Advanced Diploma in Gender and Climate Change

CLASS 1: Climate Policy 

Teacher: Gabriela Merlinsky

Thinking about the climate crisis and collapse from a political ecology perspective. Climate change and climate policy. Latin American and Caribbean perspectives. National and local climate change policies: Adaptation and mitigation. Some critical reflections on the concept of adaptation. Capitalocene, Anthropocene, Chthulucene: their contribution to the debate on climate justice from a gender perspective. 

CLASS 2: Climate change and social inequality. The intersectionality between gender and other forms of difference and inequality

Teacher: Freedom Chávez Rodríguez

This paper explores the links between climate change, social and gender inequalities, and intersectionality: the impacts of the ecological and climate crisis as measured by differences in gender, class, race, and location. It presents research findings and case studies related to access to resources, health, migration, climate change-related disasters, social conflict, and participation in global climate change negotiations. It also discusses the differentiated contributions of gender and social inequalities to greenhouse gas emissions. The importance of considering gender and the intersectionality of gender with other categories of social differentiation and inequality in global climate change research and policy is emphasized.

CLASS 3: Climate Summits and Counter-Summits 

Teacher: Melissa Moreano

We will briefly review the history of the UNFCCC and the turning points that explain the impossibility of establishing genuine agreements within the framework of global geopolitics. We will analyze the shift in international climate change policy. The class will also examine the strategies, demands, and solutions put forward by climate justice organizations. We will present climate action strategies and proposals that confront fossil fuel capitalism, as well as their feedback loops with proposals for food and territorial sovereignty, in defense of local practices, cultures, and economies, and for decent working and living conditions. 

CLASS 4: Mainstreaming the gender approach in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)

Teacher: Gabriela Merlinsky

Gender mainstreaming in the UNFCCC. Timeline on gender equality and rights. Incorporation of gender criteria and indicators in international negotiations. Gender and Climate Change Action Plans (GCCAPs). Implementation of GCCAPs at the regional level and in different Latin American countries.

Class 5: Round Table: The power of environmental feminism today

Teacher: Gabriela Merlinsky

CLASS 6: Keys from the perspective of interdependence to continue addressing the problem in the face of civilizational ecological collapse

Teacher: Lorena Navarro Mine

In this session we will present some partial syntheses cultivated from the Research Space “Community Networks and Forms of the Political”: 1) the perspective of Interdependence as a political challenge and ecological condition; 2) how the Scandalous Thing reorganizes the fabric of life to dispossess and exploit the labor and energy of human and more-than-human natures; 3) the approach to social antagonism and the dispute that the struggles for the commons in Latin America undertake to defend life and manage interdependent relationships in contradiction with the terms of co-production of the Scandalous Thing; and 4) the dispute of narratives, diagnoses and exercises of cognitive liberation to continue with the problem.

CLASS 7: Gender, environment and social reproduction

Teacher: Diana Ojeda

In this session, we will address some of the most relevant aspects of the dialogue between Political Ecology and Feminisms, such as the notion of interdependence as a condition for the reproduction of human and non-human life. We will also analyze some of the forms and content of women's leadership in the struggle for and defense of life in contexts where extractive regimes have intensified capitalist-colonial and patriarchal violence against bodies and territories.

CLASS 8: Gender, extractivism and environmental conflicts 

Teacher: Gabriela Merlinsky

The forms of extractivism and neo-extractivism in Latin America: their impact on women's bodies. Drivers of climate change in relation to extractivism. Women in environmental conflicts. Bodies, territories, and the productivity of environmental conflicts. 

CLASS 9: Round table: Climate Justice and feminist political ecologies from the territories. 

Teachers: Gabriela Merlinsky and Melissa Moreano

CLASS 10: The notion of Care as a central social function

Teacher: Margarita Velázquez Gutiérrez

This session analyzes care as a central social function. Throughout human history, the development of activities encompassed by this concept has been central to the functioning of all human societies. Thus, care, which includes all the tasks of social reproduction carried out daily (domestic work, both paid and unpaid, and care for oneself and others), is a fundamental concept for explaining climate change and the impacts of its associated phenomena from a gender perspective. Various disciplines, such as history, sociology, and economics, have demonstrated how care has varied throughout human history according to different modes of production. Currently, the capitalist/extractive mode of production requires, for its continuity, forms of social organization that allow it to persist, maintaining patterns of capitalist accumulation (the so-called Capitalocene) structured under specific social relations of gender and power. This analytical perspective on care aims to make visible and understand that climate actions (mitigation and adaptation) must be implemented without contributing to maintaining the prevailing forms of care that directly affect the maintenance of the current gaps in social and gender inequality observed in Latin America and the Caribbean.

