Representations of vulnerability: A constructed barrier

Drawing on the work of scholars such as Margaret Jolly and Nicole George, I will focus on how ideas of vulnerability are mobilized in constructing and understanding gender and climate change in the South Pacific. These ideas, I argue, are not natural, but rather are naturalized through existing power relations, however, the physical manifestations of 'vulnerability' associated with climate change is alarming. The mutual vulnerability that woman and environment have in the Pacific allows for them to be examined alongside each other, not through innate nature, but through similar forces of oppression. I argue that framing woman and Pacific Islanders as 'vulnerable' to men and climate change respectively, is dangerous. It erases the agencies and knowledges of those who are 'vulnerable', while privileging an unattainable individualized 'resiliency' as a solution. My research is important because it emphasizes that 'vulnerability' is ascribed through perceived ownership of living beings, spatial positioning, and politics, in attempts to alleviate accountability of those in power. The topic of this presentation emerged from my work on Oceania with Dr. Mitchell and was further explored in a Directed Studies course on gender and climate change.