for men and women often excludes those who do not identify as men or women – or whose gender identity is different from their sex.
The new global network will include Dr Ksenia Chmutina, of º¬Ðß²ÝÊÓƵ, who will lead the work on the Resilience theme.
Its aim will be to review global development challenges through an intersectional and gender lens in research, policymaking and development.
“In practice, this means finding ways to treat the most marginalised as individuals without reducing them to a category,” said Dr Chmutina.
“This means that we don’t just look at a person through a category of gender, but we consider an intersection of all categories that they might belong to as well as their life experiences.
“For example, the experiences of a black disabled woman might be very different from the experiences of a black woman or a white disabled woman.”
Designs used as part of the initiative, commissioned by the GRRIPP team, based on ideas that underpin the project, such as geographical diversity
The four-year project is part of a larger £147m programme funded by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI).
The UKRI GCRF Collective Programme has been designed to impact global health, education, sustainable cities, food systems, conflict and resilience.
GRRIPP has received around £4.8m from the initiative and will be led by UCL.
It will focus on five main themes:
- Intersectionality and Gender
- Resilience
- Infrastructures
- Critical theory
- Decoloniality
Dr Chmutina said: “I am absolutely delighted to be a part of GRRIPP Project and lead of the Resilience theme.
“GRIPP provides a unique opportunity to engage with academics, practitioners as well as community members in Latin America and Caribbean, Southern Africa, South Asia and the UK - and together we hope to transform thinking around gender in disaster and conflict contexts and challenge the normative notions of resilience and infrastructure through the lens of intersectionality.
“On this project we have already started a series of the most intellectually stimulating conversations that help us to collectively and democratically determine an agenda for change through facilitating knowledge exchange, enhancing solidarity, creating spaces for constructive dissent, and building an evidence base informed by grassroots knowledge and experience.”
ENDS