CLASS 11: Ecofeminist tensions surrounding care

Teacher: Margarita Velázquez Gutiérrez

The session examines debates on gender and the environment, in which essentialist and biological arguments frequently appear, assigning women the role of “natural caretakers” of their environments. It addresses the early texts of so-called “Ecofeminism,” which posit that women are closer to their environments, to nature, thus assuming a false dichotomy of culture and patriarchy versus nature and women. Around these arguments, a false vision is constructed regarding the social role of women as “caretakers,” including of their natural environment, simply by virtue of their biological nature. 

In response to the above arguments, this paper also examines constructivist perspectives from other feminist authors, who argue that the ways in which natural and social resources are accessed, used, managed, and controlled are socially determined according to the norms of the social and sexual division of labor. This latter perspective is central to understanding how this division shapes women's relationship, in different contexts and territories, with their natural environments, both for their care and their defense. 

CLASS 12: Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation Policies from the Perspective of Climate and Gender Justice

Teacher: Freedom Chávez Rodríguez

The socio-political component of adaptation practices and the lack of gender-sensitive translation of measures. A gender-sensitive deconstruction of the concepts of adaptation, vulnerability, and resilience. Strategic critical feminist perspectives in climate change research and policies with a gender perspective.

CLASS 13: Climate regeneration and multi-species studies

Teacher: Denisse Roca Servat

It is crucial to know, understand, and promote interspecies care practices that contribute to the regeneration of life on the planet and to climate justice. Multispecies studies highlight the need to integrate historical, situated, feminist, and neo-materialist approaches for a better understanding of socio-ecological processes. From this perspective, an attempt is made to break down the division between the natural and the cultural, and to pay attention to the ways in which humans and non-humans mutually constitute each other through constant relationships. The serious civilizational crisis, due to the anthropocentric exceptionalism on which it is based, has motivated the emergence of this approach, which seeks solutions to the current crisis through creative and innovative methodologies such as artistic methodologies, and the use of diverse narratives such as science fiction, essays, and poetry.

CLASS 14: Political advocacy for water justice and climate justice

Teacher: Denisse Roca Servat

Ecological injustices and alarming socioeconomic inequality demand new paradigms of knowledge, methodologies, and ways of understanding politics and the political sphere. In this context, it becomes essential to develop diverse and novel repertoires for political influence and to co-create sustainable futures. This class will discuss different forms of political mobilization, from the most everyday to the development of public policies, including engaged research methodologies such as Participatory Action Research (PAR).

CLASS 15: Climate Justice Perspectives from Latin American Feminisms. Closing Activity 

Teachers: Miriam Lang and Melissa Moreano and Coordination Team 

In this session we will present some partial syntheses cultivated from the Research Space “Community Networks and Forms of the Political”: 1) the perspective of Interdependence as a political challenge and ecological condition; 2) how the Scandalous Thing reorganizes the fabric of life to dispossess and exploit the labor and energy of human and more-than-human natures; 3) the approach to social antagonism and the dispute that the struggles for the commons in Latin America undertake to defend life and manage interdependent relationships in contradiction with the terms of co-production of the Scandalous Thing; and 4) the dispute of narratives, diagnoses and exercises of cognitive liberation to continue with the problem. 

To participate, you must register using the online form by clicking here. Registration will be open from March 6 to May 29, 2023.

Upon completion of the registration process, you will receive a confirmation in your email.

Classes will begin in May and conclude in September 2023.

All registered participants will receive the necessary instructions to access the classes, bibliography and discussion forums through the CLACSO Virtual Training Space.

Accessing and navigating the Virtual Learning Environment is very simple and user-friendly. In any case, a technical and academic support team will always be available to you.

Exceptional criteria: In exceptional cases, and within the first month of the start of the Advanced Diploma program, students may request to withdraw from the cohort and rejoin the following year. In all cases, the reasons for the request must be submitted in writing. After that period of time has elapsed since the start of the course, no requests will be accepted.

Money paid will only be refunded in cases where the organizing institutions decide to cancel the activity. 

Payment can be made in one installment by credit card, bank deposit, or bank transfer. We also offer the option of paying in 3 installments.

Yes. There will be discounts for students belonging to CLACSO Member Centers and CLACSO Associated Centers, for CLACSO Associate Researchers, and for all those who pay within the discount period.