DEPLETED BY DEBT? FOCUSING A GENDERED LENS ON CLIMATE RESILIENCE, CREDIT, AND NUTRITION IN TRANSLOCAL CAMBODIA AND SOUTH INDIA

Small-scale credit is exalted in mainstream development thinking as a key means of supporting women and their families in dealing with daily, ongoing, and often slow-onset climate disasters. Facing growing crises of agricultural productivity from droughts and floods, and taking primary responsibility for the nutritional wellbeing of their households, women are targeted as credit borrowers globally. Credit provisioning therefore speaks to the push for 'resilience' against climate disasters that is central to Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 13, 'Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts', and which has serious implications for SDG 5 'Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls' that prioritises the valuing and recognition of women's unpaid care and domestic work. How do we ensure, then, that 'climate resilience' does not come at the cost of women's emotional and bodily depletion through processes of household nutrition provisioning? This is the key concern motivating this two-year project which asks: (1) In what ways is credit, as a form of climate resilience, shaping nutritional provisioning? (2) How are the dynamics of nutrition provisioning and credit-taking in a changing climate being experienced and visualised? (3) What are the gender and social reproductive dynamics of the climate-credit-nutrition nexus? (4) What lessons can be learned to deliver improved and more equitable credit provisioning and nutritional outcomes to households and communities affected by slow-onset climate disasters? The project's methodology is anchored in environmental science, visual arts, and social science methods which are combined into a well-integrated research design to effectively probe these complex questions. Set within the political economy contexts of Cambodia and Tamil Nadu, India, fieldwork encompasses the collection of environmental profiles, socio-economic and nutritional indicators, measurements of energy expenditure, and oral and visual analysis; all through a lens that foregrounds gender dynamics. In each country, research will be carried out in 3 rural villages and 2 industrial worksites given that rural households are often maintained by labour migrants engaged in non-rural work. The 20-strong interdisciplinary team of investigators, consultants, and a seconded UN Women staff member, from Cambodia, India, the UK, and continental Europe, will work together with non-governmental and private sector project partners, and an advisory board of (non)academic experts, to deliver this ground-breaking research. The project will also foster the research excellence and development of 7 early career researchers, the majority of whom are women, and/or black, Asian or minority ethnic (BAME). Mentorship includes two early-career residential writing retreats, one in Cambodia and one in India, to support the development of publication writing skills and confidence. The research will be published across 10 journal articles, an accessibly-written project report, and 6 policy briefs (in English, Khmer, and Tamil) which will bring together (non)-academics from 6 stakeholder workshops to amplify the integrated research findings and enhance policy impact. A unique and compelling exhibition of participant and artist photography will also be shown in Phnom Penh, Chennai, and London, to promote the research to a wider audience still. The exhibition will act as a space for the project report launch, galvanise media interest, and will be timed during the stakeholder workshops to maximise impact on political, developmental, and private sector decision-makers. Ultimately, given the status accorded to small-scale credit as a significant lever in the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, our research is crucial to informing its thinking on, and operationalisation of, gender-equitable climate resilience.